LavaLakeLamb.com
Archived Ranch News
11/09/2006 - What's for Dinner?
Kathleen Bean
What's For Dinner?
Rylee and Olivia Brown and Emily Boettger enjoy play time in our organic alfalfa field on Chef's Field Day at Lava Lake.
As Michael Pollan points out in his excellent book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, deciding what to eat has become a complicated and stress-inducing question for many of us. Increasingly, we want to understand where our food came from, who raised it, and how. We find ourselves asking, will eating this enhance my health or make me sick? If we are eating meat, we want to believe that the animals were raised humanely, enjoyed sunshine and open spaces, and ate feed that hadn't been treated with poisons. We want to know the story of our food, and feel good about serving it to our families.
Increasingly, labels and marketing slogans don't answer those questions for us. Words like "free range" and "all natural" aren't quantifiable. Even the term "organic" doesn't tell the whole story -- animals may be raised according to organic standards but never leave the confines of their feed lot.
So it is probably worth telling our story once again. Our lambs are raised in the southern Pioneer Mountains of Idaho, just outside Sun Valley. They are born in the winter at our ranch at Lava Lake, and turned out with their mothers on certified organic alfalfa pasture and range land. In the spring and summer they range over several thousand acres, eating a combination of alfalfa and wild herbs and grasses.
We breed the majority of our own ewes and when we buy new ewes and bucks, they are tested thoroughly to ensure that their health is excellent. Our veterinarian, Doc Yoder, is one of the foremost sheep vets in the country and we consult with him regularly to ensure that our practices are the best they can be and that our sheep are thriving. And our herders are constantly assessing the health and well-being of the sheep and take tremendous pride in raising the finest lamb in the region. Other than using cell phones and pick-up trucks, we are raising lamb pretty much the way it has been raised for centuries by cultures all over the world.
This is a story you can count on. When you serve Lava Lake Lamb, you are supporting local agriculture and putting safe, healthy food on the table. We feel good about our story, and hope you do, too.
