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You're a Hero

written by

Joel Salatin

posted on

February 3, 2024

As a society, too often we miss true heroism.  This is not to disparage in the least the folks who deservedly receive widespread accolades for heroism.  Firefighters who risk their lives to save someone in a burning building.  On the battlefield, the one who loses his own life to save others.  The policeman who steps between a domestic altercation. Yes, we all understand these widely accepted heroes.

But another kind of heroism is standing in the face of orthodoxy during mundane decisions and activities of life to protect your children, your community, and the earth.  Way too few people today think about these things.

We’re besieged with advertisements to eat and drink junk.  Everybody’s eating Lunchables, right?  And fast food—it’s ubiquitous.  DoorDash is a click away, even for eggs and milk now.  Defunding McDonald’s, Monsanto, and Tyson (“feeding you like family”) takes real effort.  If you go with the flow, you’ll finance the production, philosophy, and poor nutrition of the chemical industrial exploitation complex.  The only thing you have to do to make sure these miscreants thrive is to not think and not act.

When you sit down to a meal, pause a moment to squint your eyes and try to look through what’s on the plate to everything behind it.  What kind of farms produced it?  What kind of processing put it in packages for you to buy?  What kind of framework delivered it to your hand?  Then ask yourself:  “Is this the kind of world I want my kids to inherit?”

With mRNA now being used (unlabeled) throughout the livestock industry and a dead zone the size of Rhode Island in the Gulf of Mexico holding steady, one of the most heroic things a person can do is patronize a healing food and farm alternative.   Here at Poyface, we aren’t perfect, but we have a 60-year track record that builds soil, creates happy, contented animals, and brings superior nutrition to your plate.

We don’t rely on Russia for fertilizer.  We don’t depend on Istanbul for grain.  We don’t finance Monsanto’s Roundup (glyphosate) or Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) for feed.  We don’t pollute the surface or groundwater for taxpayers to clean up.  You won’t get diarrhea from anti-biotic-hyped super-bugs.  Our animals don’t do drugs.

And the grass.  Aaaah, the grass.  Phytochemical taste and nutrition come from the pasture salad bar, our signature goal at Polyface.  That’s why our eggs have 1,058 micrograms of folic acid rather than the 48 in supermarket eggs.  Everything is superior when it gets fresh air, exercise, sunshine, and fresh salads.  Because we depend more on grass (solar panels) and management, we’re less dependent on all the nefarious agendas bandied about by the industrial chemical food complex.

But you won’t find this at the normal supermarket.  You won’t get it delivered from Grub Hub or DoorDash.  You won’t find it at McDonald’s, Burger King or Chik-fil-A.  You have to come to a conviction in yourself and make a conscious, intentional decision to find us, to patronize a more stable, secure, and safe system.  Standing up to cultural normality takes courage.

In some ways, rushing into a burning building is easier.  That crisis moment awakens in the human spirit a have-to, can-do, must-do hyper-awareness that often empowers us to rise to the calamity.  But what about when the tragedy wanes?  What about when it’s not as apparent?  Making life-saving decisions when they seem unnecessary is harder. Crises always draw us to find courage and decisiveness that may not have been apparent.

But to exercise that courage and conviction when things are routine is difficult.  Why participate in inconvenience when I can just be convenient?  And normal?  Because being content to be convenient is a fool’s game.  Eventually, convenience catches up.  America, as a nation, now leads the world in non-infectious chronic illness:  heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer.  With the summer Olympics coming up, we’re all pulling for our little superstar Simone Biles and other U.S. contenders, hoping to be number one in numerous competitions.  Being number one in chronic morbidity is not a number one spot to covet, folks.

The U.S. invented hydrogenated vegetable oil, TV dinners, DDT, GMOs, factory farming, mRNA, drive-through windows, and now leads the world in research toward lab-cultured fake meat.  Standing into this takes courage, intention, conviction.  So today, we salute, we honor, we appreciate you as everyday heroes who aren’t waiting until a crisis to act.

When you choose Polyface, you proactively take on the hero’s spirit to fight for your kids, your community, and our collective ecological nest.  For immune function, nutrient density, and balance. For pollinators, bluebirds, earthworms, and functional microbiomes.  That might not be a burning building, but it might be if we don’t invest in a better future.  Thank you for leading the way, and for being a hero right now.

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