"The Omnivore's Dilemma," Vocabulary from Part 3

This farm was living and thriving today just 150 miles from Washington, D.C.

Salatin’s hat had no logo and it was made of grass, not plastic. This was fitting because grass, not petroleum, is the foundation of his farm’s success.

The animals and crops seem to move in circles like some sort of complicated dance.

Eating the grubs and larvae cuts down on bugs and parasites—in this case, tiny organisms that live on or in the cow—that would bother the cattle.

Its soil will be deeper, more fertile, and even springier underfoot (this thanks to the increased earthworm traffic).

When we looked at beef ranching, we learned how grasses and herbivores formed a partnership over millions of years of evolution.

After a moment of hesitation, the cows began to move, first singly, then two by two, and then all eighty of them sauntered into the new pasture, brushing past us as they looked around for their favorite grasses.

For this reason, an acre of mixed grasses can actually produce more carbohydrate and protein in a year than an acre of field corn.

And a field of mixed grasses with a deep root system is much more likely to survive dry spells and droughts.

“The farm had been abused by tenant farmers for 150 years,” Joel said.

Joel climbed onto the tractor, threw it into gear, and slowly towed the rickety henhouse fifty yards or so.

Why does Joel want fermented corn in his manure pile? Because there’s nothing a pig enjoys more than getting tipsy on corn, and there’s nothing a pig is better equipped to do than root it out with his powerful snout and exquisite sense of smell.

That’s where, six times a month, several hundred chickens are killed, scalded, plucked, and gutted.

“The way I produce a chicken is an extension of my worldview,” he’d told me the first time we’d talked.

“Slaughter is dehumanizing work if you have to do it every day. Processing but a few days a month means we can actually think about what we’re doing,” he continued, “and be as careful and humane as possible.”

They don’t need USDA rules to ensure that the meat they’re buying has been humanely and cleanly processed.

Agribusiness has bombarded us with the message that all pork is pork, all chicken is chicken.

So avoiding the industrial food chain isn’t just a matter of principle. It’s also good business.

And there are people in many countries who are trying to stop the spread of genetically modified food.

"Slow food is good, clean and fair food, we believe that the food we eat should taste good; that it should be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment, animal welfare or our health; and that food producers should receive fair compensation for their work."

And once you give up processed foods, you have to learn to cook, a skill that is disappearing from many American homes.

Which, truth to tell, left me feeling a little queasy. Was I going to be able to enjoy chicken so soon after working in the processing shed and gut-composting pile?

To be honest, there was another reason I chose the brining and grilling method. Once the chickens were cut into pieces, they wouldn’t look quite so much like the birds I had helped kill and gut on the farm.

This may not sound like much of a compliment, but to me the chicken smelled and tasted exactly like chicken.

But it tasted wonderful, everyone agreed, and as I rolled the rich yet weightless confection on my tongue, I closed my eyes and suddenly there they were: Joel’s hens, marching down the gangplank from out of their Eggmobile, fanning out across the early-morning pasture, there in the grass where this magical bite began.