Whether you are a carnivore, vegetarian or vegan (stay away from seed oils and soy) you too need The Beef Initiative to succeed. Yeah, I said it, you need them and they need you. The Beef Initiative is not just for pushing a meat only agenda, they are pushing for people to reclaim ownership of their food supply and use food intelligence in decision making. This does not always mean growing your own food, it could mean something as simple as opting for buying your meat/dairy/produce from a local farmer or farmers market. From the short time I have been on board and from following them on twitter, I can say with full confidence that they are for decentralized food supplies first. No matter your dieting preferences or needs, you need projects like this to succeed if you want to keep eating real food, because if we let large corporations take over, we won’t be eating real food in the decades to come. Even a 5 minute dive into large scale ag and you will see how gross it is. It’s riddled with disease, chemicals and shady biz practices. It’s enough to make you want to just try your hand at growing everything yourself.

But back to the Beef Initiative…

Small scale ag does a couple of things, the biggest of which involves removing middlemen from you and the end product. Removing middlemen allows one, as the consumer, to find all the goods they could need at a fraction of the cost. This means that the eggs you wanted, or the potatoes you wanted, could be purchased from a local farmer for a fraction of the cost. It’s a win/win, you get good quality product for the low, and the farmer keeps his lights on. Building a small circular economy this way is perfect for avoiding price hikes in large supermarkets, supply chain issues and continuing to feed a machine that doesn’t value your patronage. But what does this have to do with beef if I don’t eat meat? Bullshit.. literally, manure. I’m by no means a professional farmer or gardener, but from what I have seen and read, organic material helps the world go round. It is not just limited to poop, when any living thing dies it is absorbed into the soil and does what nature does, it gives back. It’s called the circle of life. So if you think you don’t need projects like The Beef Initiative just because you don’t eat meat, you are delusional.

Another reason to love small scale ag is the community that can get built around supporting local farmers and farmers markets, not only does it create pressure for the bigger guys it also allows you choice of who to support. Building these communities strengthens bonds that you don’t get when all you do is buy from large faceless corporations that offer little to no transparency into their operation. And finally, the quality is going to be better, the grass fed beef will taste better, the organic tomatoes will be more red, the eggs will have the proper colored yolk, none of this pale yellow business.

So as a vegan I’m telling you, if you want to continue to eat real food (no need oils, no soy) just 100% organic whatever, it is in your best interest to support these grass roots projects, whether they line up with your dieting preferences or not.