In the past few years, greenwashing, or deceptive labeling has been very prevalent in the food industry. For example, depending on the protocol of a company, only 25% of the ingredients in a product may need to be sourced locally in order to label it as "Locally Sourced Ingredients" Finding a farm that is transparent and honest in everything they do is the key for you as a consumer to avoid getting tricked into buying something that is not what it appears to be.

In this blog, I will address a sometimes confusing topic that comes up when a quarter, half, or whole beef or hog is purchased. What’s the difference between hanging weight and cut weight? Hanging weight is the recorded weight after the animal has been killed and dressed, but not deboned and broken down into cuts. It is the weight of the dressed carcass, bones and all. Packaged weight is the recorded weight after the carcass has been deboned and cut into steaks, roasts, ground meat, etc. So the packaged weight is the actual weight of the meat you put in your freezer.

Sustainable this, sustainable that, we’ve all heard this buzz word being tossed around and used to describe pretty much anything. Eventually it’s just a word that doesn’t really mean anything. Sustainability in it’s original form is a great thing, essentially meaning that an organization or practice can go on without “running over itself”. When it comes to sustainability in agriculture, a lot of the focus naturally goes to soil health.

What is pastured pork? Well, first, as the term suggests, pastured pork is raised on pasture. However, because pigs are not ruminants, grass is only a part of their diet. The high quality forages that the pasture provides are usually supplemented with a grain ration of some sort. Pigs are characteristically determined to generally destroy anything they can get their snouts on, and so pasturing pigs takes some added management to ensure they don’t overturn every bit of grass in sight.