BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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I don't think that working the meat counter is immoral at all. Working in the marketing department at Whole Foods? Maybe. When I first started contemplating getting back into agriculture our ranch was really struggling financially and so I started looking into things like organic, natural, grass fed, etc. as a value add to our beef. When I did research and really got into it, I realized that it was mostly bullshit (grass fed tastes a bit different than grain fed, but aside from that it's all bullshit). It also seemed like a huge pain in the ass and not really practical for a ranch of our size which made the decision easier, but I felt like if I were to sell our stuff as truly premium and healthier than other beef, I would be a lying scumbag.
Now marketing is always full of bullshit. Meaningless words like "premium", "grade A", "heavy duty" etc are all marketing words that mean absolutely nothing and everyone knows it, but when you start to imply that your competitor's product is unhealthy, dangerous, or immoral based on zero evidence, that is fucking slander. Maybe those amazing local farmers really believe in what they are doing, but I am willing to bet that a lot of them are cynical assholes that are cashing in on dumbass city folks that are paying double because the shit is coming from one of the "good farmers" and not some evil money-grubbing corporate slimeball that they have been told the shit in the grocery store comes from.
Back to me. We have always saved a couple cows to fatten and butcher each year for our own meat and to help out family members that work on the ranch during the year. The last few years, with the help of my aunt, we have also expanded this to sell some grass fed beef to people we don't know. If you have a family to feed and the freezer space, you can save a lot of money by buying half a beef direct from the ranch and cut to your specifications. We sell to people who just have big families and want to save money, but also to a few people who want to think that they are doing something morally good and healthy by buying beef direct from us. They ask about hormones and antibiotics and always make sure to say "thank you for being a good farmer" and all that shit. When I delivered one woman's beef last month she told me that they had run out of our meat from the previous year a month or so earlier and she said "I ate hamburger from the grocery store and it made me throw up". Now from a financial standpoint, I'm not motivated to convince her that she is a fucking nutjob and my hamburger isn't that different from the stuff at the market, but on the other hand, there is zero doubt in my mind that she is off her rocker thinking that supermarket beef somehow caused her to vomit because of any real difference. It feels good to think that you are providing a magical miraculous product that people love, but I also don't believe it myself. It's easy to see how people could sort of slip into hypocrisy doing this kind of thing, but I also think some of them are just flat out shysters.
Now marketing is always full of bullshit. Meaningless words like "premium", "grade A", "heavy duty" etc are all marketing words that mean absolutely nothing and everyone knows it, but when you start to imply that your competitor's product is unhealthy, dangerous, or immoral based on zero evidence, that is fucking slander. Maybe those amazing local farmers really believe in what they are doing, but I am willing to bet that a lot of them are cynical assholes that are cashing in on dumbass city folks that are paying double because the shit is coming from one of the "good farmers" and not some evil money-grubbing corporate slimeball that they have been told the shit in the grocery store comes from.
Back to me. We have always saved a couple cows to fatten and butcher each year for our own meat and to help out family members that work on the ranch during the year. The last few years, with the help of my aunt, we have also expanded this to sell some grass fed beef to people we don't know. If you have a family to feed and the freezer space, you can save a lot of money by buying half a beef direct from the ranch and cut to your specifications. We sell to people who just have big families and want to save money, but also to a few people who want to think that they are doing something morally good and healthy by buying beef direct from us. They ask about hormones and antibiotics and always make sure to say "thank you for being a good farmer" and all that shit. When I delivered one woman's beef last month she told me that they had run out of our meat from the previous year a month or so earlier and she said "I ate hamburger from the grocery store and it made me throw up". Now from a financial standpoint, I'm not motivated to convince her that she is a fucking nutjob and my hamburger isn't that different from the stuff at the market, but on the other hand, there is zero doubt in my mind that she is off her rocker thinking that supermarket beef somehow caused her to vomit because of any real difference. It feels good to think that you are providing a magical miraculous product that people love, but I also don't believe it myself. It's easy to see how people could sort of slip into hypocrisy doing this kind of thing, but I also think some of them are just flat out shysters.
