Sunday, January 27, 2008

Holy Cow, Indeed

I'm running a bit behind today, as my dad called and talked for nearly an hour and the Tilted Duster sleeves are taking much longer to finish off. Why am I underestimating the time required to do sleeves?

Here are the sleeves this morning:


I finished one of them while having a very tasty chai at Mississippi Mud Coffee House. This was my first time at this coffee shop, and I really enjoyed it. I think they make their chai in-house instead of using pre-mixed concentrate, and they serve it with a little ginger cookie.

Before I left for the coffee shop, I had my new weekend breakfast:


Oatmeal made with soymilk, honey, nuts, and dried fruit.

Unfortunately, the soymilk has been concerning me. I'm a bit leery of the additives in soymilk, of supporting the big soy corporations (even if it's organic), and of the distance that soymilk is trucked (especially since it's refrigerated - unless you buy it in tetrapacks, that is).

So, since I wanted to stop at Local Harvest anyway to pick up a few things, I decided to check out their cow milk.

And, yes, I ended up buying a half-gallon of milk produced by Heartland Creamery.

I felt pretty good when I left...fairly local milk without growth hormone and packaged in a glass bottle that I could return.

Then I arrived home and decided to look at the dairy's website to make sure it really was local.
The blurb on the home page reassured me until I got to the last line...the line about how profits go to support their faith-based work with troubled adolescents and adults.

And then I realized that the "t" in Heartland is styled to look like a crucifix!

At this point, I wanted to return my milk, but I thought I should give them the benefit of the doubt. Not all faith-based work is creepy, after all.

So then I check out their ministry site, which was still a bit ambiguous. BUT, the links page includes a link to Focus on Family.

I am the complete opposite of Focus on Family, and I would rather my milk money not go to an organization that holds beliefs congruent to FoF.

So....I am going to drink the damn milk, but when I return my glass bottle, I will be sure to let Local Harvest know why I won't buy any more milk.

They could at least post a disclaimer by the milk.

And I guess I'll go back to my soymilk that's trucked in from far away. Why do food choices have to be so hard?!!

7 comments:

bek said...

Hi Carrie,

Food choices ARE tough! It's been interesting -- and inspiring -- reading on your blog recently about the dilemmas that you've faced. (Not fun for you though...) Love the title of this post too!

Carrie said...

Thanks!

My other ideas for the post title included gems such as, "Drinking the Lord's Milk" and "What Would Jesus Drink".

veggielover said...

Hilarious! I've taken to drinking local CT milk instead of soy lately myself, but luckily Connecticut cows seem to be less religious...

I hate to admit, though, this post did make me totally nostalgic for living in Tennessee, and reminded me of my favorite local potato chips with bible verses on the bag!

Carrie said...

Heh - if I'm ever in Tennesse, should I send you a bag of those potato chips?

The sad part is that the milk IS good. Probably because the cows are so pure.

Anonymous said...

hey C. I'm doing a two week raw cleanse and eating non stop. the worst part is no coffee. I like to think of it as an art experiment.

Carrie said...

That sounds...um...fun. Actually, it would be no problem for me in the summer.

Do you drink tea?

(going off to make a hot chocolate)

Anonymous said...

Apparently, the strict raw food folks (100%ish) still consider a 75-80% raw diet 'raw,' and I'm abiding by that. No overtly cooked food, but yes to tea and if I'm not sure if the dried fruit from the co-op is heat dried or dehydrated, I don't sweat it. I think keeping green and black tea in the diet was essential to fighting the coffee withdrawl.

So far, i mostly just feel like my body is starting to really crave nutrients instead of just calories--about to hit the one week mark. I've committed to 2, but maybe I'll go a month just because.

It's interesting how many people are freaking on me about protein and the food pyramid. 'nuff said. OH. And I discovered Kombucha--my friend Chele is making it and gave me two bottles. holy yum.