Today I am feeling very grateful for Willy Street's new west side store.
I have been planning to buy this year's Thanksgiving turkey since this time last year. I did some reading on the subject of Thanksgiving turkeys last year when a friend was upset about the killing of sharks in Japan for traditional shark fin soup; how they catch them wild, cut off the fin and then drop them back into the water to drown. I thought, I bet we kill a lot more turkeys for our Thanksgiving tradition than they do sharks- and I bet those turkeys have a worse life and death. It doesn't take much google searching to find ample support for that belief.
For the last several months I've been trying (somewhat successfully) to restrict myself to fewer animal products, and ones that were raised in conditions humane to the animal and to the people raising and killing them. But I end up eating conventional meat at family meals from time to time (especially at my in-laws) because often I cannot bring myself to decline something they have made for me- because of guilt, and because of hunger. So I knew if I didn't want to be a hypocrite on Thanksgiving or go without turkey, I'd better offer to bring it.
So anyway, for many months I've had this intention, but of course I procrastinated way too long. Suddenly last weekend it hit me that Thanksgiving was less than two weeks away and I probably should have looked into a turkey by now if I didn't want the ones at the grocery store.
A friend had told me that his friend raised awesome turkeys for around $3 a pound, which sounded great- but by the time I asked him for his friend's name, they were sold out. I went to the co-op and they were sold out of the good pre-order turkeys. The frozen Organic Prairie turkeys were all out that day and my only choice on the east side was Bell & Evans. Bell & Evans seems like a pretty good company from their website, but they are still a mass producer of poultry from Pennsylvania, which was not the Wisconsin-small- farm-pasture-raised turkey I was hoping for.
I started looking at getting a turkey directly from a farm. Reap food group has a wonderful website to help you find small, local farmers selling all kinds of meat: http://www.reapfoodgroup.org/atlas/buy_local.htm. I learned a lot reading up on the various farms' websites.
For instance, there are farms around here raising heritage turkeys. These are breeds of turkeys that don't have such giant breasts. (But they are still sexy turkeys!) They live more normal lives because they haven't been bred to have a huge, rapidly-growing body that causes them pain and discomfort and premature disease, as the traditional turkeys have. And they can breed naturally instead of needing artificial insemination, which sounds like about the worst job you could ever have- a nasty process for the birds and for the humans who do it at a rapid fire pace all day long.
Unfortunately for me, these turkeys sell out fast and some farms require you to pre-order them way ahead, when the farm is deciding how many poults to raise that year. Also, even with the "regular" turkeys we are used to, I wasn't sure from the websites if farms still had turkeys left- some did not say they were sold out, but they also didn't have any recent updates or "yes we still have turkeys" posts.
It looked like I was going to need to spend some time on the phone finding a farm that wasn't sold out of their turkeys, that wasn't too far away, where I could pick up the turkey this weekend. Unfortunately, work was crazy on Monday and today; no time for phone calls. Stress levels were starting to soar as I tried to figure out when I would call these farms, much less go pick up a turkey. But tonight at 8:45pm I was within a 10 minute drive of the new west side store of the Willy Street Coop, which just opened yesterday and was open until 9:30. I got there, and there in the case was a beautiful frozen Organic Prairie turkey, in the size I needed. Yay!
Organic Prairie is probably not a perfect match to what I wanted either, but it's closer. It's a co-op of small organic farms, many of them in Wisconsin. From their website: Organic Prairie farmers are committed to providing your family with the healthiest, most wholesome meat, raised humanely in accordance with organic principles and practices—respecting the dignity and interdependence of human, animal, plant, soil and global life.
I am pretty excited about my turkey, but part of me wishes I had held out and tried this week to get a farm-direct turkey, because I could probably have bought my organic prairie turkey next week if things didn't work out. As I was writing this post, I clicked on one of the farm websites and it had just put an update on its site saying they still had turkeys- if only that had been there two days ago! But I'm not going to beat myself up about it- my turkey is still a step up from a conventional turkey, and I will do better next year now that I know more. I will do my research and pick a farm ahead of time, and probably reserve my turkey in advance for no last minute dash (and to provide security for the farmer), and I would really like to try one of those heritage breeds. I think it would be a treat to see what turkey is really supposed to taste like.
I would also like to find out where the small family farms around here get their baby turkeys and where they slaughter them and what the conditions are there. If there are better facilities that some farms use, I'd like to give those farms preference. A lot of the bad stuff I've read about happens during those two parts of the turkey's life. It's great if the in between of life is better than the norm, but a brutal beginning for a baby chick is not something I'd like to support. And, of course, there is something particularly impacting about how a living thing ends its life. I have been thinking about this a lot lately. If somebody lives a wonderful life but then comes to a brutal and horrible end, I think it feels viscerally more tragic and awful than if we hear about a person who has had a very tragic life dying happy with loving friends around them. The first person may have had a greater sum of happy moments in life, and yet I think people feel worse about that person's situation. Why is that?
Anyway, if you are going to be purchasing a Thanksgiving turkey still this year, (or one for Christmas) the Willy Street Coop will continue to have Organic Prairie and Bell & Evans turkeys, and it's a great excuse to go check out the west side store. The Organic Prairie are $4.59 per pound; Bell & Evans are around half that price.
Here are some of the farms I looked at too:
- JR's Country Acres in Lake Mills is the farm that posted the "we still have turkeys!" post on the 15th. If you're on the east side this wouldn't be too far of a drive. Website doesn't list a price.
- Jordandal farms has turkeys for a pretty nice price- 2.75/lb. They are out for Thanksgiving but you can order for Christmas or probably even for next Thanksgiving. You can pick up at the Dane County farmer's market or the Westside Community Markets (or at the farm in Argyle WI).
- JenEhr family farm looks really awesome and they have heritage breed turkeys as well as traditional. $4.50/lb. I'm thinking this might be the farm I go with for next year. They have a turkey order form on their site and list a pickup date of Nov 20th. Site doesn't say they aren't sold out but I am kind of skeptical. You can pick up at the Dane County farmer's market, their Sun Prairie farm, or even at the West Allis farmer's market.
- Good Earth Farms, $3.99/lb, their farm is in central WI but they ship. Sold out for this Thanksgiving. I like their mission statement: To produce the highest quality organic grass fed beef, pasture raised pork, and pasture raised poultry and make it available at a reasonable price to all those who seek it.
All of these farms sell other animal products too, so check them out! And do check out REAP's website, because there are lots of other farms I didn't even have time to look at.
One last thought: If you cringe at the prices listed above, with Butterball turkeys being sold at Copps for .99/lb, here's how I think of it- I paid about $50 more for my turkey this year than I would have at the Copps (I could have paid about $30 less with Bell & Evans). But I would be more than willing to donate $25-$50 to a charitable organization supporting humane treatment of animals, good working environments for the people that raise them, and responsible treatment of the environment, in a world where most of the meat we eat comes at the expense of real horrors to animals, people and the planet. Supporting these farms is a very concrete way of supporting those things.
I also think of it as a holiday gift to the cause of compassion, and a better testament to the spirit of Thanksgiving than gorging myself on the cheapest food I can find. Lots of people cannot afford a more humanely raised turkey no matter how good the reason, but lots of us truly CAN, if it is a priority for us. And the more of us that do this, the more farms can be supported and the lower the prices can go, which eventually makes this kind of eating more accessible to everyone.
Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for reading.
