Sustainable Living

Most of the following information has been provided by Sustainable Table. Sustainable Table is a consumer program founded to celebrate the sustainable food movement, educate individuals on food-related issues, and build community through sustainable food. It was developed by the nonprofit organization GRACE. (They retain the copyright on this information; please refer to their terms and conditions before reusing any of it. Thanks!)

Sustainable Food and Agriculture

Sustainable agriculture is a way of raising food that is healthy for consumers and animals, does not harm the environment, is humane for workers, respects animals, provides a fair wage to the farmer, and supports and enhances rural communities.

A product can be considered sustainable if its production enables the resources from which it was made to continue to be available for future generations. A sustainable product can thus be created repeatedly without generating negative environmental effects through the overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and the creation of waste products that accumulate as pollution. Many different agricultural techniques can be utilized to help make food production more sustainable.

Industrial Food and Agriculture

A local, sustainable food system is an alternative to the majority of modern agriculture, which is huge in scale, global in nature, highly mechanized, and oriented toward processing. It tends to be destructive to natural systems and soil ecology and overutilizes pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and petroleum resources, while diminishing the nutrient quality of food in trade for shelf life. Industrial agriculture of this sort also favors low production costs over humane treatment of workers and animals while disconnecting communities and individuals from the places and faces behind their food.

Industrial agriculture is typified by large, corporate animal farms or CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations). To cut costs and raise production levels, CAFO owners cram thousands of animals into cages under one roof and ignore basic needs like access to fresh air, sunlight, and exercise. To stave off disease and encourage growth, they feed the animals huge amounts of antibiotics. These modern methods have huge costs not factored into the cheap price of food at stores and restaurants. They include health, environmental, and economic problems such as antibiotic resistance, chronic respiratory disease, deadly bacterial outbreaks, massive fish kills, water and air pollution, failed family farms, and dying rural economies.

Shopping Terms

You can be sure that farmers in the Lunasa database are local, and that's the first step in building a sustainable, local food system.

Beyond that, you may want to understand some basic terms in order to make informed decisions about how to spend your shopping dollars (through Lunasa Market or anywhere else). We aren't a certifying body, and a farmer's participation in this market doesn't automatically mean they use sustainable methods of production. Below are some terms that farmers may use to describe what they do.

BIODYNAMIC

This holistic method of agriculture is certified by a third-party agency and is based on the philosophy that all aspects of the farm should be treated as an interrelated whole that includes not only living nature but also the non-living world and gravitational and celestial forces. Having emerged as the first non-chemical agricultural movement approximately 20 years before the development of "organic" agriculture, biodynamics has now spread throughout the world. Biodynamic farmers work in harmony with nature and use a variety of techniques, such as crop rotation and on-farm composting, to foster a sustainable and productive environment. Visit the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association for more information.

RANGE, RAISING, AND FEEDING

The terms below refer to the approach to raising animals; animals should be allowed to roam outdoors on pasture for the duration of their lives in order to get exercise and sunshine, and to eat grass and forage for bugs and other food integral to a healthy diet. Generally speaking, the term "pastured" refers to poultry, "free-range" and "cage-free" refer to egg-producing chickens, and "grass-fed" refers to beef.

CAGE FREE

Birds are raised without cages. This doesn't specify whether the birds were raised outdoors on pasture, if they had access to the outside, or if they were raised indoors in overcrowded conditions.

FREE RANGE OR FREE ROAMING

The animal had some access to the outdoors each day. It doesn't guarantee the animal spent any time outside. As long as a door to the outdoors is left open for a period of time, the animal is considered free range. (The USDA has defined this term for chickens raised for consumption but no standards have been set for egg-laying chickens or other animals.

PASTURED or PASTURE-RAISED

Eggs, poultry, or meat actually raised outdoors on a pasture, eating grasses and food found there, rather than being fattened on grain in a feedlot or barn. Pasturing livestock and poultry is a traditional farming technique that allows animals to be raised in a humane, ecologically sustainable manner. Note: a chicken or pig can be pastured, but they aren't solely grass fed; in most cases, they must eat grains, too.

GRASS FED

This means the animals only eat grass and nothing else, and it pertains to cattle, sheep, and goats (not poultry nor pigs). Although it should imply that animals were allowed to graze naturally while roaming the pasture, it is possible the animals weren't able to roam but were simply given grasses and silage to eat. Regardless, grass-fed meats should be free of antibiotics, synthetic hormones, grain, and animal by-products.

GRAIN-FED

The animal was raised on a diet of grain. At its best, this is a mixture of corn and soybeans and vitamins that is good quality feed, but when farmers and feed suppliers cut corners, these mixes are supplemented with animal byproducts and miscellaneous matter such as cement dust and euthanized cats and dogs. Since mad cow disease is thought to be transmitted through animal byproducts added to cattle feed, cows raised on a strictly vegetarian diet are preferred by many consumers. Note: Cattle are ruminants and eat grass; they cannot digest grains properly and can become sick if fed a diet of only grain. Although large-scale, confined grain feedlots enable industrial meat producers to fatten their animals quickly, they also foster disease within the cattle population, creating the need for antibiotics and increasing the risk of E. Coli contamination. Grain-fed animals tend to be raised on factory farms and should be avoided.

GRAIN FINISHED

Cattle that are fed only grain before slaughter. Some producers raise their animals on pasture but then feed them grain for a certain amount of time before slaughter. Grain makes the meat fattier and creates the taste most people are currently accustomed to.

GRASS FED/GRAIN SUPPLEMENTED

Cattle that are raised on pasture and eat grasses. At a certain point, grains are slowly introduced into the diet in a controlled amount, along with the grasses. By controlling the amount of grain, the animals do not become sick and do not develop digestion problems that solely grain-fed cattle can encounter. They are not forced to eat the grain.

CHEMICAL FREE

The following are practices that attempt to reduce dependence on synthetic and industrial chemicals on the farm.

PESTICIDE FREE

Farmers who raise crops or animals without chemical control of pests (weeds, crop-eating insects, or flies and other animal pests) may use chemical fertilizers (as opposed to compost or other natural unrefined sources) in pastures, field crops, or their fruit or vegetable production.

PESTICIDE AND CHEMICAL FERTILIZER FREE

No petroleum-based synthetic chemicals are used on this farm as pesticides nor are any industrial chemical fertilizers used. Typically these farms make a concerted effort to build healthy, natural soil ecosystems.

INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT (IPM)

A strategy of weed and insect pest management that uses as much information as possible to most effectively apply the least amount of pesticides to control pests.

ANTIBIOTIC/HORMONE FREE

Antibiotic/Hormone Free generally refer to livestock.

NO ANTIBIOTICS ADMINISTERED

No antibiotics were administered to the animal during its lifetime. If an animal becomes sick, it is taken out of the herd and treated, but not sold.

RAISED WITHOUT THE ROUTINE USE OF ANTIBIOTICS

Antibiotics were not given to the animal to promote growth or to prevent disease, but may have been administered if the animal became ill.

NO HORMONES ADMINISTERED OR NO ADDED HORMONES

Animals were raised without added growth hormones. By law, hogs and poultry cannot be given any hormones.

RBGH- OR RBST-FREE

rBGH and rBST are genetically-engineered hormones that can be injected into dairy cows to artificially increase their milk production. These hormones have not been properly tested for safety. Organic milk is rBGH free.

FOOD ALLIANCE CERTIFIED

The Food Alliance Certification program focuses on three fixed standards:

NO GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS

No hormones or feed additive antibiotics were given.

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

There are four areas of continuous improvement:

1. Reduced pesticide usage,
2. Soil and water conservation,
3. Safe and fair working conditions, and
4. Wildlife habitat conservation.

For more information, visit The Food Alliance.

ORGANIC

In order to be labeled organic, a product, its producer, and the farmer must meet the USDA's organic standards and must be certified by a USDA-approved food-certifying agency. Organic foods cannot be grown using synthetic fertilizers, chemicals, or sewage sludge, cannot be genetically modified, and cannot be irradiated. Organic meat and poultry must be fed only organically-grown feed (without any animal byproducts) and cannot be treated with hormones or antibiotics. Furthermore, the animals must have access to the outdoors, and ruminants must have access to pasture (which doesn't mean they actually have to go outdoors and graze on pasture to be considered organic.)

Only USDA certified-organic foods can use the word "organic" in the product name, but organic ingredients can be listed on the packaging that aren't entirely organic (i.e., "made with organic flour"). Furthermore, if a company is certified as an organic producer, it can use the word "organic" in its company name, which can appear on all of its products -- even those that aren't certified organic. So, it's very important to look for the USDA "Certified Organic" seal when purchasing organic products.

USDA CERTIFIED-ORGANIC

In order to bear the USDA "Certified Organic" seal, a product must contain 95-100 percent organic ingredients. Products that contain 100 percent organic ingredients can be labeled "100 percent organic". Products that contain more than 70 percent, but less than 94 percent organic ingredients can be labeled "Made with Organic Ingredients", but cannot use the USDA "Certified-Organic" seal.

TRANSITIONAL ORGANIC

This isn't a certified label, but it indicates the farmer is in the three-year transition process to certified organic farming. Farmers must use and document practices on their farm for three years before they can be certified organic.

Please do not use this information without permission from Sustainable Table. Please refer to their terms and conditions.