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There's nothing like a case of Mad Cow disease to help focus everyone's attention on what and how they eat. Many of the issues and concerns raised by the discovery of one cow with the disease have been of concern to thoughtful eaters for quite some time prior to the discovery, but clearly the publicity and media focus on this has helped to direct the eating public's attention to the issues of food safety and animal welfare. One cow does not an epidemic make, and many people have not adjusted their eating habits at all. Whether or not more cases are discovered, this incident will almost certainly cause many people to think a little more about where and how their food is raised.

Some of the media publicity has focused on unimportant issues. Whether the cow was born and raised in Canada or the US, the trading links between our two countries are so complex and intertwined, and the documentation of livestock so poor, that few us will rest easier knowing that the cow in question was Canadian in origin. Proposed legislation which would require meat in supermarkets to be labeled by country of origin implies that beef raised in this country is safer, which is not necessarily the case at all.

Those who thought that the horrors of the meatpacking industry, described by Upton Sinclair at the turn of the last century in The Jungle, were ancient history were not doubt shocked to learn of Kafkaesque machines which strip all remaining flesh off of bones, of calves being fed blood from slaughtered cows as a substitute for milk, and that the remains of ground up chickens and pigs, as well as their feces, are mixed into cattle feed. Whether these practices contribute to the spread of mad cow disease or not, consumers are justifiably repulsed by these practices.

We have come a long way from the idyllic ages described by the Poets and Prophets, when shepherds tended their flocks in the fields. Almost none of the commercial raised livestock in this country grazes on the range, and most animals rarely even see the open sky. I am not one who believes that eating animals is fundamentally unnatural. Big fish eat little fish, predators eat smaller animals, and homo Sapiens are clearly omnivores. It is the way of the jungle. But you don't have to be an animal rights extremist to recognize that most of the commercial livestock in this country is raised in appalling conditions. If these animals didn't literally live in and eat their own feces, they wouldn't require so many anti-biotics. It is one thing to conscientiously raise animals for consumption, it is quite another to torture them in the process. The agro-industrial complex which controls the production of most of the food in this country has so far been largely blind to these concerns up until now. But even McDonald's has succumbed to pressure from consumer activists, and has insisted on larger cages for the chickens they buy from farmers. This would have been unthinkable just a few short years ago

Despite the efforts of groups promoting locally produced food in this area, the economics of livestock production and the high cost of land in New England mean that the quantity of locally and humanely raised beef will almost certainly remain very small, even at significantly higher prices. But if consumers are concerned about having alternatives to the industrially produced food in this country, it is critical for them to seek out and support the efforts of groups like Berkshire Grown and the New England Heritage Breed Conservancy, and others who ethically raise livestock.

This is precisely one of the points of a dinner sponsored by Berkshire Grown, to be held at Castle Street Cafe Thursday February 5th. Even in the dead of winter in the Berkshires, it is possible to serve a 4 course meal, made almost exclusively with food grown or produced locally. The entree will feature organically raised beef from Foggy River Farm in Great Barrington, and will also include a Berkshire cheese course, and a warm apple crisp made from local apples, and served with Berkshire Ice Cream For information, call Castle Street Cafe at 413-528-5244.