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Holy Cows and Hog Heaven: The Food Buyer's Guide to Farm Friendly Food Paperback – February 19, 2005

by Joel Salatin (Author), Michael Pollan (Foreword)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 70 ratings
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Holy Cows and Hog Heaven is written by an honest-to-goodness-dirt-under-the-fingernails, optimistic clean good farmer. His goal is to:

  • Empower food buyers to pursue positive alternatives to the industrialized food system
  • Bring clean food farmers and their patrons into a teamwork relationship
  • Marry the best of western technology with the soul of eastern ethics
  • Educate food buyers about productions
  • Create a food system that enhances nature's ecology for future generations

Holy Cows and Hog Heaven has an overriding objective of encouraging every food buyer to embrace the notion that menus are a conscious decision, creating the next generation's world one bite at a time.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    160 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Polyface
  4. Publication date
    February 19, 2005
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0963810944
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0963810946
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joel Salatin and his family own and operate Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. The farm produces pastured beef, pork, chicken, eggs, turkeys, rabbits, lamb and ducks, servicing roughly 6,000 families and 50 restaurants in the farm’s bioregion. He has written 14 books to date, is editor of Stockman Grass Farmer Magazine, and lectures around the world on land healing and local food systems. Polyface Farm operates a formal apprenticeship program and conducts many educational workshops and events. 

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Polyface; 1/20/05 edition (February 19, 2005)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 160 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0963810944
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0963810946
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.1 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 70 ratings

About the author

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Joel Salatin

Joel Salatin

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About Joel

Joel F. Salatin (born 1957) is an American farmer, lecturer, and author whose books include You Can Farm and Salad Bar Beef.

Salatin raises livestock using holistic methods of animal husbandry, free of potentially harmful chemicals, on his Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley. Meat from the farm is sold by direct-marketing to

consumers and restaurants.

In high school, Salatin began his own business selling rabbits, eggs, butter and chicken from his family farm at the Staunton Curb Market. He then attended Bob Jones University where he majored in English and was a student leader. He graduated in 1979. Salatin married his childhood sweetheart in 1980 and became a feature writer at the Staunton,

Virginia newspaper, The News Leader, where he had worked earlier typing obituaries and police reports.

Tired of “having his stories spiked,” he decided to try farming full-time after first getting involved in a walnut-buying station run by two high school boys. Salatin’s grandfather had been an avid gardener and beekeeper and a follower of J. I. Rodale, the founder of regenerative organic gardening. Salatin’s father worked as an accountant and his mother taught high school physical education. Salatin’s parents had bought the land that became Polyface after losing a farm in Venezuela to political turmoil. They had raised cattle using organic methods, but could not make a living at farming alone.

Salatin, a self-described “Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist-lunatic-Farmer” produces high-quality “beyond organic” meats, which are raised using environmentally responsible, ecologically beneficial, sustainable agriculture. Jo Robinson, the author of Pasture Perfect: The Far-Reaching Benefits of Choosing Meat, Eggs and Dairy Products From Grass-Fed Animals (2004) said of Salatin, “He’s not going back to the old model. There’s nothing in county extension or old-fashioned ag science that really informs him. He is just looking totally afresh at how to maximize production in an integrated system on a holistic farm. He’s just totally innovative.”

Salatin considers his farming a ministry, and he condemns the negative impact on his livelihood and lifestyle of what he considers an increasingly regulatory approach taken by the agencies of the United States government toward farming. Salatin now spends a hundred days a year lecturing at colleges and to environmental groups.

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
70 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Searching
5.0 out of 5 stars Changing the World One Mind at a Time
Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2007
Verified Purchase
Joel Salatin is a nut! But from my experience, all visionaries tend to be a bit nutty. I came to reading this book after reading Michael Pollan's, The Omnivore's Dilemma, which is a great book in it's own right, and which dedicates a generous portion of its pages to Joel Salatin and his farm.

Joel Salatin is among the minority of Americans who have a keen insight into just how far this country has gotten off track, and he is dedicating his life to doing whatever he can to get people back on track. I am guessing he is a deeply happy man (if not a tad disturbed), because it shows in his love for the earth and the food it creates with his generous help.

This book will change the way you eat, or if not that, it will at least change the way you think while you stroll the isles at the supermarket, browsing isle after isle of plastic food. It has had a very positive effect on me and my family, and I recommend it to anyone who pauses, even for a moment, to consider the quality of the food that they eat. If you don't waste time on such trivialities, well maybe it is time that you did, for the sake of yourself, your race and the earth. Joel Salatin will help you navigate the territory.

Joel, I could have done without the Christian rhetoric, particularly the anti-abortion sentiment that peppered your book. I understand though ... you don't seem to be able to contain your passions any more than I can mine. We differ on some things, but agree on most. The writing can be a bit tricky in places, leaving me re-reading sentences over a few times, trying to decipher the meaning. But, all in all, this is a great book, and should be required reading for every citizen, non-citizen and illegal immigrant that shares this great country in decline.

I weep for the future, but Joel Salatin provides me with a little ray of hope.
14 people found this helpful
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Barbara Holman
5.0 out of 5 stars Integrity.
Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2008
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This book is a natural follow-up to the two Michael Pollan books, "Omnivore's Dillema" and "In Defense of Food." Joel Salatin nails it home with the "how-to's" of putting into practice these new insights about incorporating locally produced clean food into our diets. It's all about accountability and integrity, as practiced by small farm friendly producers and their products, face-to-face with their customers. For those who take for granted that the grocery store is the only place to buy food, try something different. Find a local farmer's market and let your senses carry you away. Bring home a big bag of cleanly produced locally grown vegetables and have a blast. The aromas, textures, and tastes will startle you. The strawberries actually smell and taste like ripe strawberries, sweet (with no sugar added!). Cut into a fresh cucumber and your nose will be surprised! Food does not have to be trucked from 1500 miles away when it grows just down the road and is so much fresher and more nutritious! Without going on and on, you get the picture. I recommend this book to anyone and everyone. It will inspire you to rediscover your own kitchen and eat at home. It does address some of the politics of small farm producers; but even someone as politic-phobic as myself needs to know what's going on in the world, especially concerning the food on our tables! Happy reading!!
Barbara Holman
4 people found this helpful
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Blueridge
4.0 out of 5 stars Holy Joel
Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2010
Verified Purchase
Joel Salatin does what we all promise ourselves that we will do about life, food, and health. Joel has researched things that nagged at his conscience, and has developed a healthful lifestyle that works. He has stepped out on the faith of his convictions, with his brave wife, and has proven some things:
1. Farming is a noble thing, not for those who can do nothing else...he enlightens us on the real intellect required by farming, although we probably suspected it.
2. Food today is a nutritional and economic rip-off. As the big entities take over the business of food production, the small farmer finds himself no longer in the cycle of the seasons. America is using up all kinds of enery to have strawberries in January, and tomatoes without taste . The tail has begun to wag the dog, in food production. The average person is hijacked at the supermarket, forced to buy food grown without accountability. Are we surprised at the empty calories, and the outbreak of foodborne diseases?
3. We need to bravely go back to basics for our food and local farmers. We will bless them, but they will give us back things that are not poisonous, and are grown in plain sight. A decent exchange.
4. We need to be more thoughtful about our land, soil, water, and animals. The focus on growing one thing, from just plums to just pigs, creates a servitude that is not healthy for anything within that cycle---excepting, of course, the big boys, who put the money in their pockets.

This book is a succint explanation of what Salatin is doing so successfully, a review of the government obstructions to it, and an exciting 'new' look at sustainable farming. He is a little arrogant, well educated, and gutsy enough to take on Goliath. I like him, and his honest approach to really knotty problems. I admire his willingness to research, and to share.

If you want a book that will surprise you, and inform you about things you thought you already knew about your neighborhood/state/country, get this one. Then, do what I plan to do. Make some presents of them to your selected family.

Blueridge
5 people found this helpful
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Jasmine Tibbits
5.0 out of 5 stars Joel Salatin is a genius
Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2014
Verified Purchase
I wish I could visit Joel Salatin's farm. Since I can't, this is a great guide for what to look for in food to buy near me. I try not to be too psycho about what we eat, and I honestly don't care if my food traveled far to get to me. BUT, what if there's some kind of crisis? Major earthquake or other natural disaster, or some political upheaval, the kind that happen everywhere on earth. I would like to support farms near me now, so that they can continue to stay in business producing food near me and my family. Maybe it doesn't seem so important to have food nearby now, but in an emergency, it's just about the most important thing there is.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Alan
5.0 out of 5 stars Joel Salatin is an inspiration
Reviewed in Canada on February 24, 2013
Verified Purchase
This book sums up everything very concisely. It's a very easy read and what he says makes perfect sense. It's utterly ridiculous and somewhat comical how our desire for cheap food is ruining everything from our health to the land, and is running small farmers out of business. News flash, we need small farmers as our last hope for non-industrialized food that's making us all sick. As a lifelong urbanite, this book was an awakening from the iPhone-induced slumber I've been in. If we don't want industry controlling us, we need to do something about it. Spend some time finding local, organic, sustainably-raised food. What we're putting into the complex biological system that is our bodies is surely more important than a new car or an electronic trinket?! Where are our priorities?!
One person found this helpful
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Amanda Prevost
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on July 19, 2017
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