Holy Cows & Hog Heaven: The Food Buyer's Guide to Farm Friendly Food

by Joel Salatin, Michael Pollan (Foreword by)

Holy Cows and Hog Heaven is written by an honest-to-goodness-dirt-under-the-fingernails, optimistic clean good farmer. His goal is to:





Empower food buyers to pursue positive alternatives to the industrialized food system

Bring clean food farmers and their patrons into a teamwork relationship

Marry the best of western technology with the soul of eastern ethics

Educate food buyers about productions

Create a food system that enhances nature's ecology for future generations

Holy Cows and Hog Heaven has an overriding objective of encouraging every food buyer to embrace the notion that menus are a conscious decision, creating the next generation's world one bite at a time.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Health, Sustainability, Agriculture, Politics, Green

160 pages, Paperback

First published February 19, 2005

About the author

Joel F. Salatin is an American farmer, lecturer, and author.
Salatin raises livestock on his Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley. Meat from the farm is sold by direct marketing to consumers and restaurants.

Reviews

[Cassandra Ogren]

This guy is a wacko but right on about the food and farming part (just don't mind that he's a Christian Libertarian anti-abortionist who doesn't believe in global warming...)

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Serendipitous.... I had this on hold at the library. Can't remember why. I just read Michal Pollan's In Defense of Food, which I loved, and he wrote the introduction to this book. And I just watched an episode of Chef's Afield that visited Polyface farm, which is the farm run by this author! I know I'll enjoy it.
******************

OK, so the writing wasn't exactly polished. The cover art is hokey. But this is such a timely treatise, from an actual farmer, with solid logic. I will let Joel speak for himself:

"Farm friendly food is good for our landscapes, our bodies, homeland security, and every other thing that is good and noble. Thousands of farmers view their production as a sacred trust between their land and the dinner plate. Those who take such a view should be patronized. You and I should buy their food." p. xix

"No one should have needed the reality of mad cow and the millions of taxpayer supported studies in sophisticated laboratories conducted by legions of academic geeks to make us understand that feeding chicken guts and cow brains to herbivores may not be a good idea." p. 4

(sarcastically) "My impression of the industrial food system today is that the most perfect dairy for the country would be one huge cow centrally located in the grain belt, maybe in Nebraska, with a web of megapipes carrying milk from a county-sized udder to every city. The mouth would be the size of a WalMart Supercenter, ingesting food a train car load at a time." p. 9

"Nuisance suits against farmers have become so common that legislatures around the country have passed "Right to Farm" laws. I call these "Right to Stink of the Neighborhood Laws." The bottom line is this: A farm friendly food system is both aromatically and aesthetically pleasing. Anything else is not a good food system, period." p. 16-17

"When people come and sit down in a true diversified, farm friendly vegetable garden, their spirits are soothed, their countenance radiates, and their emotions rest. The same is true in a field of grazing cows, a paddock of pastured chickens, or a savannah of pigaerating hogs." p. 19

"The most fertile virgin soils in the world exist under prairie grasses and forests. Several observations come to mind: They do not undergo tillage; a perennial plant covers the earth like a blanket. Mature leaves and plant material falls on top of the soil. Therefore the carbon falling to the earth is lignified rather than succulent vegetable material. It is ... incorporated by earthworms and other soil critters. Essentially nothing is brought in from outside the bioregion and nothing is exported. It is self maintaining....

"Much of the food grown in America does not come from fertile soil. It is nutritionally depleted. And just because soils grow volumes of stuff does not mean they are fertile." p. 28-29

"If it won't rot, it's not real food." p. 34

"Farm friendly food asks the question: 'Is the pig happy?'.... Happy pigs and happy cabbages provide the most nutritious food and require the least amount of pharmaceutical intervention." p. 45-6

"A community that can feed itself is free [as in liberty]." p. 57

"I realized that terrorists are not just 'them,' they are 'us.' Western terrorists are more sophisticated. Our domestic terrorists do not blow up schoolhouses, they splice genes. They destroy healthy cows in the name of science. They give chemical companies free roads and dump sites. They feed brains and spinal cord to cows. They lock up pigs and chickens in concentration camps - and feed the adulterated carcasses to our nation's school children." p. 88

"Is America better because we deny food like raw milk, raw apple cider, and unwashed eggs from entering the lips of our citizenry?" p. 89

"The working woman has subcontracted her kitchen to Archer Daniels Midland." p. 95

On regulation: "You can go deer hunting on a 70 degree day, dice it up [on the back stoop] and feed it to your buddies and their children anyway you choose, but you can't dress a beef steer and sell one T-bone to your uncle. You can eat sushi in a landlocked state, but you can't buy raw milk from a neighbor's cow even when you stand and watch it being milked. Scallions can be washed in non-potable water and sold in fast food restaurants, but a neighbor can't sell you canned tomatoes at the farmer's market.
"The bottom line for me is this: If you want to come to my farm, ask around, look around, smell around, and make a voluntary informed choice to patronize my product, it's none of the government's business. How did we get to the point where such sensible freedom would be denied in the land of the free and the home of the brave?" p. 104

"You, as a food buyer, have the distinct privilege of proactively participating in shaping the world your children will inherit." p. 125

[applause]

[Jeanette Dark · Rating 1 out of 5]

God no.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very interesting viewpoint. I really admire what Joel Salatin is doing on Polyface, but if he had a good editor, this book could hit the mainstream and make a real difference in the way our society buys its farmed produce. Joel is somewhat of his own worst enemy. In his very admirable aim to avoid becoming a corporate slave, he sacrificed his own book's potential to reach more people and better the world with his farming practices even further. His writing, which is a near-ceaseless rant (understandable, but tiresome to read) makes him sound like a crackpot. No doubt Joel is a smart, creative, hardworking, and sensible man but he underestimated the potential and input of a good reputable publishing editor. The book could have used one without sacrificing Joel's ideas or principles. I can fully understand and admire the core values of why he does not market and ship the food he grows to a wider group of consumers, but he should not have applied that same principle to writing. Lucky for me this was available at my local library. Maybe someday he can take all of his books to a reputable publishing house. edit, revamp and recycle the ideas for wider distribution. More people should be exposed to his valuable ideas, MINUS THE RANTS.

[David Rubenstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first heard about Polyface Farm from Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. I was very impressed by Pollan's description of the farm. This book by Joel Salatin, the owner of Polyface Farm, does not describe his farm in detail. Instead, he gives advice to non-farmers, about how to go about buying food. The key is to find LOCAL farmers, and give them your business. You can trust local farmers, because they are accountable to their local customers, rather than to some industrial complex. It's all about trust, and not government inspections, organic labels, and regulations.

There is a great deal of sarcasm in this book, lots of humor, a good deal of ranting and raving and preaching, and maybe even some prejudices. If you can get past all that, you can learn a lot about the problems that small-scale, local farmers face. And you can learn how to really help the environment, and your health, by avoiding factory-produced foods (including livestock that has been fed with grain and manure).

[Evan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was a supporter of Joel Salatin’s ideas until he exposed himself as a racist by saying “Neither does a farm friendly producer bury his community in foreigners who overload the school system, overload the social services, and overload the courts.” I support his ideas in farming but I cannot support a racist.

[Angela · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too preachy, judgemental and full of rants. I love what Joel Salatin is doing and think he has set the bar for local farms very high. However, he should stick to farming and leave the writing to Michael Pollan.

[Liz De Coster · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't completely disagree with Salatin's opinions on industrial food, but this book ended up being more polemical than informative, which is what I had been looking for.

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot emphasize this enough: everybody needs to read this book.

[Alisa Kester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joel Salatin is a genuine superhero.

[Urszula · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read for those who eat.

[Matt matteson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stand Up for the Food You Eat

While a humorous writer, the information provided leads the reader to make a decision about where they stand regarding the for they eat.

[Christi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read Michael Pollen and skip this. He is doing good things with his farming practices but everything else he has to say is not worth reading.

[☽✧Rowan✧☾ · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated it.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that makes me realize the world is not as it seems, that there is much that I assume and take for granted. Joel Salatin is a well known farmer and writer. He's a self-proclaimed "Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist." Salatin is known for his Polyface Farm in Virginia, where he raises cows, sheep, chickens, and rabbits using "beyond organic" methods.

In this book he challenges his readers to abandon the Wall Street/government cheap food bandwagon in favor of local beyond organic farmed food. He contrasts the differences between corporate farmers and local beyond-organic farmers to demonstrate what may be gained in the switch. But beyond that, he argues that the government and corporate food interests are in league to shut out the small farmers that produce better, safer food, in an attempt to line the pockets of big business and the requisite bureaucrats.

I'll be ruminating on this one for a while, maybe I'll even make the switch!

[Johnny Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing style here is a bit choppy. It seems more stream of consciousness then an edited document. Each chapter ends with a few bullets on things you can do. I was hoping for more direction. I would say this book would have been better if I was just starting on my food awareness journey. He also gets a bit preachy and seems like he is trying at points to offend everyone equally. Which is not to say he doesn't have some brilliant points. Like why do we trust an elected official who everyone inherently feels is untrustworthy to make good food decisions for us, but we don't trust the local farmer who grows that food?

[Rex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joel Salatin and his amazing farm in Swoope, VA, were featured in Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. This is Salatin's attempt to educate us food buyers about the dangers of the industrialized food chain and the wonders of natural, "beyond organic" grass-fed beef. Though his writing is not excellent, his entertaining rants against government interference and politicians of all stripes gave me the sense I was reading something from an earlier era. This will probably be hard to find, so if any workmates are interested I'll lend you my book.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel powerless to make any difference against the corrupted corporate and government agencies currently making it harder and harder to feed my family the food I want to. This book talked about ways of supporting local food and small farms, and explained how doing so is our best way of fighting the national food problems in America. I felt empowered after reading this book that my choosing to buy milk from the farm (etc.) is still making a difference even if EVERYTHING I eat isn't local, or even if I can't sent contributions to organizations to fight for my rights in Washington.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have met Joel Salatin and seen his farm. He practices what he preaches and the Polyface team is a group of real, down to earth folks. This book demands action. I can no longer shop for food without thinking of the precepts laid out in this excellent work. I plan to read through it again with pen and paper in hand and then move on to another of Joel's books. As he says in the book, we can opt out of a lot of things, and so not have to think about them (such as television) but we cannot opt out of the food system, and the American food system is severely messed up.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to disagree with those who criticize it as unorganized or in need of editing. It has well titled chapters and is rather short anyway. The only editing I'd like to have seen was to take the double spacing between paragraphs out. He offers concrete suggestions of what to do to eat more locally and support your local farms. As he says, this one action creates a larger impact than almost anything else we can do.

[Marjorie Elwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some fascinating facts about how food is grown/raised, and why you want to eat locally, including some helpful checklists. However, the author lost me when he explained that we should be opposed to genetic engineering because the Bible tells us so. Really? There are enough rational reasons to oppose genetic engineering that I couldn't believe his reason #1 was based on a collection of myths and parables.

[Natalie Truesdell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the logical next step after you finish the Omnivore's Dillema. It is written by Salatin, the farmer with a halo on his head. He writes like an activist, and gives you concrete recommendations on how to responsibly buy your food. Sometimes you just have to pass over his political rants, but still worth reading. Written with such passion, you must forgive any faults you find in his writing.

[Ethicurean Reads]

Written by the libertarian Christian farmer behind Polyface Farm, the paragon of sustainability featured in Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” this book hopes to empower food buyers to pursue positive alternatives to the industrialized food system, to educate food buyers about production methods, and to create a food system that enhances nature’s ecology for future generations.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Where do bobby pins go? You start out with a package of 1000, and soon they are all gone and you are scanning the sidewalk for any rusty old bobby pin to get your damn hair out of your eyes or to use as a bookmark. When I got this book from the library, it had two bobby pins in it. So, to the last person to check out this book from the Monroe County Public Library: thanks, I needed those!

[Leila Bowers · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can get the point of this book in the first two chapters, but overall a good read. I enjoy Stalin's light, funny, and yet sometimes piercing and satirical style. I definitely learned more about local eating, especially knowing the producers of my food and being committed to local and sustainable over organic, etc.

[Tracey Portillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salatin really draws you in with his personal stories and educated perspective on farming. He is extremely passionate about the need for each of us to become local food consumers and makes an educated case for why would should all care as much as he does.

[taylor cocalis · Rating 5 out of 5]

joel tells it like it is.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit of a rant but not terrible. Not very well organized but good ideas. Only a few new ideas for me ( but I have read other books that quote him).

[Jennifer]

-skim for tips on how to buy wholesome food

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of ranting, but I love a good rant.