Happy, Healthy--You Are What You Eat

Vetter Beef starts with a crossbreed of Holstein and Black Angus. The cows graze in free-range pasture and are fed a blend of grasses from the farm with high quality, all natural minerals, vitamins, and amino acids, filling their complete nutrition requirements every day.

(This article was written for and appeared originally in The WEDGE Newspaper, August/September 2021 issue)

When Bob Vetter was a boy growing up in rural New York, farms fascinated him. His family didn’t farm, but one down the road did, and he started visiting, watching the activity, learning about the animals. That family put him to work, and he knew he wanted to work with farms for the rest of his life.

As Vetter continued learning and working with other farms, he became a Registered Animal Scientist with the American Registry of Professional Animal Scientists (ARPAS) and a Livestock Nutritional Consultant. His focus was on family farms and helping them with better production, healthier animals and “believing in family farming” that could compete in larger agriculture markets.

Along the way, Vetter discovered that he was feeling sick when he ate mass-market beef, suspecting additives in the meat as the culprit. So, he set up an experiment. He purchased his own cow and raised it on the diet he prescribed to many of his clients: grass, hay, and alfalfa supplemented with amino acids and all-natural mineral and vitamin supplements; no hormones, no antibiotics, no animal by-products.

“Cows have nutritional requirements for their bodies just like we do,” Vetter notes. “It stands to reason that the more nutritious the food for the cows, the more nutritious the beef will be for humans.”

He had the beef processed, ate that, and was no longer sick. At that point Vetter decided to raise his own cows.

Bob Vetter shows one component of what the cows eat daily. Alfalfa and hay are stored in silos and ferment naturally, providing nutrients and probiotics, aiding digestion, and keeping the cows happy.

One of his clients purchased a dairy farm between Avon and Honeoye Falls in 1955. For over a decade Joe Mroczek and his son Andy have used Vetter’s consulting service to enhance and optimize feeding and production for their herd of Holsteins, but the farm has been scaling back milk production little by little due to society’s waning demand for milk products.

“COVID was the final nail in the coffin,” says Andy.

It turns out that school systems are the biggest consumers of milk, and with the closure of schools last year for remote learning, the family made the difficult decision to cease operations.

About the same time, Vetter was looking for a new location for his small herd of beef cattle in the Finger Lakes that would be closer to his home in Avon. One day he stopped at the Mroczek farm with a proposal that would keep him closer to his family and keep the Mroczek farm operating. 

“Today’s start-up costs for a farm, well, it just isn’t feasible,” Vetter says. “Combining my business with Andy’s is allowing us to grow at a rapid rate.”

Andy agrees, adding, “An empty barn deteriorates.” Having activity in the buildings and animals in the pasture keeps the farm functional and healthy. The farm also produces wheat, corn, soy, and hay for feed, rotating the fields for optimum quality and soil health. In fact, Mroczek Farm received an award in the 1980s for its environmental conservation practices.

The new partnership, a combined total of 100 years of farm experience, will continue the commitment to cleanliness, quality, and sustainability utilizing the systems already in place for silos, pastures, barns, and feed. They are also using crossbred cattle, Holstein (dairy) and Black Angus (beef.) This combination produces hybrid vigor: bringing out best traits of the breeds while decreasing the worst traits. In this case the result is excellent marbling in a lean meat that enhances flavor and tenderness without a heavy outer covering of fat.

Vetter adds, “Everyone wants Black Angus, but I’ve eaten some tough Black Angus. I’ll put my steak up against a Black Angus steak anytime.”

Working together is keeping two businesses going:  a 66-year-old family farm and a growing beef business. The partners are, from left to right, Andy Mroczek, Joe Mroczek, and Bob Vetter with his sons Evan and Wyatt.

Each day the cows on this farm are checked and walked to confirm overall health and are fed a largely home-grown diet with a complete nutrition package. Their bedding is natural hay, and barns are cleaned daily with the manure carted to a separate pit to use for crop fertilizer. Cows are put into the free-range pasture in the morning and wander back into the barn out of the mid-day sun, where water and fresh hay are available for grazing. When the cows are sent for processing, it’s to a local, relatively small USDA-inspected facility.

In the barns, the lights and noises are low. The cows are serene—curious about visitors, but not anxious or jostling or bellowing. Humans in the barns speak in quiet tones and move slowly. This is by design, according to Vetter. The calmer, less-stressed the cows are, the happier they are, and this is reflected in the end product. 

“When you buy ground beef in grocery stores and fast food, chances are much of it comes from a big facility that processes large quantities of meat a day,” explains Vetter. “You don’t know where it came from or what the animals have been through. It makes a difference in what you’re eating.”

 Vetter says that working with his farm clients and seeing their commitments to quality food led him to “want better” for his wife, Jessica, and two sons, Evan and Wyatt. He says each day inspires him to provide not only a living, but an improved quality of life for his family, the animals, and for his clients and customers.  

Beef from Vetter’s can be purchased at the South Wedge Farmers Market (see the SWFM Facebook page to see when he’ll be there,) through the website www.VettersBeef.com, and at Weaver’s Farm Market in Canandaigua.

Lento Restaurant and its Locally Grown Commitment

"Lento" means "slow-paced," and from day one, this restaurant committed to the farm to table, slow food philosophy. This article was published in the August/September 2018 issue of The Wedge newspaper. 

In 1986, McDonald’s opened its largest restaurant to that date, in Rome on the popular Piazza di Spagna, one block from the historic Spanish Steps. Romans—and Italians—were outraged. To a culture so interwoven with its revered familial culinary heritage, the brash arrival of the world’s epitome of cheap, fast, mass-produced meals was a stunning wake-up call.

Italian activist and journalist Carlo Petrini organized a movement to protest this trend and, in a nutshell, promote and preserve traditional farming, crops, livestock, preparation methods, and recipes. This was the Slow Food movement which made its way throughout the world.

Around this same time in the United States, a chef/restaurateur named Alice Waters became one of the first American chefs to seek out, use, and promote locally grown, organic produce and meats.  Her restaurant, Chez Panisse in Berkeley, led this trend, which eventually morphed into what is now “farm to table” and “farm to fork.”  Google this in Rochester, NY, and several choices will pop up. One of those is Lento at Village Gate.

Art Rogers, owner/chef, Lento Restaurant

Art Rogers, Lento chef/owner, says that 11 years ago when he opened the restaurant, he was all-in with the local food movement and applying it to his business. After studying Hospitality Management at the University of New Hampshire, he went to Maine to see a restaurant called Primo. This was a “full farm restaurant” where everything from herbs to livestock was grown on the premises and provided the restaurant fare, in effect, a restaurant on a farm. Anything the farm didn’t produce was purchased from nearby farmers and purveyors. Rogers was enchanted, spent the next three years at Primo, then returned to Rochester to open Lento.

He began by connecting with farmers, but many didn’t want to work with restaurants, finding them too demanding. Now, Rogers says farmers are calling him, which gives him a wider range of ingredients (meats and greens in particular,) gives the farmer a steady income stream, and gives the diners better quality and more choices on the menu.

The influx of locally sourced food keeps Rogers and his staff inspired, too. With area farmers making use of greenhouses to extend the growing season, he can design the menu with what is available on any given week, but also plan ahead for fresh items coming. For instance, he likes working with root vegetables, potatoes, and onions, and those are available locally all year.

“We get to change it up all the time,” Rogers says. “Especially when you know the new stuff is coming, like corn about this time of year. That first hit is really special. Or the first batch of cherry tomatoes. I feel like I have to get my hands on them right away. It’s better when you’ve waited for it.”

Critics of the farm-to-table movement say that it is pretentious and caters to the wealthy class. From this perspective luxe farm dinners with high price tags have become trendy, rather than making “real food” more accessible to those in need. In fact, one downstate restaurant charges a non-refundable, advance payment of $258 per person for a meal at their own farm, with wine pairing an additional $168.

Rogers doesn’t agree with the criticism but says it is a “grey area.” Because he works with individual farmers and fresh, high quality foods, his costs are higher than if he were to order from a distributor buying large quantities from industrial agriculture companies.

Currently 100 percent of Lento’s meat is sourced locally all year, as are their salad greens. In July through October, at least 95 percent of the remaining menu ingredients are local, but in March and April the selections are understandably limited. Rogers lists Lento’s farmers and purveyors on the website, www.LentoRestaurant.com, so customers can see the local names and places behind their meals.

“Restaurants will post a sign that says, ‘We use local when available.’ That’s a clue that it’s not really local,” he explains. “If people were really educated on the food system, they would want to eat like this [farm-to-table.] But now costs are costs, and people don’t always care where their food comes from. The food system is broken. We eat too much meat, but it’s cheaper than produce. It’s upside down. Farm-to-table and Slow Food shouldn’t be ‘a movement.’ It’s the way people should be eating.”

In 2015, Lento Restaurant was nominated for a James Beard Award, the only restaurant in Rochester to achieve this. Lento is located at 274 N. Goodman St. For reservations or more information, call (585) 271-3470 or visit www.lentorestaurant.com.

Article and all photos by Glynis Valenti

Food Security, Part 2

This feature installment appeared in the Times Leader on Sunday, April 19, and is the continuation of last week's "Food Security" feature on this site. 

Family farming has been on the decline in the past few decades, but the smaller, local farms would be vital during an emergency that could raise food costs or stop production, such as drought and earthquakes in major agricultural areas of the United States to South America. Fresh, locally grown produce is available at the Ohio Valley Farmers Market twice a week from June until October.   

The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations identifies several global challenges to food security which could have local impact. Water deficits and shortages are appearing throughout the world and affecting grain production in some of the most populated countries, including China and India. Closer to home, California has instituted a statewide mandatory 25 percent water use reduction to conserve what the drought-ridden state has available.  Climate change and the extreme weather events (like droughts and floods) associated with it is another challenge on the FAO list.

Though originally intended to optimize food production for growing world populations, industrial agriculture has instead become a threat to food security, according to the FAO. Large scale mono-cropping, or planting one type of crop on the same land over consecutive years, depletes the soil of valuable nutrients and increases the risk of pests and diseases. As a result, more pesticides and fertilizers are necessary.

Livestock raised on feedlots instead of pasture land are fed cheap chemically-enhanced grain-based diets instead of grass and hay. They may be given growth hormones to get them to market sooner and antibiotics to stave off diseases inherent in poor quality living conditions and breeding practices. The FAO’s concerns relate to industrial agriculture’s creating hazards for the environment, water supplies and even the food itself. 

Kacey Orr of Grow Ohio Valley presents information on trends in farming at a recent conference on local food security.  

Ohio Valley experts believe that stepping up production here would be a start in addressing the food security issue. Susan West, owner of Lone Oak Farms and founder of the Ohio Valley Farmers Market (www.ovfarmersmarket.org,) thinks self-reliance, especially in the event of an emergency, begins with more farmers.

“There are not enough producers to sustain this region should we have to depend on ourselves. I believe the majority of the people in the Ohio Valley are uneducated about the need to secure our food supply. Years of access to food shipped from around the world and never dealing with a food being 'out of season' have contributed to people's lack of understanding about where their food is produced,” West explains. “At one time, the Ohio Valley had many small produce farmers and orchardists. Those numbers have fallen off in recent years as older farmers retire or pass away. I have seen a recent but small resurgence in interest in growing food.”

Holmes agrees with West.

“On the community resiliency side we need more farmers. The average US farmer is nearly 60 years old, and there are not enough new people entering the business,” he says. “Fortunately the type of small-scale, diversified farming necessary for true security is becoming profitable again for the first time in decades, so there is opportunity for those who are interested. We also need people to grow more food--in their backyard, the terrace of their apartment, in community gardens--everywhere.”

And that is where Kacey Orr and Grow Ohio Valley can be of assistance. The nonprofit is tackling two challenges related to food security, in part with assistance from a national “Local Foods, Local Places” grant awarded in December.

“Food security starts at a local level when we learn to eat locally and seasonally. Then we don’t depend as strongly on other geographic locations or decrease fossil fuel use by transporting food long distances,” notes Orr. “[Currently] there are not enough local food producers. There are some dairies and livestock farms in the area, but there are fewer farms focused on growing local produce. In addition, people also need to be educated on the importance of healthy food options. Health is a major concern. Grow Ohio Valley puts a great emphasis on education and teaching children and adults about farming, gardening, and healthy food.” 

Grow Ohio Valley has constructed a greenhouse in downtown Wheeling that will help supply flowers and produce for their distribution programs. Kacey Orr notes that they mixed all of the potting soil themselves by purchasing the organic ingredients, saving hundreds of dollars. The greenhouse was designed using the angles of the sun to maximize light and heat and utilizes found materials to minimize costs and environmental impact. 

Grow OV already has an urban farm, a mobile farm market that visits area sites with fresh produce, a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) membership program, children’s programs with Head Start and churches and a new downtown greenhouse growing seedlings and tomatoes now.

With the new grant, Peralta explained at the conference, Grow OV has secured two tracts of land on Wheeling’s Vineyard Hill over the Ft. Henry Tunnel. They will be planting apple and berry orchards on one tract and use the other as a demonstration and interactive farm for educating students. Peralta says there will be crops and animals at the farm to illustrate a sustainable and interconnected system.

Sister Kathleen Durkin, CSJ, says the Sisters of St. Joseph organized and hosted the recent conference to raise awareness and start an open discussion about food security.

“For me, the first priority would be assuring that food is a right and not a privilege and that nutritious food is essential for healthy brain development from early childhood on,” Sr. Kathleen continues. “Food security means that children and families can count on having enough food to meet even their basic needs. To be food insecure doesn't necessarily mean not having any food, but not enough food.  Beyond that, to be food-secure means also having access to healthy foods which provide the necessary nutrients for health and well-being.”

She shared a story of stopping a woman walking along the road alone. The woman was on her way to the grocery store--five miles away. Durkin drove her to the store and realized how lack of transportation affects people on the outskirts of town and their access to food.

“I believe we need to be awakened to this issue for many reasons, the first being that of our common, shared humanity...people who lack food security are our brothers and sisters. We are one!” she adds. “The health and well-being of generations to come depends on access to affordable, nutritious food and education about how to benefit from it.  The development and potential of children are influenced by a nutritious diet.”

Numerous studies show that good nutrition makes a noticeable difference in a child’s ability to concentrate, behave, learn and perform better in school. Some eligible schools are now offering breakfast, lunch, a snack and dinner for students at no or reduced charge. For some students, their only food comes from the school.

“For individuals and families the root causes of food insecurity stem from poverty, and children are hit particularly hard,” Holmes notes. “Hungry kids have a hard time learning. They do poorly in school, and the cycle of poverty continues. Programs like free hot breakfast, after school meals, and the [weekend] backpack program help, but in the long term we need to strengthen our local economy.”  

Part of Grow Ohio Valley’s mission is education for children and adults. These are “seed balls” ready for one of the children’s interactive programs that demonstrates gardening.  

While the food situation is far from secure, more customers are visiting the Ohio Valley Farmers Market  and are taking an interest in county extension Master Gardener programs such as the St. Clairsville community garden, as well as classes at Oglebay’s Schrader Environmental Education Center (www.oionline.com.) Grow OV has enlisted new farmer/suppliers for this season’s produce and will be expanding their educational opportunities.

“I think it is important to know that the issue of food security and access to healthy, local food is a movement that is happening all over the country,” Sr. Kathleen concludes. “A parallel benefit is that it’s promoting relationships and building community among individuals and groups of people who we might not otherwise have the privilege of knowing. The issue of food security and nutritious, local food is a context for lifting up and celebrating the gifts, creativity and generosity of local community members.”

Food Security, Part 1

The following is a feature article that appeared in the Sunday, April 12 Times Leader. As with most global issues, it is complicated and huge. I wrote the piece as an introduction to promote thought and attention toward something that affects everyone at some level.  

Almost 90 million acres of corn is grown in the United States, 40 percent of the world’s total. The majority of the crop is used for livestock feed (43 percent) and ethanol (30 percent,) and only 3 percent is grown for human consumption.

If there were an earthquake or other disaster that rendered the area inaccessible, how would Ohio Valley residents get food? What if fires, drought or an earthquake destroyed crops in California, Mexico or Chile where much of the Ohio Valley’s—and United States’—food is grown? Even though there is food available now, how many people know families or elderly neighbors who are not able to provide enough food for their households, or cannot provide nutritious food on a regular basis?

Food security is a growing concern throughout the world. Its definition, per the 1996 World Food Summit and echoed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA,) is “when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”  USDA research indicates that, in 2012, 49 million people did not have households with food security, including 8.3 million children.

Experts have decided on four pillars with which to measure food security: availability, access, utilization and stability. Availability pertains to food supply and its production, distribution and exchange or trading systems. It begins with the soil—or pasture or feedlot—and ends at the cash register. It encompasses what farmers plant or raise, how food is fertilized and watered, how it is harvested and transported to be distributed or sold, and how it is packaged and marketed to consumers.

Research has found that poverty more than scarcity affects access to food. Is food affordable? How much food can a family afford? Is the food they can afford nutritious? Direct access to food means that a household can grow its own (vegetables, fruits, or livestock) in order to sustain a healthy diet. Economic access means that food is grown somewhere else and purchased by the consumer. 

Ken Peralta, director of Grow Ohio Valley, explains the importance of developing more agriculture programs and training the next generation in how to grow food. The Sisters of St. Joseph recently hosted the conference on food security, “Growing Food, Health and Hope,” at which Peralta spoke.

Utilization of food is basically the dietary habits of the households and whether the food eaten is safe to eat (regarding freshness and proper handling) and whether it meets recommended requirements for nutrients and dietary restrictions. Families below the poverty level may only purchase “cheap” processed food because of its low cost, but much of it is high in sugar and low in nutrients, creating long-term health issues.

Stability means that the household is able to have access to available, nourishing food over an extended time. It may be affected by weather, growing seasons or natural disasters in the overall picture or by individual issues like unemployment or illness in the household.    

How is the food security issue relevant to the Ohio Valley? First, this region ranks consistently above the national average in diagnoses and deaths from diabetes and cardiopulmonary disease. Low incomes and high poverty rates have helped create the habit of purchasing inexpensive, highly processed food in boxes and packages. Processing and chemicals diminish the nutritional value of the food, and cheap additives like high fructose corn syrup only enhance the flavor and add calories. The body, however, isn’t receiving the nutrients it requires and stays “hungry” while chemicals that it can’t use in the food pass through the digestive system or spark undesirable reactions (like inflammation response.)

Sugar in particular causes the body to crave more food; people respond by eating more processed food, increasing calories and perpetuating the unhealthy cycle. This has become so prevalent that, at the recent “Growing Food, Health and Hope” conference sponsored by the St. Joseph Retreat Center in Wheeling, Kate Long of Try This West Virginia stated that a study of 11 year-olds in West Virginia determined one out of four (25 percent) has high blood pressure. 

Buying locally grown berries not only supports a local family, but is healthier food. Produce harvested that day or the day before still has most of its valuable nutrients. Produce picked in South America a week before arriving in stores has most likely lost much of its nutritional value, and the money spent goes to large corporations.

As far as food supply and availability, as mentioned, much of the Ohio Valley’s food comes from at least 1,000 miles away. This gives local consumers less control over their food supply, and the longer the time between harvest and table, the fewer nutrients the food retains. By the time tomatoes or blueberries arrive in stores from the west coast or South America, as much as 50 percent or more of the nutritional value is gone. Relying on long-distance production also uses more fossil fuels for transportation. Oil price fluctuations often affect food prices for this reason. By purchasing from local growers who have harvested within the past 48 hours, consumers can nearly double the food’s value to the body. Buying local also keeps money in the area, while purchasing from large retailers takes money from this community.

Ken Peralta, director of Grow Ohio Valley (www.growov.org) who also spoke at the conference, noted that Walmart controls one out of six food dollars in the United States. While the Ohio Valley is somewhat rural-- especially Belmont, Harrison, Monroe and Guernsey Counties—there are fewer than 11 acres being farmed for vegetables in Ohio County, and fruit orchards have moved out of the area. Peralta and Brandon Holmes, policy analyst for West Virginia Food & Farm Coalition, conducted a study that found that increasing consumption of locally produced food by 10 percent would create nearly 400 jobs in production, processing, distribution and other industries in the Ohio Valley.

“It’s great that we can get relatively fresh produce in the middle of February here in the Ohio Valley, and in very real and important ways that adds to our food security,” Holmes says. “But 1,500 miles becomes a lot farther away in the event of a spike in fuel prices, drought, hurricane, etc. One reason to be concerned right now is the severe drought affecting many key growing regions in California, the southwest, and Mexico. Producers there are adapting, and prices have remained stable, but it shows how vulnerable we are by having all of our eggs in just a few baskets. As production shifts in the West, local farmers can cash in on new opportunities, and make our area more resilient in the process. Having more food production capacity here in the area would boost our ability to withstand problems in the international food supply, while still enjoying food from all over the world.” 

(Part 2 will be published in the Sunday, April 19 edition of the Times Leader and posted here next week.)

The number of small dairy and beef farms is decreasing in the Ohio Valley as farmers age and their children opt for non-farming careers. Fewer farms mean  less food and food security in the event of an emergency.