A Frequently Asked Question: Why are your products so expensive?
We’d like to reframe that question: What is our food WORTH?
Five Food Values Worth Investing In through Wingham Farms:
- Health and Nutrition: The animals’ and yours! Our cows, goats, pigs, sheep, chickens and ducks are on pasture every day, eating the diets natural to their bodies. Studies of “grass fed/grass finished” or “pastured” meat, eggs, and dairy consistently suggest that such produce is richer in nutrition – from more Omega-3 fatty acids and beta-carotene to extra vitamins and healthy collagen. We don’t use antibiotics, pesticides, or hormones, to help protect our animals and customers from harmful chemicals and superbugs. The meat sections of our FAQ sheet cites relevant nutrition research, if you would like to learn more.
- The Taste of the Food: Growing slowly and living naturally – able to run around, find lots of their own food, and engage in normal activities, with minimal stress or pain – our animals produce extra flavor in their meat, milk, and eggs and avoid “off” flavors from difficult environments, additives, or unnatural diets (cows, goats and sheep are ruminants – meant to eat pasture, not grain!).
- The Texture of the Food: With their natural diet and ability to run, leap and flap, our animals develop lean muscle with texture, unlike the mushy meat of factory-farming. We advise our customers on how to cook our meat – to yield its resources and use all parts of the animal – in rich and interesting dishes like collagen-rich ragù or bone-broth minestrone. Ask us for recipes! Cheese makers also love the intact protein structure of our raw milk, while bakers value our fresh, golden-yolked eggs for their strong protein structure (and rich color and flavor!)
- The Ethics of your Choices: We raise solar-collecting carbon sequestering critters that convert the energy from plant foods you cannot process (like grass, leaves, thistles…) into foods you can eat. Why feed your animals corn and soy when you can eat those directly? And unlike most commercial operations, we welcome customers to visit the farm and see how healthy, happy, and well cared-for our animals are.
- The Environment: Our farm is on low-lying creek-side land (Jory clay soil) that is best suited for pasture, not arable crops. We manage grazing with our varied species that enjoy different plants, rather than overgrazing or mono-cropping. Our abundant pastures help absorb methane from manure and sequester carbon, much like trees do. We also have set aside 20% of our land (in cooperation with the Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District) for a long-term project of growing native trees and shrubs to protect the creek banks from erosion and shade the water, and to provide habitat for insects and birds.
Sure… eggs, milk, and meat in the grocery store cost less in dollars for the consumer, but someone or something is paying a price for all the corners that are cut in raising that “cheap” food. There is a better way – rich in nutrition, taste, and texture while being honest to ethics and the future of the land. We invite you to try out our products today and join us in our farming project!
See our farm website FAQ page and the “Farming and Health” article for details and citation of this information.
What’s it worth to you? 105 Foods!