In the mood for pet food

Every Tuesday someone in my family goes to pick up pet food. It's amazingly delicious by itself but really boosts a bowl of cereal. What kind of pet food are we eating?!

Well, it's not eating, it's drinking. About a month ago, my parents signed on to participate in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). A further explanation of this term follows, but what it means for us is that we pick up raw Jersey milk and yogurt from a dairy about ten minutes from our house at My Dad & Me Family Farm--and it doesn't get any fresher than this!

The folks over at My Dad & Me are especially nice. The milk is in half gallon glass jars on their back porch, so you just drive up and pick up. When I visited over the holiday break, the wife was working in the kitchen and came out to meet me when she saw me through the window.

Each jar has a big round label on front stating the contents are "Pet Food-Not for Human Consumption." They are required to sell their milk as pet food under Georgia law, but in other states, raw milk is sold as is from coolers on the back of a pickup truck.

As of January 23rd, My Dad & Me still has a few milk slots available. To learn more about what they do and to try out this great tasting milk for yourself, call Daniel Hammond at 678-567-1826.

(I apologize for the lack of cows in my post about a dairy farm, but it was rainy the day I went and the cows were feeding in the barn. Instead, I got quite the dance from the turkey on site!)

My Dad & Me also sells brown eggs from several types of chickens.


From Jay Weinstein's The Ethical Gourmet; the section called Think Globally, Act Locally:

Thousands of small farms sell produce direct to consumers, through CSAs. What they are is a mutual support system between growers and consumers of farm products that provides a conduit for food from field to table. It's the ultimate in "putting a face to the food." Consumers pay the farmer an annual membership fee, which helps him run the farm. In return, the member receives a weekly share of the harvest during the local growing season...The system benefits the ecosystem in many ways: Most farms involved in CSAs grow organic produce, protecting the land and water, and shipping is inherently minimal, protecting the air and natural resources.


According to Weinstein, the CSA movement began in Japan when a women's group grew concerned with the use of pesticides and the extra cost of transporting produce. They started a movement called teikei (meaning "food with the farmer's face on it").