I used to think that I was motivated to grow our own food on this little homestead.
Mostly because I want a healthier life for my family. I want to live more frugally and a more simple life. Those are the main reasons behind growing our own food.
Sure, growing our own food from organic, heirloom and gmo free seeds has been fun, but is it enough?
This past weekend my husband and I became even more determined and focused on a life built around growing our own food.
We have been working towards this a little at a time over the past few years, but now we are determined to make a huge shift towards accomplishing this goal.
What happened to change us?
Have you ever watched a documentary and it left you full of so many different emotions? How about watching one and it left you feeling a little more aware about a particular topic and had you searching for more information and answers?
I experienced this exact thing.
This past weekend, I was resting while recovering from a minor injury and I binge watched a few documentaries on Netflix.
Now, a little disclaimer. I am not here to preach or to tell you that any one person’s way of life is wrong or that you must agree with me. When it comes to these types of topics, I only suggest doing research and making your own informed choices.
That being said, I want to share the many emotions that I am currently going through and what I plan to do from now on.
The first documentary that I watched was Food Inc and this is the one that left me with the most emotions. My husband was around to watch most of it with me and it even left him feeling a little conflicted. This documentary is from 2009 and exposes the global food industry and its practices.
This film left us both shocked and a little disgusted. And to be honest, I was left in tears. I am incredibly sad at the lack of care of the animals that are raised, and the way they are packaged up for all of us to eat. I don’t know, maybe this is also a little bit of guilt.
This film left my husband and I aware and even more motivated to grow and raise our own food. It was a decision that he suggested and we made together. And you know what, it is now included in our 2017 Homestead Goals.
We already raise cattle and we now will be taking on meat chickens this spring and possibly hogs later on in the year. We will raise them organically right here on the farm.
Now, the second film is something that I take to heart.
I watched Forks over Knives and it hit home for me. This is something very personal that I will share here and I’ll spare the boring details, but I have some health issues that I’m trying to work out.
So after watching this film, it hit me very hard. I want to make this change and I will be adapting a whole foods plant based diet. Maybe in time my husband and rest of my family will join me, who knows. The choice will be his to make because I will never force that kind of change on him.
I just really believe that this will help me improve my health in the end. I’m willing to give it a chance and see how things go.
So, what happens next? For now, some reading, research, and planning for these changes to our homestead. And a whole lot of prayer for direction. All, I know for sure is that we are more motivated to become as self-sufficient as we can. These are big changes for us. Stay tuned for updates.
Update: I have experienced or experimented many diets over the past few years. Some of them brought great results. Some left me feeling kind of sick. Anyway, I have a post which you can check out here that shares a little bit more about how we found the best way of eating for our homestead.
Healthy Eating on the Homestead
Thank you for sharing these documentaries and how they made you feel. In the UK, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall; a chef who left London and became a homesteader ran several documentaries as a series to highlight how our food is produced. One was called Hugh’s Fish Fight about sustainable fishing practices and the other was Chicken Out about how intensively reared chickens are produced in Europe. He originally ran a series about how he downsized to become a homesteader many years ago in the UK called River Cottage and these inspired me a long time ago to care where my food comes from and how it was raised.
Now I live in America, I showed the documentaries to my family who are just as inspired to get growing and care more about what we purchase and eat. Whilst we have just started with backyard chickens, we have an extensive garden (that is my pride and joy) which we plan on growing all of our produce this year. I look forward to reading your upcoming planning posts and tips to follow throughout the year.
Emma @ Misfit Gardening
Thank you for sharing, Emma! 🙂
Thank you for sharing! my husband and I watched the two movies you recommended, we had no idea these things were going on, very sad, It motivates us to work more toward self sufficient living.
That’s amazing, Christi! I hope that you share your journey. 🙂
If you can find it, you need to watch Frankensteer too. It’s pretty horrifying— I think it may have been taken off the market (probably with the carrot of money from big ag and govmt). If anyone is still on the fence after watching Food Inc., Frankensteer will do it!
Thanks Heidi! I will look into that one and see if I can find it. 🙂