I am quite passionate when it comes to animal welfare and I think movies like Food Inc have made a significant impact on my everyday food choices. From the experiences lecturers in LFS such as The Honest Butcher & Walter Bergen I am inspired that there are influential people in our food system taking a stand to challenge the status quo of industrial meat production. Although I am often outspoken as to why we should limit our meat consumption for various reasons, the sustainability side of me is very inspired by these two individuals. The public is not going to quit eating meat anytime soon, and as countries assume more affluence and adopt a Western lifestyle, meat consumption will continue to rise. BUT- we can counteract many of the adverse effects that meat consumption imparts  on our planet if we support sustainable operations.

I heard Walter speak to the practices on his farm, he chooses to honor the life of his animals with integrity, appreciates the land and stewards the soil. The Six Masters Farm is inspiring; they are able to divert edible kitchen scraps and brewers mash from the landfill to animals. This is amazing, being able to raise animals without an ounce of processed industrial food is commendable and something most humans won’t come close to in our lifetimes.

This process, of looking at our food waste through more of a cyclical system we may not find the food security issue to be as stressful on our growing world population. If kitchen scraps were fed to the animals at a larger scale, we would have better quality meat and this would allow us to return our agricultural land back to human food rather than animal feed.

I am inspired to see if projects like this have the capacity to be scaled up, in my utopian view, all restaurants in Vancouver are enrolled in this vision of sustainability. As Walter said himself “If you have courage, I encourage you to look at this, there is a really remarkable change that is at the beginning of its trajectory…we will raise food in far different ways than we ever had before.”.

I think my priorities have shifted; I am no longer trying to convince all those around me to avoid meat all together, but to be more aware of where it originates. This is a big shift for me, being 90% vegetarian. I see the value that this farm adds to healing a broken system.