Quotes from Joel Salatin

Most of the earth's land is not conducive to arable cropping. Only a tiny percentage is good enough for that. Grasslands are literally the lungs of the earth, and restoring them with animals is not only necessary, but it's the most efficacious way to restore water cycles and the carbon cycle. Right now, nothing else comes close to remediating broken ecological systems as quickly or completely as restoring large herds of grazing animals through holistic, or long-term, management.

Radical Homemakers, Shannon Hayes describes

Whenever an economic sector cloisters itself behind opaqueness, it will begin taking environmental, social, and economic shortcuts. Integrity occurs when people can see what's going in at the front door and what's coming out the back door. Absent that accountability, you lose integrity.

Intuitively we all know that nothing operates most efficiently at full throttle. Is it any wonder that a food system predicated on faster, fatter, bigger, cheaper would create an ignorant, duplicitous, harried, obese citizenry? A culture's people carry in their heads and physiques the manifestation of the food system's objectives.

I really like those old shows. I've decided the way to know you're becoming an old fogey is when the only shows you like are sponsored by Depends, the Scooter Store, and Viagra.

I warn my Christian friends to be extremely careful about what they become righteously indignant about. When we demand salvation by legislation, the law of unintended consequences kicks in.

I think it's a much more consistent and reasoned approach to distrust everything that comes from the government, and everything that comes from multi-national globalists, and everything that comes from the media and talk show hosts, and everything that comes from mega-charitable organizations. And why do I seem to have such a prejudice against the empire guys? Because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I do think anger aimed at evil is a good thing. I do not think it helps any culture to dismiss elements that deprive the populace of righteousness.

Look in the mirror and decide once and for all: Am I biological or mechanical? Is my deepest essence a machine or not?

It was the fact that we were selling dead animals. You see, farmers are only supposed to sell live animals to processors and marketers who are supposed to make all the money—those notorious middlemen. After all, we couldn't have all that middleman money going to farmers. No, that wouldn't be right. Farmers are supposed to be peasants, serfs, impoverished dolts, remember?

I would suggest that a culture that views its pigs as just mechanical objects to be reprogrammed and manipulated will view its citizens the same way, and ultimately God the same way.

Every time we eat, we participate in farming.

Originally planning to go with a small house concept, we found it was illegal to build a house of less than nine hundred square feet. Why? By what authority can anybody tell me what kind of house I have to live in?

Historians tell us that Talleyrand once told Napoleon, "You can do anything with bayonets, Sire, except sit on them." In the language of the court this meant that obedience to the law ultimately depended on cooperation, not force.

This visceral, meaningful work makes the spirit soar with self-worth and accomplishment. This is the ultimate self-actualization. You won't find that at the end of a video game, no matter how many times you play.

Deep down, very few of us want safety to suffocate freedom.

How about the Weston A. Price Foundation's Nourishing Traditions? Oh, books, maybe you read books. Okay, how about Sir Albert Howard's An Agricultural Testament? Or perhaps Rodale's Complete Book of Composting? Never heard of them? Where have you been, under a rock?

Industrial eggs are washed in a chlorine bath. Since the shells are permeable, some of that chlorine enters the egg. This is standard food safety protocol. In fact, some health department inspectors believe an egg not washed

Industrial eggs are washed in a chlorine bath. Since the shells are permeable, some of that chlorine enters the egg. This is standard food safety protocol. In fact, some health department inspectors believe an egg not washed in chlorine is not fit for human consumption.

Nothing is as clean and nutritious as a customer-inspected facility and business. When the relationship marketer must pass the scrutiny of the discriminating patron, who personally looks over the entire operation, you'd better believe not one in a thousand would risk doing something unscrupulous.

But make no mistake, this book is geared toward any home-based multi-generational business. The principles apply to plumbers, advertising agencies and landscapers. Truth is truth.

I challenge you to go to any industrial farm. You'll see anti-microbial shoe dips, shower in shower out, plastic suits. Whenever we get scientists visiting our farm, they invariably remark about how seemingly nonchalant we are about bio-security. The industry is paranoid about bio-security because their animals and plants are fragile. If our farm plants and animals had as dysfunctional an immune system as that found in industrial facilities, I'd be paranoid, too.

While vegans and meat-eaters disagree, we can all be united in our fear and hatred for the horror that is factory farming.

Our biggest fear is that 'Food, Inc.' will move heavy-handed food-safety regulations forward.