This man wants to change the world. Jonathan Lewis is on a mission, one he fell into by accident but that he’s adopted with the vigor of a religious pilgrim. He is willing to educate one person at a time to fulfill his dream of people knowing, truly knowing, where their food comes from.
He says “good food does not come cheap.” Simply put, yet his point highlights the disparity between the have and have-nots in this country, the sick and the healthy, those with access to ‘good food’ and those without. As one of the growing number who understands that this nation must change its food ways, he advocates that it can—if consumers take action with our wallets. If only a fraction of us banded together we could hold food chains accountable for how animals are raised, slaughtered and packaged.
His equation is simple: consumer demand + thriving family farms = good food for all. His meat CSA, Pastoral Plate, is a tiny operation, and most definitely not a big money venture. He is working for 'social capital'-- making sure truly organic farmers stay in business and that the community is made better by those businesses. He doesn’t just talk the talk, he puts his money where his mouth is. He has invested in a chicken farm and expects to be paid not in fat dividends, but in fat chickens. Yes. He expects to be paid in fowl.
Jonathan wants to understand why, for a culture that claims to understand the need for local, organic, sustainable foods there is a disconnect between that and our real life actions (he uses the bestseller status of The Omnivores Dilemma as an example). He wants people to understand how our food becomes our food. He wants everyone to visit the farms where there food is from. In his opinion, if you can’t visit the farm, you shouldn't be eating it.
Now that's free range!
The Pastoral Plate website contains not just cute pictures of chickens, but a full blown manifesto that states: “The goal of Pastoral Plate is to bring people together so that we can act collectively to influence the quality of our food, and work to improve the functioning of our local food economy.” He believes that “consumers are the most potent force in the food supply chain – but only if we want to be.” Unfortunately however, most Americans have become lazy and ignorant when it comes to their food sources. We put the power in someone else’s hands, trusting that we would be given back good product. But that has led to giant agribusiness with one concern: profit.
Since the health of consumers and communities is not a concern in the big American food production chain, Lewis suggests we go around that system and straight to the source. The farms he works with are all family owned and operated. He acknowledges that these farms are in “a tough and exacting business; and they need our support.” Pastoral Plate supports these farms and strengthens the community by having created “a simple and transparent distribution method” that ensures your food has not been “polluted, poisoned, diluted, mislabeled, or obscured while traveling through the industrialized distribution chain” of standard food production.
He is charming, affable and adamant. Adamant that: we need to know, we need to take responsibility for knowing and we need to speak up. Above all he is a proponent of asking questions. Where does the food come from, why is it raised in the way it is, who butchers it and how? Because ultimately he believes you should be “connected, involved and informed.”
Get in on Jonathan’s mission here.
