Los Angeles-area sustainably raised, grass-fed, etc. dairy?

April 6, 2008 11:33 AM

Been a lifelong carnivore. Went vegan recently because factory meat farming, factory dairy, etc. just appall me. Unfortunately, since I'm allergic to soy and corn, a vegan diet is very limiting. I'd like to reintroduce dairy, and maybe even the occasional poultry/meat, but I am not comfortable with it not being sustainably raised. Now let me define terms.

From all the research I've done, "free range" isn't actually much freer than normal factory farming (see Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" for more, or ask and I'll unpack this for you). Everything I've read about the treatment of animals in the dairy industry makes me physically ill. Goat milk/cheese seems to come from more sustainable conditions, probably just as a matter of scale.

So what do I want? Truly free-range animals, ones that actually DO wander around outside. Birds and cows that get to eat grass. A farm that does not lock a newborn dairy cow into a teeny-tiny cage with no contact with any other animals for the first six weeks of its life.

I'm doubting that I can find anything like this near LA. Maybe the Santa Monica Farmer's Market? Any info would be appreciated. Done research, but am coming up blank. And, unfortunately, my apartment complex does not allow chickens or cows, so raising it myself is not currently an option.

posted by rednikki to food & drink (19 comments total)

There isn't much nice about either dairy production - even if the cows live on the cushiest farm ever. Cows, like humans, don't give milk unless they've given birth - and dairy will only keep the female calves - the male calves are sold for meat (or breeding if they hit the jackpot).
posted by The Light Fantastic at 11:47 AM on April 6, 2008

for dairy, you might want to find a hari krishna community and see if you can swap choirs with them for milk and cheese. From my limited experience (visiting one such farm in central pa) they raise the animals and do not sell any for slaughter. When they get too old to milk, they go out to pasture. The same for the male calves, which are used for basic labor around the farms. They also tend to have a collection of chickens for eggs, etc. themselves.

I guess the solution that will probably meet your ethical needs the most is find a farmer / grower who you know, you can visit their farms and pickup the produce yourself. I don't know what your traveling situation is, but it will probably require leg work, unless you can locate some through local farmers markets.
posted by mrzarquon at 11:54 AM on April 6, 2008

Well, for beef, Alderspring Ranch seems to have a truly impressive operation for raising organic, grass-fed beef. I recently started eating meat after 17 years of being a vegetarian, and this is one of the few places that I feel comfortable buying from. It's gotten great reviews, beating out wagyu beef and Niman Ranch. They will ship their beef to you frozen.

I recently found Thundering Hooves, which sells grass fed beef, pork, lamb, goat, and pastured chicken and turkey. I haven't ordered from them, but they look great. You can mail order from them as well.
posted by Enroute at 11:57 AM on April 6, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Use the map at localharvest.org to find organic food of all kinds near you. Zooming in on the Los Angeles map showed lots of options. Links in these two threads might also be useful. A good search phrase in general would be Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).
posted by mediareport at 12:17 PM on April 6, 2008

You can also find rice milk (instead of soy) as an alternative for dairy.

As for sustainably-developed meats, you are in LA so you're going to have a difficult time (as with any metropolis, it's hard to get locally grown foods, and even the closest true farmers are environmentally costly if the food has to be trucked into the city).
posted by Kickstart70 at 12:37 PM on April 6, 2008

I have the same problem. Right now I waver between raw vegan (wheat, corn, soy, and animal-product free), Weston A Price-style, and the paleo diet (includes meat and some cooked food. So yeah, it varies for me, but never includes soy or corn or other industrial foods.

If you want to eat truly good animal products, you are going to have to adjust to your area. For me that meant eating buffalo and goat, since that is what is raised around here and I can visit the farms. Localharvest.org is fantastic, so is Eat Well Guide, but I'd also look for a local Slow Food or Weston A. Price chapter. If you are going to consume dairy you have to accept that the young males will get turned into meat. The goat farm I buy cheese from sells their males to a sustainable meat farm, so that doesn't bother me as much as if they were going to a factory farm. There are no milk dairies in my area, but I'm a member of a co-op that buys milk from a sustainable farm in a neighboring state. A co-op might also sell meat and some farmer's do city drop offs or mail orders.

Farmer's markets are great, but if you are really committed you need to visit the farm. For most city-dwellers that means driving an hour or so. It might make a nice day trip? I know around here farm tours and events are fun and popular. I don't have a car, but I car pool with other Slow Fooders to these sort of events.
posted by melissam at 12:38 PM on April 6, 2008

When you start eating with an ethical purpose, there is no substitute for buying direct from a farmer. So I second LocalHarvest.org and also frequenting your nearest farmer's market. There are often CSA-type arrangements for buying meat on a subscription plan. If your life allows it, you can invest in a chest freezer and buy large portions of whole animals to eat from all year. But just keep in mind that you will not really be able to walk into a store and find something you want by label reading. You need to work directly with suppliers so they can talk about their practices to you. You'll learn a lot and form new relationships.

PS: Slow Food LA.
posted by Miko at 1:28 PM on April 6, 2008

I recently found Thundering Hooves,

I met the owners/operators and had a chance to tour their farm on a visit over that way the other year -- they had a stand at the farmers market and were grilling really tasty hamburgers, and invited us to come by the ranch the next day. There were some flocks of turkeys (in preparation for Thanksgiving) and a bunch of cows, all outdoors, all as happy as animals with minimal brains have the capacity to be (the turkeys were actually quite beautiful and interactive, not like the weird overbred birds that provide most turkey dinners). I'd be perfectly comfortable buying from them, in terms of ethics and sustainability.

And that's what I'd suggest you do -- visit, in person, some nearby farms (found via the internet, or at the farmers market, or whatever). Visit a few, and when/if you find an operation that you are comfortable with, buy religiously from them. If you find someone with a really good sheep operation, ask them if they know of anyone they would recommend for dairy, or beef, or chickens. Then visit that farm, and repeat until you have suppliers for the products you need. Buying at least moderately in bulk is both cheaper and more convenient, and lets you try out cuts of meat that you might not otherwise.

Alternatively, if you are lucky there will be a really good farmers market in your area, where you will have a wide selection of meat/dairy products to choose from every week, and you can do your shopping there. But not everywhere has that. And even then, if you are really focused on ethics and morality, there isn't a good substitute for going in person and seeing with your own eyes how the animals live.
posted by Forktine at 1:51 PM on April 6, 2008

Also: once you start finding good suppliers, you can chase things up and down the supply-chain. It's nice to find good lamb, for example, and then that can open the door to finding good artisanal sheep cheese, and learning which restaurants buy sustainable meat, and so on. There are also questions of human sustainability -- which suppliers pay decent wages, which are good people to do business with, etc.

So in the end, these decisions can reach out further than just filling your freezer.
posted by Forktine at 1:55 PM on April 6, 2008

The Post Punk Kitchen Forums have quite a few soy free people (and people with other allergies or food restrictions). That may be useful for getting a bit more variation in the part of your diet that is still vegan.

As for ethical milk: even the small organic local farms around here that treat their cows relatively well sell their "useless" male calves to factory farms.
posted by davar at 1:58 PM on April 6, 2008

I've dropped goalyeehah a line to let him know about your question, as I believe he'll have some good info for you. If for some reason he doesn't drop by the thread, you may want to send him a memail.
posted by scody at 2:02 PM on April 6, 2008

Hi, everyone! Thanks for your help!

@The Light Fantastic: that is why I have an issue with dairy farming. If I go back to eating dairy, I would feel unethical doing it without also going back to eating meat. Not sure if I can do either.

@mrzarquon: what a great idea! Thank you! That's very useful.

@enroute: That is a great idea. I've been investigating some farms closer to home, but it's a solid 4-6 hour drive minimum to most of the sustainable-type farms I've found in my research. Might make a nice weekend trip, though.

@mediareport: I've investigated Local Harvest thoroughly. Aside from a farm selling buffalo, the farms within a two hour radius of LA listed in there did not report that they sell ANY sustainably raised meats or dairy when I last called them (about two months ago). I'm concerned that the Local Harvest database may be way out of date.

@kickstart70: Thanks for the tip! I've been using rice milk (and almond milk, and hemp milk). Unfortunately, you can't make cheese/sour cream/etc. from it. LA has a surprising number of farms on the outskirts, so I'm hoping I'll get lucky.

@melissam: Thanks for the links! Driving an hour or two is no problem.

@miko: Thanks for the link! I'm a big believer in farmer's markets - I go to them at least once a week.

@forktine: That's exactly what I'm looking to do! Chasing the things across the supply chain is a good idea. Thank you!

@davar: Thanks for the link! I think my diet is even more varied than it was when I was a carnivore, which is a nice upside.

@scody: Thank you so much!
posted by rednikki at 2:22 PM on April 6, 2008

You don't have to eat soy just because you're vegan. You can get protein from other places, like nuts.

Also, I have no idea what corn has to be with doing vegan. And are you sure you're allergic to it? Corn is in 80+ percent of all processed foods, practically, at least according to The Omnivore's Dilemma.

If you have food processor and blender, check out Ani's Raw Food Kitchen "cook" book. It's a great and easy raw food (so no soy) cookbook.
posted by dobbs at 3:46 PM on April 6, 2008

@dobbs: I projectile vomit when I eat corn. If you want, I can give you a demonstration. :-) I spent years on a whole lot of meds before a nutritionist helped me find the cause of that one. Technically it's a food intolerance, because (unlike my soy allergy) I don't have an anaphylactic reaction to it. And, yep, it's in 80% of everything (as is soy, and dairy products seem to be in most of the stuff corn and soy aren't in), which means I make most foods from scratch. It's a pain, but it's better than vomiting up most of every meal, which is what I did until 2004.

I've been doing some raw food stuff, because raw food seems to avoid both corn and soy. Thanks for the cookbook recommendations!
posted by rednikki at 4:49 PM on April 6, 2008

You probably already know about it, but we eat a lot of Quorn, which for a long time I assumed was made of corn, but is actually made from fungus. It's also soy-free. We usually eat the chicken patties, but it looks like they make all kinds of fake poultry. I think it's quite tasty, and I'm not even the vegetarian in the house.
posted by Stylus Happenstance at 4:59 PM on April 6, 2008

@Stylus Happenstance: Quorn is totally awesome and tasty...and sadly not vegan (it has eggs and milk in it). If you like it, you may want to try seitan. It's not always done well, but Field Roast Grain Meat Company does some amazingly tasty sausages out of the stuff.
posted by rednikki at 5:16 PM on April 6, 2008

Wrote very long comment that I seemed to have deleted instead of posted. Will reply in kind tomorrow. I know who to look for and where to go.
posted by goalyeehah at 9:19 PM on April 6, 2008

@goalyeehah: thank you! You're a lifesaver!
posted by rednikki at 9:27 AM on April 7, 2008

Your "perfect storm" would be the Saturday Santa Monica Farmers Market on Arizona between 2nd and 4th St.

First off....full disclosure. I was raised on a dairy farm, have worked for Lindner Bison and currently work for Organic Pastures.

There are three vendors to check out.....

Lindner Bison
Organic Pastures Dairy Farm
Pink Canopy Woman

Lindner Bison sells grass fed/grass finished bison. Their ranch is on the eastern slope of the Sierra's in Northern California. They are good people who care for their animals and also a good and intelligent resource for any concerns you may have about "free range" animals.

They are on the south side of the street east of 2nd street.

www.lindnerbison.com
www.eatwild.com

Organic Pastures sells dairy from cows raised on pasture. I was raised on a dairy farm and know first hand how the animal get treated, especially if the dairy has to expand. When I found out that the owner made a portable milking parlor that could be brought out into the fields, I was sold. They sell whole and skim milk, kefir, cream, cheddar cheese, butter, colostrum, chocolate milk and raw almonds. They also sell pastured beef from steers and cows that they move out of the herd. They have an "open door" policy for their farm (based in Fresno) where anyone can come, visit and check out the operations. They are one of the two dairies in the state who sell raw dairy (it is legal here and there is an ongoing battle to keep it that way)

We are located on the north side of Arizona, 1/2 block west of the Promenade.

www.organicpastures.com
www.realmilk.com
www.thecompletepatient.com

Pink Canopy Woman (I have forgotten her name and the name of the farm) has pastured eggs, fryers, duck and goose when in season, goat cheeses and sometimes milk. All of it is quality stuff and raised in a a way that is similar though not as intensive as Joel Salitin per Omnivores Dilemma. She is upfront about here raising practices and has a good spirit.

Organic Pastures has to sell their meat "off the truck" The reason why we do this is to get around government regulations and standards. The owner believes that it is cleaner, healthier and more humane to the animal to have it done out in the field/their own enviroment. USDA and CFDA won't stand for this. To get around this as a CYA policy (Cover Your Ass) we have a cowshare program for meat similar to dairy cow shares. Customers "buy stock" on credit in the animal and give us permission to butcher the animal for them. There is no "out front" cost, their share is purchased when the buy the cuts when we have them. The markets generally do not have a problem with this, yet they need to stay compliant with city ordinances so they ask us "not to sell"

A farm named Windrose Farms on the Wednesday Market does the same with lamb. They are north of Arizona on the west side of 2nd. St.

Here are my basic rules........

-I like being no more than "two handshakes" away from my food sources.
-I like vendors/farmers who have "spirit" and a sparkle in their eyes. I believe this comes across with the foods that they are selling.
-With pastured foods, seasons change, grasses change, therefore flavors change. (Big Ag/Dairy/Meat breeds for consistent flavor. Pasteurized milk in Cali tastes the same in Vermont.) Almost every culture outside of U.S. get this. A lot of Americans don't.
-There was a saying going around in the 70's, ' Don't Bitch About the Farmer with Your Mouth Full" We are essentially comprehensivists and know our piece of land. Good farmers are flexible. They have to be as nature demands this. Those farms who are bucking the norm be it for ethical, moral, practical, common sense or purely subversive reason face a lot of omnidirectional pressure in bringing their product to market. So at the market, show your appreciation in small ways; be patient, thoughtful, respectful and appreciative.

High love and yeehah!
posted by goalyeehah at 10:27 AM on April 7, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]