Books by Joel Salatin

Beyond Labels A Doctor and a Farmer Conquer Food Confusion One Bite at a Time

<b>A nutritionist and a renowned organic farmer explore and explain the art of eating well.</b><br><br>Do you want to be healthy, happy and free? But find yourself stuck in your healing journey and want some guidance and encouragement? Perhaps you are overwhelmed by all of the conflicting diet advice. Maybe you don’t know where to start or who to trust. Or, maybe you just need a little motivation. <br><br>You’re not alone. We’re constantly bombarded with ever-changing diet recommendations and the latest diet crazes: Paleo, Keto, Whole 30, Specific Carbohydrate Diet, and the list goes on. Eggs are bad one day and good the next. Kale is good for you today. Tomorrow it contains high levels of thallium and is toxic to your thyroid gland. How do you know what to put on your plate that will bring you toward greater health and wellness?<br><br>In <i>Beyond Labels</i>, Joel Salatin, a farmer who is blazing the trail for regenerative farm practices, and Sina McCullough, a Ph.D. in Nutrition who actually understands unpronounceable carbon chains, bring you on a journey from generally unhealthy food and farming to an ultimately healing place. <br><br>Through compelling discussions leavened with a dose of humor, they share practical and easily doable tips about:<br>• What to eat<br>• How to find it and prepare it<br>• How to save money and time in the kitchen<br>• How to stay true to your principles in our modern culture<br><br>Whether you are just starting your health journey or you grow all of your own food, this book is designed to meet you where you are and motivate you to take the next step in your healing journey – ultimately bringing you closer to health, happiness, and freedom.<br><br>“The ideas, evidence and takeaways from this book have the power to reshape America's declining health. This is the most-fascinating, inspirational, and flat out most useful book I've ever read. Joel and Sina have done what no other authors have managed to do. They've created a survival guide for the war on our gut microbiome.”—<b>Andy Snyder, Founder of Manward Press</b>

Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal War Stories from the Local Food Front

Drawing upon 40 years' experience as an ecological farmer and marketer, Joel Salatin explains with humor and passion why Americans do not have the freedom to choose the food they purchase and eat. From child labor regulations to food inspection, bureaucrats provide themselves sole discretion over what food is available in the local marketplace. Their system favors industrial, global corporate food systems and discourages community-based food commerce, resulting in homogenized selection, mediocre quality, and exposure to non-organic farming practices. Salatin's expert insight explains why local food is expensive and difficult to find and will illuminate for the reader a deeper understanding of the industrial food complex.

Family Friendly Farming A Multi-Generational Home-Based Business Testament

Saving the landscape, rebuilding entrepreneurial rural families, and protecting nutritious food are the themes of this timeless treatise-hence the word "testament." Delving into the soul of the Salatin family's nationally acclaimed Polyface Farm, author Joel Salatin offers <i>Family Friendly Farming</i> as the key to dealing with resource issues, food policy, and social fabric.<br><br>With humor and personal stories, he opens his family and farm convictions for all to see, share, and enjoy. Written from his unabashed "Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist" perspective, his ideas are guaranteed to encourage and challenge virtually every "ism" in the culture. It will captivate anyone passionate about healing the land, healing families, and healing the food supply.<br><br>For several decades young people have been leaving the family farm. The ones left behind are now responsible for society's greatest resources: clean land and clean food. Anyone dedicated to preserving these resources will find in these pages a nongovernmental, self-empowerment approach to environmentalism and food safety.<br><br>The heart of this book is aimed toward parents tired of their Dilbert cubicle at the end of the expressway who want to reconnect with their children through a pastoral lifestyle. It's written for anyone who yearns to grow old working with and being adored by value-sharing grandchildren and honored by passionate, productive adult children. <i>Family Friendly Farming</i> can make any family business more viable and any family more functional.<br><br>The ten-chapter section on how to get the kids to love the farm is an invaluable addition to any collection of child-rearing manuals. Salatin moves from the family team-building section into a practical discussion on how to increase income per acre and create new, white-collar salaries without buying more land, equipment, or buildings. He deals with the unique and thorny issues surrounding any family business by using his own multi-generational family farm experience as his base for insight and wisdom.

Fields of Farmers Interning, Mentoring, Partnering, Germinating

America’s average farmer is sixty years old. When young people can’t get in, old people can’t get out. Approaching a watershed moment, our culture desperately needs a generational transfer of millions of farm acres facing abandonment, development, or amalgamation into ever-larger holdings. Based on his decades of experience with interns and multigenerational partnerships at Polyface Farm, farmer and author Joel Salatin digs deep into the problems and solutions surrounding this land- and knowledge-transfer crisis. This book empowers aspiring young farmers, midlife farmers, and nonfarming landlords to build regenerative, profitable agricultural enterprises.

Folks, This Ain't Normal A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World

From farmer Joel Salatin's point of view, life in the 21st century just ain't normal. In FOLKS, THIS AIN'T NORMAL, he discusses how far removed we are from the simple, sustainable joy that comes from living close to the land and the people we love. Salatin has many thoughts on what normal is and shares practical and philosophical ideas for changing our lives in small ways that have big impact.<br><br>Salatin, hailed by the <i>New York Times</i> as "Virginia's most multifaceted agrarian since Thomas Jefferson [and] the high priest of the pasture" and profiled in the Academy Award nominated documentary <i>Food, Inc.</i> and the bestselling book <i>The Omnivore's Dilemma</i>, understands what food should be: Wholesome, seasonal, raised naturally, procured locally, prepared lovingly, and eaten with a profound reverence for the circle of life. And his message doesn't stop there. From child-rearing, to creating quality family time, to respecting the environment, Salatin writes with a wicked sense of humor and true storyteller's knack for the revealing anecdote. <br><br>Salatin's crucial message and distinctive voice--practical, provocative, scientific, and down-home philosophical in equal measure--make FOLKS, THIS AIN'T NORMAL a must-read book.

Gaining Ground A Story Of Farmers' Markets, Local Food, And Saving The Family Farm

With humor and pathos, Forrest Pritchard recounts his ambitious and often hilarious endeavors to save his family’s seventh-generation farm in the Shenandoah Valley. Through many a trial and error, he not only saves Smith Meadows from insolvency but turns it into a leading light in the sustainable, grass-fed, organic farm-to-market community. <br><br> <br><br>There is nothing young Farmer Pritchard won’t try. Whether he’s selling firewood and straw, raising free-range chickens and hogs, or acquiring a flock of Barbados Blackbelly sheep, his learning curve is steep and always entertaining. Pritchard’s world crackles with colorful local characters—farm hands, butchers, market managers, customers, fellow vendors, pet goats, policemen—bringing the story to warm, communal life. His most important ally, however, is his renegade father, who initially questions his son's career choice and eschews organic foods for the generic kinds that wreak havoc on his health. Soon after his father’s death, the farm becomes a recognized success and Pritchard must make a vital decision: to continue serving the local community or answer the exploding demand for his wares with lucrative Internet sales and shipping deals. <br><br> <br><br>More than a charming story of honest food cultivation and farmers’ markets, <i>Gaining Ground</i> tugs on the heartstrings, reconnecting us to the land and the many lives that feed us.

Getting Your Hands Dirty: How to Teach Your Children to Love Work

In this practical lecture, world-renowned entrepreneur Joel Salatin shares keen insights into getting your children to love work and to embrace your family s vision for entrepreneurship. Salatin explains that children tend to rise to the expectations set for them, and he encourages parents to integrate them into every aspect of the family business from the financial and business side, to the day-to-day implementation; to give them a personal stake in the process; to praise their successes; and to create a joyful atmosphere of family labor. Salatin offers great advice for parents to eliminate dawdling, cultivate persistence, and stimulate innovation in their children.

Growing Food God's Way How Paul Gautschi Grows Superior Food and You Can Too!

Growing Food God's Way is a compelling biography of accomplished gardener and arborist Paul Gautschi. Known world-wide for his connection with God's world of nature from the viral documrntary: Back to Eden. This authorized work explores the man and his wildly successful garden and orchard...while applying revealed principles to guide our daily lives as well. This is not a book about gardening, it is a book about life and wisdom, as experienced by Paul and many others. Home gardeners in 208 countries agree that you can grow better produce with much less cost and less work if you do it God's way. The 2nd edition updates most chapters and adds six new chapters! There are now 107 photos, a new bibliography, and a new Index to help you find what you're looking for.

Holy Cows and Hog Heaven: The Food Buyer's Guide to Farm Friendly Food

Holy Cows and Hog Heaven is written by an honest-to-goodness-dirt-under-the-fingernails, optimistic clean good farmer. His goal is to: Empower food buyers to pursue positive alternatives to the industrialized food system Bring clean food farmers and their patrons into a teamwork relationship Marry the best of western technology with the soul of eastern ethics Educate food buyers about productions Create a food system that enhances nature's ecology for future generations<br/>Holy Cows and Hog Heaven has an overriding objective of encouraging every food buyer to embrace the notion that menus are a conscious decision, creating the next generation's world one bite at a time.

Homestead Tsunami Good for Country, Critters, and Kids

<b>From his 66-year farm, food, and family experience, Joel Salatin explains why thousands of Americans are selling their urban homes, cashing out retirement funds, and heading to the country. The exodus is both a goodbye to one life and an embrace of another.</b><br><br>When society breaks down, people head away from the city. For food security, health, and satisfaction, homesteads offer a haven of hope and help when much seems hopeless and helpless.<br><br>While fear motivates people to change, only faith sustains. This book offers multiple reasons for modern homestead living. Some are:<br>• Secure, stable, safe food.<br>• Healthy, happy children.<br>• Superior immune function.<br>• Community and connections.<br>• Meaningful work.<br>• Creation stewardship immersion.<br><br>In his 16th book, Salatin offers the homestead why to those contemplating the jump, those trying to dissuade their friends from jumping, and those who regret having jumped. Despite its sweat and disappointments, homesteading offers incalculable benefits that feed the soul, soil, and spirit.<br><br><i>Homestead Tsunami</i> digs deep into the ethos of today’s best pension plan: living and learning proximate to people who know how to build things, repair, things and grow things. A better life awaits.

Pastured Poultry Profits

A couple working six months per year for 50 hours per week on 20 acres can net $25,000-$30,000 per year with an investment equivalent to the price of one new medium-sized tractor. Seldom has agriculture held out such a plum. In a day when main-line farm experts predict the continued demise of the family farm, the pastured poultry opportunity shines like a beacon in the night, guiding the way to a brighter future.

Patrick's Great Grass Adventure With Greg the Grass Farmer

In his first children's book, farmer-author Joel Salatin and his daughter Rachel team up on a whimsical tale about a pigeon, a farmer, and grass. This beautifully illustrated edu-tainment book introduces 4-7 year-olds to Greg the grass farmer through the eyes of Patrick Pigeon. What better way to discover ecology-enhancing grass farming than from an aerial view? Grass as crop, insect haven, and diversity blanket comes to life as Patrick Pigeon watches and reports on Greg the grass farmer's activities. Discovering a real farm from a real farmer through captivating explanation and illustration brings a local grass farm to life.

Pitchfork Pulpit Wisdom and Practice in a Self-Reliant Life

<b>For six years Joel Salatin's Pitchfork Pulpit column in <i>The Mother Earth News</i> magazine inspired and challenged readers. These columns, in the order they ran, preserve that timeless writing legacy for today's homesteading, small farming, and self-reliance community.</b><br><br>As America's iconic and fearless bootstrap farmsteader, Joel Salatin captures principles of practical success and philosophical wisdom in this series of essays originally published in <i>Mother Earth News</i> magazine. From stewarding a woodlot to managing aromatically-appealing chickens, his dirt-under-the-fingernails experience coaches readers to self-reliant success. Untangling from industrial corporate systems dependency is a lifelong process, and one that jumpstarts with this trove of advice.

Polyface Designs A Comprehensive Construction Guide for Scalable Farming Infrastructure

<b>A comprehensive how-to manual of Polyface Farm’s signature designs—with tips, tricks, and a half century of lessons learned through trial and error.</b> <br>Have you wondered how to build the Polyface broiler shelter, or the dolly to move it, or an Eggmobile, Gobbledygo or Shademobile? For folks getting started, folks adding enterprises, or folks wanting a cheaper bootstrap way to build portable livestock infrastructure, Polyface Designs has all the diagrams and do-it-yourself building specifications. <br>Joel Salatin wrote the text and Polyface former apprentice and engineer extraordinaire Chris Slattery did the drawings. Ultimately practical, the book includes how to build a corral, a home-made head gate and even how to select the right axle for your project. Square footage requirements for the deep bedding hay shed and area advice for pig pastures make this the definitive repository for a lifetime of Polyface experimentation. A massive volume, its 568 pages are in full color and beautiful enough to be a coffee table book even though you’ll use it in your shop. Don’t let the cover price scare you; one building tip can more than save the price of the book.

Polyface Micro Success with Livestock on a Homestead Scale

<b>“I love your ideas, but I only have a few acres. How do I do this at my scale?”<br></b><br>Success with domestic livestock does not require large land bases. Joel Salatin and his family’s Polyface Farm in Virginia lead the world in animal-friendly and ecologically authentic, commercial, pasture-based livestock production. In <i>Polyface Micro</i> he adapts the ideas and protocols to small holdings (including apartments)! Homesteaders can increase production, enjoy healthy animals, and create aesthetically and aromatically pleasant livestock systems. Whether you’re a new or seasoned homesteader, you’ll find tips and inspiration as Joel coaches you toward success and abundance.

Salad Bar Beef

In a day when beef is assailed by many environmental organizations and lauded by fast-food chains, a new paradigm to bring reason to this confusion is in order. With farmers leaving the land in droves and plows poised to "reclaim" set-aside acres, it is time to offer an alternative that is both land and farmer friendly.<br><br>Beyond that, the salad bar beef production model offers hope to rural communities, to struggling row-crop farmers, and to frustrated beef eaters who do not want to encourage desertification, air and water pollution, environmental degradation and inhumane animal treatment. Because this is a program weighted toward creativity, management, entrepreneurism and observation, it breathes fresh air into farm economics.

The Future of Food in America (Reforming Food & Family Audio Collection)

Product description With a rising population, should Americans expect to face food shortages? Why can't we buy raw milk, sausage, and eggs? What should our response be to excessive government control of the food supply? And what is the biblical perspective on the humane treatment of animals and sound agricultural practices as it relates to putting food on the table in America? In The Future of Food in America, world-renowned agricultural expert Joel Salatin and farmer Noah Sanders dispel numerous misconceptions surrounding food and offer hopeful and practical solutions to a host of real food challenges that lie ahead for our nation. Offering a Christian response to statist, environmentalist, and evolutionist pessimism, they outline innovative long-term strategies for bolstering America's food supply. 6 audio cds include: Food Emancipation: A Response to the Industrial Food Fraternity and Answer to the Question, ''Why Can t You Buy Raw Milk, Sausage, and Eggs?'' by Joel Salatin Local Food to the Rescue: The Why and How of Local Food As Part of the Answer to Biosecurity, Energy, Integrity, and Humane Husbandry by Joel Salatin Can We Feed the World? A Biblical and Scientific Response to Statist, Environmentalist, and Evolutionist Pessimism by Joel Salatin Holy Cows and Hog Heaven by Joel Salatin Growing Food for the Body of Christ: Encouragement and Advice for Aspiring Christian Food Producers by Noah Sanders Agri-Lifestyle vs. Agri-Business: Building Farms That Are Productive Homes Rather Than Factories by Noah Sanders

The Homesteading Guide

The ultimate primer for starting (and growing) your homesteading life. Purchase before October 31, 2023, and get free shipping, plus a recording of our "How to Start Homesteading" masterclass. The Homesteading Guide features dozens of articles from homestead legends like Joel Salatin, Lisa Bass, Jess Sowards, Melissa K. Norris, Rory Feek, Carolyn Thomas, Anne Briggs, and Justin Rhodes

The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs Respecting and Caring for All God's Creation

<b>From Christian libertarian farmer Joel Salatin, a clarion call to readers to honor the animals and the land, and produce food based on spiritual principles.</b><br>What on earth is THE MARVELOUS PIGNESS OF PIGS? It's an inspiring call to action for people of faith . . . a heartfelt plea to heed the Bible's guidance . . . .<br>It's an important and thought-provoking explanation of how by simply appreciating the marvelous pigness of pigs, we are celebrating the Glory of God. <br>As a man of deep faith and student of the Bible, and as a respected and successful ecological family farmer, Joel Salatin knows that God created heaven and earth and meant for all living organisms to be true to their nature and their endowed holy purpose. He intended for us to respect and care for His gift of creation, not to ravage and mistreat it for our own pleasure or wealth. <br>The example that inspires the book's title explains what Salatin means: when huge corporate farms confine pigs in cramped and dark pens, inject them with antibiotics and feed them herbicide-saturated food simply to increase profits, they are not respecting them as a creation of God or allowing them to express even their most rudimentary uniqueness - that special role that is part of His design. Every living organism has a God-given uniqueness to its life that must be honored and respected, and too often that is not happening today. <br>Salatin shows us the long overlooked ethics and instructions in the Bible for how to eat, how to shop, how to think about how we farm and feed the world. Through scripture and Biblical stories, he shows us why it's more vital than ever to look to the good book rather than corporate America when feeding the country and your family. <br>Salatin makes a compelling case for Christian stewardship of the earth and how it relates to every action we take regarding our food. He also opens our eyes to a common misconception many Christians may have about environmentalism: it's not a bad thing, and definitely not just the province of secular liberals; it's really a very good thing, part of heeding God's Word. <br>With warmth and with humor, but with no less piercing criticism of the industrial food complex, Salatin brings readers on a fascinating journey of farming, food and faith. Readers will not say grace over their plates the same way ever again.

The Salatin Semester: A Complete Home Study Course in Polyface-Style Diversified Farming

The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer

Foodies and environmentally minded folks often struggle to understand and articulate the fundamental differences between the farming and food systems they endorse and those promoted by Monsanto and friends. With visceral stories and humor from Salatin's half-century as a "lunatic" farmer, Salatin contrasts the differences on many levels: practical, spiritual, social, economic, ecological, political, and nutritional.<br><br>In today's conventional food-production paradigm, any farm that is open-sourced, compost-fertilized, pasture-based, portably-infrastructured, solar-driven, multi-speciated, heavily peopled, and soil-building must be operated by a lunatic. Modern, normal, reasonable farmers erect "No Trespassing" signs, deplete soil, worship annuals, apply petroleum-based chemicals, produce only one commodity, erect Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, and discourage young people from farming.<br><br>Anyone looking for ammunition to defend a more localized, solar-driven, diversified food system will find an entire arsenal in these pages. With wit and humor honed during countless hours working on the farm he loves, and then interacting with conventional naysayers, Salatin brings the land to life, farming to sacredness, and food to ministry.<br><br>Divided into four main sections, the first deals with principles to nurture the earth, an idea mainline farming has never really endorsed. The second section describes food and fiber production, including the notion that most farmers don't care about nutrient density or taste because all they want is shipability and volume. The third section, titled "Respect for Life," presents an apologetic for food sacredness and farming as a healing ministry. Only lunatics would want less machinery and pathogenicity. Oh, the ecstasy of not using drugs or paying bankers. How sad. The final section deals with promoting community, including the notion that more farmers would be a good thing.

Tilling the Soil: Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Vision in Your Family

In this engaging message, noted entrepreneur Joel Salatin shares his four-generation family story of entrepreneurship, sharing how his innovative father cast a vision for cultivating the Salatin family farm, an effort that has lead, by God's grace, to their farming enterprise becoming world-renowned as a model for pastured poultry. Drawing from his failures and successes, Salatin emphasizes that godly entrepreneurs must uphold a biblical code, as he shares important lessons from his family's journey that will help encourage and equip other families, whatever arena of business they pursue, to cultivate a long-term, entrepreneurial vision.

You Can Farm The Entrepreneur's Guide to Start & Succeed in a Farming Enterprise

Have you ever desired, deep within your soul, to make a comfortable full-time living from a farming enterprise? Too often people dare not even vocalize this desire because it seems absurd. It's like thinking the unthinkable.<br><br>After all, the farm population is dwindling. It takes too much capital to start. The pay is too low. The working conditions are dusty, smelly and noisy: not the place to raise a family. This is all true, and more, for most farmers.<br><br>But for farm entrepreneurs, the opportunities for a farm family business have never been greater. The aging farm population is creating cavernous niches begging to be filled by creative visionaries who will go in dynamic new directions. As the industrial agriculture complex crumbles and our culture clambers for clean food, the countryside beckons anew with profitable farming opportunities.<br><br>While this book can be helpful to all farmers, it targets the wannabes, the folks who actually entertain notions of living, loving and learning on a piece of land. Anyone <i>willing</i> to dance with such a dream should be able to assess its assets and liabilities; its fantasies and realities. "Is it really possible for me?" is the burning question this book addresses.

Your Successful Farm Business Production, Profit, Pleasure

Twenty years ago Joel Salatin wrote <i>You Can Farm</i>, which has launched thousands of farm entrepreneurs around the world. With another 20 years of experience under his belt, bringing him to the half-century mark as a full-time farmer, he decided to build on that foundation with a sequel, a graduate level curriculum.<br>Everyone who reads and enjoys that previous work will benefit from this additional information. In those 20 years, Polyface Farm progressed from a small family operation to a 20-person, 6,000-customer, 50-restaurant business, all without sales targets, government grants, or an off-farm nest egg.<br>As a germination tray for new farmers ready to take over the 50 percent of America's agricultural equity that will become available over the next two decades, Polyface Farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley stands as a beacon of hope in a food and farming system floundering in dysfunction: toxicity, pathogenicity, nutrient deficiency, bankruptcy, geezers, and erosion. Speaking into that fear and confusion, Salatin offers a pathway to success, with production, profit, and pleasure thrown in for good measure.