Raising Beef

When we came to the farm twelve years ago, we came wanting to raise our own beef.  We wanted to know more about our beef than it was from the grocery store.  So, we have been uniquely blessed and fortunate in these years to know that most every morsel of beef we have eaten first walked and grazed in the pasture here on the farm.  Some folks wonder how you can eat what you raise.  It has never been an issue.  What it has caused, though, is a reluctance to throw away any left over meat that might end up on the plate.  It has always seemed disrepectful of the cow I know to put any beef in the trashcan.    

Knowing the cow has also made me more conscious of wasting food.  I can remember times when my sister and me would find ourselves sitting at the table with food on our plate we did not want to eat only to hear my mother say something like, "There are hungry children in the world who would love to have that food."  Of course, my sister and I would have been glad to give it to them.  When the appeal from my mother's better side did not work, she would say, "You are going to sit there until you clean out your plate" which set in motion a time of bargaining which ended up with us eating what we did not want to eat.  

Nowadays, it almost seems like a sin not to eat the food before me and an even greater sin to rake some it in the trash.    Being on the farm these years has made me more aware that all our food comes at a price.  It cost the sweat of some worker, or in some cases, the life of the animal.  It has become unthinkable and disrespectful to eat it with such speed it is not recognizable to my palate and an even greater transgression not to eat what is before me.  If we say a table blessing  to God and then end up throwing away food, it must make Him wonder about the genuiness of the gratitude expressed at the beginning of the meal.