Food, Farms and Chickens

As I have got older, I have become increasingly concerned about food.

Now, a part of that involves me probably eating too much of it, but that is not all.

No, the main concern is the industrialisation of our food. This industrialisation invariably involves highly processed items on super market shelves, with ingredient labels that only a chemist would understand.

But this is only the final product. What we don’t see or connect with that product is the process of how it got there.

We don’t see the monoculture and the loss of biodiversity
We don’t see polluted waterways
We don’t see shrinking rural communities
We don’t see the rise and dominance of huge corporations that control the food chain
We don’t recognise the unnaturalness of much of this food production

At River Valley, we are in our own s,mall way doing something about it. Our vegetable gardens produce most of the fresh leafy materials in our salads. Our free range hens produce those richly coloured, oh so tasty eggs you find in the dishes on our breakfast menu.

Small beginnings we know, but steps on a path to real food.

Brian Megaw