Our family supports local farmers as much as we can. We're members of a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm, and we buy all our meat and milk from local farmers who graze them on grass and don't use routine antibiotics and hormones. It's healthy, and the food is really just plain better. My charming wife bought the reserve champion lamb at the 4-H auction at the county fair last year, and we were astonished at the comparison between the meat from that lamb and the meat we'd been getting from a local sheep farmer who pastures on grass.

But here's another reason to avoid "factory farmed" meat: they're serious polluters.

According to a 1998 report from the Department of Agriculture and U.S. EPA, CAFO [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation - basically, feedlots] muck has fouled roughly 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and groundwater in 17 states. More recent data show that 29 states have reported water contamination from these feedlots. [Emphasis mine]