For some weeks now, I have been listening to Michael Pollen’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma while driving.  While already predisposed to buying organic, local foods, I took this journey with Michael Pollen to the factory farms and Grade B genetically modified hybrid corn.  Through this journey, I took a harder and more zealous look at my own eating habits.  I looked more closely at where ALL my food came from – not just the food I buy and cook at home, but every meal I eat out, every quick grab-and-go apple or banana, the so-called “healthy” cereals that are chock-full of marketing for $6.00 per box – everything.

My produce comes from Guy Jones’ Blooming Hill Farm in Monroe, NY.  For nearly 10 years now, I have sat in front of a fire, looking out at the stream on a Saturday or Sunday morning, where I replenished my body and soul with natural, wholesome, “organic” foods.  In fact, it is the very place I took my mother to for breakfast this very morning.  I enjoyed my vegetable Panini while she indulged in the spelt waffles with blueberries that they preserved from last month’s harvest and syrup from New York maple trees.











Prior to reading this book, I felt “absolved” when purchasing organic milk and dairy products – as though I had avoided contributing to the great sins of animal cruelty and the over-chemicalization of our foods.  However, like Michael Pollen, as I peeled the lid off of “Organics,” my conscience could no longer feel clear.   

How do you pasture-raise cattle in regions where grass only grows four months of the year and call it “pasture-raised”?  You can’t not-feed the cows.  What do they eat?  Where does it come from?

What happens to an “organic” cow if it gets sick?  Do you leave it un-treated and hope for the best?  I guess that is not so different than the view Christian Scientists take of medicine and people.  

Where do you draw the line between “organic” marketing and animal welfare.  The answer to this and many of my questions were elusive… it is a moral and ethical grey area that requires that we – the consumer – look much more closely at our food chain and develop a deeper relationship with the origins of our food.  

“Well, that is easy for you to say,” you must be thinking?  What about the millions of people that live in cities, where the only information about their foods come from the label on the outside of the packages – or the folks that live in land-locked suburban areas with only homogenized shopping experiences (WalMart, Home Depot and a Grocery Chain).  Very few people live near farming communities that offer them such choices.

Today, my mother and I went traveling through the Orange County countryside in search of local, sustainable food sources.  After our breakfast at Blooming Hill Farm, I started for Warwick, where I heard rumor of an organic, humane, sustainable, pasture-raised chicken and duck farm that sold eggs  (and chickens in the spring).  

I drove up and down Kings Highway in Warwick looking for East Ridge Road – only to give up and stop off at the Applewood Winery instead.  Applewood is a wonderful, local winery that produces a suite of wines from apples grown on their orchard and grapes grown in the Finger Lakes.  They have some of the best hard cider this side of the Atlantic.  We drove up this Pastoral road lined with horse farms and maple trees blazing with fall colors, country homes with pumpkins lining their porches and children jumping in leaf piles.  When we arrived – it was insane.  There were hundreds of cars, a live band and more people than thought could fit into a country orchard.  I purchased my cider, asked for directions to Morningside Farm and left.  



We found the egg farm soon after —- a house with acreage behind it, chickens running around and bees flying in and out of elaborate bee-keeping contraptions.  Alas – no one was home.  

Off we went again into town – to Jean Claude’s.  Now Jean Claude is a Frenchman that married an American woman and opened a Pâtisserie in the quaint, historic village of Warwick.  His pastries are sinfully good!   I bought my mother a mini bacon and swiss quiche, multigrain cranberry stick loaves and a cup of chai for myself and we were – once again – off.  This time to the town of Tuxedo – where there is a Saturday farmers market that has a merchant from Dines Farms.  Now, Dine’s Farms is located up near Albany.  He raises cattle, chickens, rabbits, and pigs.  They rotationally pasture their animals (at least that is what the brochure says) and they do not use any chemicals, growth hormones or antibiotics.  The quality and taste of their chickens are wonderful – and I buy them from time-to-time.

However, we never got there… along the way, I noticed that the Bellvale Dairy Ice Cream shop was open, so mom and I stopped in.  I have always wanted to stop there.  They have a shop on top of a hill on Rt. 17A with a view that overlooks the entire Warwick Valley.  They share a parking lot with the Mt. Peter trail… this 2-5 mile hike to the crest of the mountain is a notorious hawk-watching location.  In fact, I would often hike in there with my ex’s mom, and the two of us would watch for birds together.





Wanting so desperately to find good sources for local food staples, I asked the woman behind the counter of the ice cream shop if their cows are pasture-raised.  Well, she talked with me  for nearly an hour about the practicalities of running a local dairy – and how they sell their milk in a local co-op.  We talked about how nearly all the dairy farmers in the lower Hudson Valley have sold off their land to developers – so there are only a few left – yet their school taxes – for the property the dairy sits on – is nearly $30,000 per year.   We talked about inspectors and regulators.  She told us how all of the milk they – and the whole co-op produces is hormone and antibiotic-free.  However, if a cow gets sick, the vet will put it on antibiotics and during that medicinal course; they will dump the milk produced from the animal.  She also talked to us about how many of the animals on “organic” farms are inhumanely treated – they get sick and are left un-cared for – or they go hungry when there is not enough grass to feed on in the winter months (affecting milk production).  She told us of farms that run organic and regular herds side-by-side and when one animal gets sick, they move it from organic to regular.  

I greatly appreciated her time, and bought two pints of ice cream to take home.,  feared that short of visiting every farm before buying – I may never really know where all of my food comes from… and thus, can never really live with a clean conscience about  it.  I have determined that  — for me anyway – eating well and protecting our food source comes from making – not one choice – but daily choices based on the best available options.  And the worst of big-business Organics is still better than mass-agri-business.  Local is still better than anything else and knowing your farmer is a privilege and luxury I will never take for granted.