If you live in Illinois and eat meat, the best thing you can do is to buy from local farms in Illinois. And the easiest way to find local farms and pasture raised meat in Illinois is by using our newly relaunched app: The Illinois Guide to Factory-Free Meat, Dairy & Eggs.
More and more we hear the question: Do you know where your food comes from?
With the proliferation of convenience foods and mega supermarkets over the last few decades, we’ve gotten further and further from the origins of the food we eat. The plastic wrapped skinless, boneless piece of meat you are buying at the grocery store intentionally does not resemble the animal it came from.
Ninety-nine percent of supermarket meat comes from a factory farm. Truly the best way to know where your food comes from is to either grow it or raise it yourself. And if like most of us, you can’t do that, then the next best thing is to shop from a local farmer and go directly to the farm to see how the animals are raised.
That is why Crate Free USA is relaunching its free, one-of-a-kind mobile app, “The Illinois Guide to Factory-Free Meat, Dairy & Eggs.” Newly updated with the addition of hundreds of farms, farmers markets, restaurants and retailers that source locally, the easy-to-use app is available for both Apple and Android users.
With the goal of giving consumers more local options when it comes to purchasing meat, dairy, and eggs, the app promotes independent family farmers and ranchers who answer to higher animal welfare and environmental standards.
You can easily search for nearby farms, markets, and restaurants by typing in your zip code. You’re able to see all the local farms in your vicinity on an easy-to-read map. The app now includes over 350 markets, restaurants, and farms in Illinois (and a few beyond) showing the types of products sold, location information, and social media handles.
“From the start, the purpose of the app has been to provide consumers with alternatives to buying off-the-shelf animal products found in retail grocery chains,” says Jess Chipkin, our founder at Crate Free USA. “Unfortunately, the vast majority of meat, eggs, and dairy products sold in retail stores still comes from animals raised in intensive-confinement systems that use inhumane practices and fail to provide for the animals’ most basic behavioral needs.
When you buy from the supermarket, you can’t trust the marketing buzzwords and meaningless labels. That image on the box of a happy cow or chicken is at best misleading and at worst, false advertising. In the U.S. there is no oversight to this as there is in Europe, so many of the big agriculture and food monopolies use a form of ‘humanewashing’ to make you think you are buying a humane product. When in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. But thankfully consumers like you are becoming much more educated about this and want to source locally.
“We are now seeing more meat eaters consuming a little less meat, as well as paying more attention to where their food comes from and how the animals are treated. We see the app as a useful resource for consumers striving to be more conscientious omnivores,” said Jessica.
Pasture raised chickens
In addition to connecting farmers and consumers, The Crate Free USA app also serves as a reminder of the growing threat of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in Illinois, and the importance of promoting practices that benefit not only the animals, but the environment and the future of traditional family farmers.
Apple and Android users can download our brand-new app here. Or if you already have the app, be sure to update it to the latest version.
It’s super easy to use. Just enter your zip code and see the map with all the farms, markets and restaurants near you. You can also use the filters depending on what you are searching for—either a farm or a retail establishment.
Author Bio:
Lisa Lubin is an Emmy-award winning video consultant and producer, and writer and photographer. She’s a life-long animal lover from New Jersey who’s been living in Chicago for 20+ years. Lisa has also volunteered at PAWS and Feline Friends Chicago as a cat foster. She joined the Crate Free USA team in August 2016 and is now the executive director, website editor, and volunteer coordinator.
