Three Things

People who know me well laugh when they see email from me with something like "Three Things" in the subject line.

They laugh because they know I wrote that to help me remember to get to everything I wanted to share in the email.  I am famously easy to self-sidetrack.

They laugh because they know I probably started out with "One Thing" in the subject line and then had to revise it a couple of times as I remembered more things I wanted needed to tell them.

This enumeration technique works fairly well for emails so I figured to try it here and we'll see if I can stay on track for what I want to do with this post.  

Three things in particular caught my eye today.  One is a some very good news I wanted to share, one is a bit of wisdom that helped me a great deal, and the last is an idea I want to recommend to you whole heartedly.

First the good news.  The Pundits of Pudge have revised how much weight the typical adult gains during the holidays.

Estimates currently are that we typically gain only about one pound (down from seven!) from our tendency to overeat during the holiday season.  Before you head to the refrigerator with a spoon to grab the CoolWhip container and celebrate, please don't forget that is one pound over and above the pound we all supposedly gain just by staying alive year to year. 

Unless you work to maintain rather than gain over the holidays, you can count on two extra pounds added on to your baseline weight for every year you survive.  

You do the math.  If you are planning on escaping an untimely (defined:before I turn 85 and subject to revision when I turn 83) death, that is two pounds for every year between whatever age you are now and when you turn 85.  

For me that is a projected additional 60 pounds.  While I may not be totally grossed out by the way I look now,  I cannot for the life of me imagine how I will manage to drag around gracefully carry another 60 pounds.  Not unless I grow another 5 or 6 inches.  And what are the odds of that?

OK.  Still.  One pound down from seven.  Very good news! Note to self - work on maintaining without gaining.  Check! Next up - a bit of real weight wisdom to share with you.  

The first time I heard this idea it made no sense to me at all.  The 4th, 5th and 392nd times I heard it mentioned, I began to pay attention to the cues my own body sends me and the light finally clicked ON.

Nutritionists maintain our bodies, like toddlers, often do not distinguish well between "hungry" and "thirsty". I suppose that is where the conventional advice of drinking a full glass of water before a meal comes from.  It is not so much that the water fills you up (not something I have noticed happening, honestly) as it is that your body may send you a signal that you are dehydrated and you may misinterpret by heading to the pantry for oh, say, I don't know, some potato chips(hypothetically).   

Throw that kind of a miscue in with a glass of wine at a holiday party, and it is easy to see how over indulging results.  The wine stimulates your appetite,  you get dehydrated to boot, and blammo, before you know what's happening there are two kinds of adorable cookies on your platewhere that pile of dry carrot sticks you headed to the buffet to get in the first place were supposed to be.  

Know yourself.If there is any chance at all that your body might be telling you "I'm thirsty!" rather than "I know you just ate a full meal but I am still hungry!", try a glass of water before you eat anything else after a full meal.  If after you are hydrated you still feel hungry, deal with it then, no harm done.

OK.  Good news, wisdom, check and double check.  Now for that idea I want to enthusiastically endorse.  

Puttering around the interweb today I saw a bit on the Gaiam Blog that caught my eye. Entitled "Be the First On Your Block To Get A Farmer!" by Leslie Garrett, the bottom line is that the very best thing you can do to help yourself and your family to eat healthier is to know who is growing your food and how they are going about it.    

This idea is not entirely new - Pollan advocates this in his own way as does Barbara Kingsolver and multiple others as part of the growing Eat Local/Eat Responsible movement.  But "Get Your Own Farmer" is such a succinct way to sum up what it is that we all need to try to do that I couldn't resist.  

Garrett orders most of her food from a local farmer.  "Her" farmer.  There are various ways to duplicate that effort. Subscribing to CSA basketoutfits like our own area's Tecolote Farm, using online organic delivery services like Greenling, shopping the farmer's market before hitting the chain grocer's are all great ways to get your own farmer.  

I would add trying to Be Your Own Farmer - growing as much of your own food in a garden as you can, will be doubly satisfying.  Healthy, too.Try as I might, I have never managed to grow anything fattening in my garden.  It just doesn't work that way.   

Here in Austin we are incredibly fortunate to have a fantastic food co-op, Wheatsville, where you can have a whole dedicated crew of produce, meat and floor stock buyers out there working tirelessly to source the best local, organic, sustainable and responsible products to fill your shopping basket week to week.  Is there a food coop in your community?  Check it out.  

If we are what we eat, then don't you want to be organic, local, and sustainable?  Well of course you do.  Think about ways to put "Get My Own Farmer" high on your Christmas Wish List this year.

Postscript:  There was going to be a fourth thing.  I was going to indulge in a mini-rant around the idea of buying an outfit that is too small to be currently worn and have that hanging in the closet as supposed incentive to eat less and lose weight.  

In the current economic climate that really feels counterproductive.  However, after some thought I decided if I want to point fingers at anybody else's closet I best weed out the clothes I never wear and already have hanging in my own closet first.  

So I will channel the energy otherwise spent on scoldy-typing and redirect that to cleaning out my closet.  Afterwards I may yet return to that rant, filled with self righteous snarkiness, but more likely I will be exhausted and opt for taking a nap.  You can thank me later.  Onward!!

New Kid in the Store

Hello, my name is TexasDeb and I am a control freak. [cue crowd] "Helloooo Deb!"

This need to exert control means I am fairly uncomfortable the first time I try something. Anything, even things I know I want to do or have been assured are fun or that I will love and will make me feel better about the world and my place in it.

This discomfort, if I am not careful, potentially prevents me from engaging in new activities, even the ones I have decided for myself that I want to do. This discomfort of "not knowing everything there is to know" often finds me procrastinating, listing in my head all sorts of faux reasons not to get started doing something new.

Joining a CSA group was one of those "put it off for various reasons" kinds of things. As it turned out, my subscription to this past season of Tecolote Farms baskets has been a highlight in what has been a pretty great year so far. It was the encouragement of my daughter that got me off the dime and on my computer to find out that the farm's waiting list had shortened after a sabbatical so we could hop right on and get started eating organically grown local produce nearly immediately.

In terms of my next plunge into "Scary New", the compelling shove to get me past procrastinating was a comment from Katie Pitre in an addendum to our last farm newsletter for the season. She stated: "Your veggies came in a bag from Wheatsville, our very favorite local grocery store. Wheatsville is located at 32nd and Guadalupe and is currently undergoing a major improvement project. You'll recognize it by its construction equipment in the parking lot. So, it may not be the easiest place to get in and out of RIGHT NOW, but it is a joy to shop there. In and Out, friendly service, lots of local products, delicious deli items, great cheeses (and cheese prices), gifts, body care products, you name it. They buy produce wholesale from us and have such a small mark-up that they're often selling for less than we do at the farmers' markets! Crazy coop attitude that you're in it for the benefit of your members and not to have a huge financial gain! Anyway, we love them and hope you'll stop in when you're in that neighborhood. I highly recommend the vegan peanut butter-chocolate cups in the middle of the back wall below all the take-out sandwiches and deli items. Yummmmy. Thanks, Katie"

That was the final push I required. I knew once I invested in public declaration combined with financial commitment, I would more quickly move from intention to adherence. So I blogged, I went online and signed a Buy Fresh/Buy Local pledge, and with a weird combination of delight and the teensiest sense of alarm, I piled my shopping bags into my car yesterday and headed to join the Wheatsville Coop. Barring some unforeseen barrier, a membership at Wheatsville was slated to become the linchpin in my determination to continue to spend as much a week of our grocery money each week on local products as possible, and to try see that the products I could not source locally were organic whenever possible and responsibly, sustainably grown and/or humanely treated (in the case of meats and seafood).Despite the construction I easily found a parking space, grabbed my bag and walked in. I asked the first employee I spotted who I needed to see about signing up. I was directed to a cash register, where after a very short wait behind another shopper I was ably assisted and quickly supplied by James S. with a short form to fill out, a quick primer on member numbers and checkout routines, and before I knew it I was released out into the store, ready to make my first local shopping run.

Wheatsville is a sweet place, although a little intimidating to the unpracticed eye in terms of the scope of products offered. I believe that will prove to be a good challenge, offering the enticement of many visits to come filled with surprise discoveries.

Having the good fortune to be gender equipped with organs allowing me to ask for assistance, I am sure I'll be quickly helped to find whatever I don't spot on my own. The adventure of trying new products will be a good balance to the banality of weekly supply runs and overcome some of the frustrations of sticking with seasonal shopping.

Another plus for Wheatsville in terms of my quest for "local" - they display information along with their prices about how far certain foods had to travel to get to their shelves. It doesn't get much easier than that, and I had to fight an unfortunate tendency to move immediately past a sense of self satisfaction dangerously veering towards smugness at how good a person I'd suddenly become as proven by my shopping there.

Those negative heel wearing, crystal toting, condescending shoppers or staffers I'd feared? I'd met the enemy and short the crystal toting and tie-dye "she" was only a projection of my own self, in jeopardy of spraining a wrist as I simultaneously filled a bag with one hand while busily patting myself on the back in approval with the other. Full disclosure: I confess, despite my anxious predictions, Wheatsville did not feel overly crunchy or "more organic than thou" at all. How was it? Delightful, really. Very laid back. It just felt like a really great neighborhood store.

So could I spend my allotted $10 on local products and find what I needed?

No worries. Counting the local beer I bought, I found chevre, a baguette, and pitas from right here in Central Texas, to total $15.73 of "bought local" on my very first trip.

I can also promise you the markup on that goat cheese and the pitas was less than what I've found in certain other routinely patronized and lionized markets in our area offering the same products at higher prices despite being larger and ostensibly better able to provide savings due to the power of bulk buying. I was triply delighted to discover that Wheatsville offers a good variety of responsibly raised and humanely treated chicken, beef and pork products. At last a place I can find all my "turf" options protein wise, without having to compromise my principles or break the bank.

A last hat trick of delights- at Wheatsville, I get a refund for using my own large shopping bags along with a chance to bring in, weigh, and use my own containers for bulk items. And finally, at the top of each receipt there is a thoughtful quote to feed my mind while my shopping feeds my body and salves my conscience.

I didn't hit the deli yesterday because I have a restaurant run for dinner tonight to celebrate my birthday and I have the remnants of my last fully loaded Tecolote basket to eat our way through. I figured I'd save those treats for another day. But I will now stroll into Wheatsville week to week with building confidence, ready to layer in expanding experiences and familiarity as I dive further into the many benefits this Coop has to offer.

I am kicking myself (gently - I don't want to break anything) for waiting so long to get started shopping at Wheatsville. In these days of rising prices it simply makes sense economically to shop where the members own the store and the profit margin and stocking patterns all reflect what is best for the consumer rather than growing a bottom line. Past that, it also makes sense to support a locally owned enterprise supporting other locally owned producers, so that more of my dollars spent stay in the local economy rather than flowing out to some national or international corporation based elsewhere and responsible to people I will never meet.

Let's say you agree and you want to shop locally - what can you do? If you live in Central Texas, consider joining and shopping at Wheatsville Coop yourself. It only costs $15 to join as a member. I went ahead and joined as a vested member with an additional capital contribution because I know that will reinforce my decision to shop there and because it makes sense to me to spend my money to improve and support my local economy and community. Every expenditure we make is a moral contract. How and where I allocate our family's income says a lot about who we are and what we believe in.

If you live elsewhere then check out FoodRoutes and other sources to determine if there is a coop available near you. Look for Farmer's Markets and CSA outfits close to you and support them every chance you get. A study offered by the Austin Independent Business Alliance a few years back determined that when you shop with a locally owned business, up to 45 dollars of every hundred dollars you spend stays where you live, as opposed to 13 dollars out of a hundred dollars when you shop at a national chain.In a tightening economy, that thirty-two dollar difference between what stays and what leaves local coffers becomes even more significant.

I think the quote on my Wheatsville receipt yesterday was prescient: "Fear is the main source of superstition and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom." - Bertrand Russell. I may not have completely conquered my fear yesterday, but I took a step in the right direction. I may not be able to claim "wisdom" just yet, but I am certain, with a little help from Wheatsville, I will be shopping smarter in the weeks to come.

Basket 18 - All's Well that Ends Well

The Tecolote Farms CSA Basket Adventure is officially over for 2008. I count it an outstanding success all around. The weekly offerings took us into all sorts of previously untrodden produce territory resulting in our accidental introduction to some new favorites. The experience helped deliciously ease our transition further towards eating more vegetables and less animal protein.

We were reminded week to week about the importance of supporting local small scale producers, as well as the necessity to conserve water and support public water policies that will allow for agriculture to co-exist with developement. I have some interesting new ideas about foods to try in our own backyard garden next growing season, and I even have a new native flowering seed bearing shrub to try in the front yard that will hopefully frustrate the "all you can eat" tendencies of our local deer population.

I've eaten a lot of delicious, fresh, healthy food and felt good about where it comes from. I've met some fascinating new folks who share my enthusiasm for responsibly sourced healthy foods. I've gotten new recipes, had a lot of fun photographing beautiful fruits and vegetables, and learned a lot more about my food and where it comes from than typically happens in any grocery store.

For me, the great CSA Basket Experiment of 2008 ended with a bang as the folks at Tecolote Farms pulled out all the stops to give us a memorable last taste from their little corner of Texas. There were many of the usual suspects in this last blast from the Farm; cucumber melons, eggplant, thai basil, more acorn squash, okra, a sweet yellow Granex onion, some Yukon Gold potatoes and a last Galia melon are all old friends.

But there were also a few surprises this last go-round.Most notably in the "takes both hands to carry" category, we each had a large Rouge vif d'etemps French pumpkin in addition to a full sack carefully stacked with fruit and vegetable goodness.

According to our ever helpful newsletter, these pumpkins are tastier, moister, better suited to making soups than being baked, and will last for months if kept cool and dry. Dry will be easy but cool? I am such a fan of pumpkin pie. I might be tempted to go to the extra step of draining the pureé before adding it to pie crust just for the fun of an extra-extra tasty pumpkin pie. Who wants to fit into a bathing suit anyway....

We had a couple of wonderfully smelly epazote stems with the suggestion to use them in making a perfect pot of pinto beans. Apparently epazote is taken from the original Aztec term for this plant "epazotl", often found growing wild here in the US where it is more typically called pigweed or wormseed. Such appetizing names. Epazote is a carminative (like fennel or peppermint) which means it can reduce gassiness. So for epazote to be considered as "essential" to cooking pinto beans is a natural leap.The leaves are quite (ahem!) aromatic. Some compare the smell of the crushed leaves to gasoline or creosote. It is fairly pungent, I'll admit. If I didn't know this was a plant you could cook with I am pretty sure the smell would encourage me to leave it well enough alone. The taste, though, once acquired, means that beans cooked any other way will always be lacking a "certain something" for your palate (and no, by that certain something I do NOT mean flatulence). I have not had a lot of experience with epazote (yet!) but understand the older leaves are more pungent than the younger smaller leaves. Most advise throwing a stem/sprig in during cooking that is to be removed (a la bay leaves) before adding salt to taste at the end of the cooking time.

And last but not least, the smallest and perhaps more delightfully bizarre of our basket offerings for the season, a Devil's Claw seed pod. Proboscidea louisianica, is also known as Ram's horn, or Unicorn plant, all names referring to the woody seed pod left after the fleshy fruit falls away and then splits as these have. It grows wild in Texas and Mexico as an annual, and has reportedly been cultivated for centuries by Southwestern Native Indians for use in basketry as well as a food source. The black seeds found inside the pods can be cracked open to reveal a small white kernel that tastes quite a bit like a pine nut.According to one source, an infusion and/or powder form and capsules prepared with the active ingredients from Devil's Claws are marketed medicinally in Europe as an anti-inflammatory agent against rhematism. These active ingredients, mostly sourced from a variety of the plant found in Namibia, are believed to be iridoid glycosides called harpagosides, which are found in the secondary root.

While it always fascinates me to learn how so many of the oldest plants known have medicinal as well as nutritional uses, I am going to forgo the pharmaceutical and the snacking route, saving most of my seed to plant in my front yard. There I am hopeful the deer will find Devil's Claw a top contender for their constantly evolving "Deer Usually Avoid" list. We have worked hard to take out all the St. Augustine from the beds in front. I am always on the lookout for native plants that will flourish on low water, be interesting in form or flower, AND not simply end up as a main component for Bambi's Salad Bar. Our neighbors have been very kind and patient with us as we've worked to create an interesting variation on the standard swath of water guzzling green. It will be fun to have some Devil's Claw out there in the mix next year, a subtle reminder of the many ways we feed and are fed by, local crops.

Finally, I just couldn't stand the idea of being "all done" with eating locally or seasonally so I decided to do something concrete about that. I have plans to join the Wheatsville Coop. This is something I have meant to do for years, sort of like I'd meant to try out CSA baskets and/or shop at the Farmer's Markets more regularly, and I figure there is no better time than NOW to sign up.

I will be back to you later, reporting on my trip over to Wheatsville where I hope to live through the discomfort of subjecting my newbyness to the ever so much more "crunchier than thou" "I was here long before you" crowd. I may be doing everybody there a huge disservice with that characterization, and I'll apologize right here on this blog if I have, but I will admit it is my fear of encountering a vast array of unknown products and having to ask questions that will trigger condescension bordering on scorn that has kept me out of there for far too long.

Another part of reinforcing my continuing wish to use our food dollars to invest in local, renewable, sustainable and healthy produce involved going online to the FoodRoutes.Org site to take their Buy Local Challenge. I chose to sign up as pledging to spend 10 dollars a week on locally produced food for the rest of this calendar year. As I did that and noted a listing of folks who have taken the pledge by states, my competitive nature kicked in. There is this scoreboard, and as you can see when you go there, Texas is not making too good a showing in terms of folks willing to sign up and pledge their dollars towards supporting locally produced foods.

I'd be really truly shallow to suggest that if you have any stirrings of Lone Star pride in you that you should visit and put your own pledged dollars into the mix to improve our state's standing. I'd be shallow and pushy to imply that if you were any kind of REAL Texan, (or Idahoan, or Indianian or whatever it is you actually are), that you would want your home state to be riding up towards the top of the list to prove to the world how wonderful you and your fellow Texans/Indianians, etc. are. Because at the moment those Californians have the top spot all sewn up and although I have wonderful dear friends there, I simply don't think we can let them get away with that.

At the same time I do realize it is much more important to SPEND that money on locally produced foods than it is to sign a pledge on a website, but I also know that every time I take a step towards a more public proclamation of my intention to eat locally produced foods, I am that much more likely to follow through and not succumb to convenience or comfortable old patterns of just going to that nearby chain market and buying whatever is cheapest on their shelves.

And the more I read, the more I see that even the best local players on the largest scale when it comes to supermarkets, have their own issues with responsibly sourcing food for the masses. Our homegrown gone national giant, Whole Foods, has it's issues:
Supermarkets Failing to Adopt Sustainable Seafood Buying Practices:Report.


Worthwhile pursuits are rarely quick or easy. Signing up for the CSA baskets pulled me out of my comfort zone, but as so typically happens, I am better for the stretch.The vast majority of people I've met who are interested in eating responsibly and supporting local farms are not all overpiced negative heel shoe wearing, tie dye t-shirted, crystal toting, aging hippie flakes, so much as they are kind and thoughtful people of all ages and stages who have taken time to learn about and understand the impacts of their economic choices.

So it is with some unexpected sadness that we bid a fond farewell to CSA Baskets from Tecolote Farm for this year, and move on to Wheatsville and the Farmer's Market. Stay tuned to see if I can make good on my pledge to spend $10 dollars a week on locally produced food for the rest of 2008.

Let it Begin!

Here it is - my first ever CSA basket from Tecolote Farm. I have to admit I was slightly intimidated at the idea of a basket brimming with new to us vegetables and greens but after picking ours up today, I am an instant convert.

Tecolote Farms not only has an online group to help with sharing recipes, storage tips and ideas about how best to manage a basket full of goodness from week to week, but if this basket is any indicator, the newsletter that comes with the produce each week will provide me with wonderful descriptions of the contents, tips about use, and so far two delicious looking recipes that I am anxious to try.

What do we have? This week's basket holds: Mache, Bloomsdale Spinach, German Red Garlic in the Green Stage (before cloves have formed), Mustard Greens, Japanese Turnips, and White Icicle Radishes.White Icicles are a favorite of mine. The best gardener I ever knew - my father in law - produced tons of these every year and I went from being a stranger to a fan in two bites. We only have 4 in this basket so it is not going to surprise me if they are the first to disappear. I am deeply hopeful for more of them in the weeks to come, and I look forward to discovering all sorts of new favorites as the Spring/Summer harvest arrives.

Time will tell if my enthusiasm will diminish as the baskets roll in, but at the moment I am thinking this is one of the smartest moves I ever made. It is worth the price of a month's worth of baskets just for that sensation alone. Eating well and doing it in a way that benefits rather than diminishes the earth. Wow. Not a bad start for a week....

Monday, Monday

Tomorrow, Monday, begins a new era in the culinary life of this household.

Tomorrow, theory meets the table. Principle turns to practice.

Tomorrow I will travel just a few blocks to pick up the first of many weekly baskets provided in return for my subscription to a "community sustainable agriculture" outfit called Tecolote Farm.

What is in season is what we will get. This will require a stretch of imagination in order to prepare and consume certain quantities of what is actually able to be grown, right here, right now.

Can a couple of fairly picky eaters and sometimes lazy cooks get through a basket of fresh seasonal produce week to week without getting bored and/or letting unacceptable amounts go to waste? Stay tuned.....

Twelve Commandments for Serious Eaters

Here are Michael Pollan's "Twelve Commandments for Serious Eaters", from his new book, "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto".

As Pollan writes on his website: "Food. There's plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it?

Because most of what we're consuming today is not food, and how we're consuming it -- in the car, in front of the TV, and increasingly alone -- is not really eating."

So how do we assure we are eating real food and past that, really eating - not just consuming? Read on:

1. "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food."

2. "Avoid foods containing ingredients you can't pronounce."

3. "Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot."

4. "Avoid food products that carry health claims."

5. "Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle."

6. "Better yet, buy food somewhere else: the farmers' market or CSA."

7. "Pay more, eat less."

8. "Eat a wide variety of species."

9. "Eat food from animals that eat grass."

10. "Cook, and if you can, grow some of your own food."

11. "Eat meals and eat them only at tables."

12. "Eat deliberately, with other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure."

What are your reactions?

I have my own thoughts which I'll save for another time. I want you to have a chance to react to what Pollan has written without my framing to interfere or distract.

As always Pollan is a provocative read. Whatever you might think of his "commandments" - he has certainly cooked up some serious food for thought.

Eating Responsibly

I've been thinking about eating lately. It is not just the enticing presence of Halloween candy in the house. Thanksgiving looms large in my culinary imagination.

A friend of ours who hunts dropped off not only Nilgai sausage, but also Hungarian Pheasant and Quail he'd recently killed, field dressed and frozen. I am thinking of ditching the ubiquitous turkey this year altogether and featuring these local Birdlets instead.

You see, I've been thinking more about eating responsibly lately as well.

This found me doing some really fun reading about CSA- Community Supported Agriculture. CSAs are typically small farms where the harvest is divided and consumed by folks who pay for a "share" each week, every other week, at whatever interval the farm can reliably produce.

This has also found me doing some really not so fun reading, about some of the problems encountered by relying on huge agribusiness concerns to provide safe and conscientiously raised/harvested/slaughtered products for grocery store chains.

It is discouraging. Disgusting, actually. Many of the national companies that used to exist independently (and thus be subject to the pressures of a market asking for safe food and positive practices as an employer) are now merely subsidiaries of a few giant conglomerates.

ConAgra is one example. ConAgra is the bottom line beneath lots of the food companies I think of independently. Like Peter Pan. Hunt. Or Butterball.

ConAgra and other FrankenConglomerates are so large they are seemingly beyond having to answer complaints or follow the rules and regulations most of us naively seem to think are effectively protecting us, and the food we eat, from abusive practices.

That Butterball Hotline you might have seen as such a friendly way to help novice cooks get that bird on the table minus heaped criticism from the in-laws? Turns out it could reasonably serve double duty as a sexual abuse hotline for the BIRDS THEMSELVES.Yeah. You read that right. A little over a year ago, PETA filed complaints about Butterball/ConAgra employees at one plant not only kicking live birds, but sexually abusing them.

I don't want to think about what anybody would want to do of a sexual nature with a live turkey or what kind of a factory setting or workplace philosophy would allow that to happen.

I do know I can't in good conscience buy a product from a company tolerating such behaviors until outsiders stepped in and complained.

I might not be a vegetarian yet, but a few more reports about the gross (and I mean that in EVERY sense of the word) abuses regularly tolerated in agribusiness may force me there, albeit reluctantly.

Is there any way to keep eating and avoid participating unknowingly in such fantastic disrespect for life?

Think local. In my area, Johnson's Backyard Garden is one option. Think small. Tears of Joy Salsas on 6th Street fit that bill. Think organic. Think Fair Trade. Whenever possible, know the people who raised your food, or at the very least know the company behind the products you are buying. With an internet connection (and a strong stomach) you can investigate on your own. Some sites do a lot of the legwork for you.

Co-Op America for one. Their Responsible Shopper can help you determine if a company deserves your support.
The days of living and harvesting our own food for our families may be behind most of us. That does not mean we have no choice over what we prepare and serve our families.

The arrogance of a corporation so large it feels it can ignore baseline decency for factory conditions and employee requirements is not what I want to support with my food budget. How about you?