Healthy Food Information

Healthy Food Information

Small Scale, Sustainable, Local Food System

Contrary to the conventional market system, which is operating on a global scale and which encourages mass production of cheap food using more intensive farm management practices, the Harvest Moon Local Food Initiative is doing things differently. We are about building a local system where farmers can practice more sustainable practices and get a fair price for the higher quality food (and land) they are providing. Importantly, by building this local system, member farmers have eliminated the middle-people in the food chain who have been profiting exorbitantly on their labour for far too long. Instead, we want you to become the other main element of this local food chain. The Harvest Moon Local Food Initiative is about connecting farmers directly with eaters and establishing meaningful, long-term relationships, thereby creating healthier land, healthier food, healthier communities.

Harvest Moon Beef

The Cattle Ranchers of Harvest Moon Food raise their animals without the use of antibiotics and steroids, and most practice Holistic Management. Holistic management is a tool used to improve the health of the land, the soil, the animals, the farm family and the community. By improving the land, the animals benefit with more natural prairie grasses to eat and healthier pastures. Flavorful, tender and Manitoba grown Natural beef is a wonderful choice to have around your family’s dinner table.

Harvest Moon Beef - Grassfed

Harvest Moon grass-fed beef and lamb only forage on high-quality grasses and legumes. They are never fed grain at any time in their lives and are never treated with antibiotics or hormones. As a result, our Harvest Moon grass-fed cows and sheep grow at a natural pace and live low-stress lives. Because they forage exclusively on grass and legumes our grass-fed beef and lamb must be seasonal products, available only from June to December.

The main benefit of Harvest Moon grass-fed meat is that grass-fed products are healthier for you. Compared to feedlot animals, Harvest Moon grass-fed beef and lamb are lower both in overall fat and in artery-clogging saturated fat. Grass-fed meat not only is lower in overall fat and in saturated fat, but it has the added advantage of providing more omega-3 fats. These crucial healthy fats are plentiful in meat from animals that have grazed on omega-3 rich grass. When animals are shipped to a feedlot to be fattened on grain, they immediately begin losing the omega-3s they have stored in their tissues. As a consequence, the meat from feedlot animals typically contains only 15- 50 percent as much omega-3s as that from Harvest Moon grass-fed livestock.

Pastured Poultry

Farmers that raise Pastured Poultry for Harvest Moon Food pride themselves in growing them on grass. The result is that a pastured chicken far surpasses any factory farmed birds. The flavor of these birds grown in the fresh air and sunshine will leave you to wonder what you have been eating up until now. Pastured Poultry is seasonal and generally only available in the late fall/early winter, every year. Pre-booking is suggested.

“Pastured poultry” is the term coined by a group of farmers who would like to abandon the mass produced factory farm system. We believe in raising our chickens, turkeys and other poultry on lush, fresh growing grasses and legumes in an environment that allows these fantastic efficient birds to express their unique characteristics such as scratching, foraging and hunting for insects. Besides providing us with a GREAT tasting, environmentally balanced and socially responsible product these birds also help us to be better farmers by fertilizing our pastures responsibly and helping us control weeds and insect pests without the use of hazardous chemicals.