Today I was reading an interview with a chef in which he basically said he no longer enjoys everyday beef because, at his restaurant, they use grain-fed beef which is raised in feedlots contracted to a certain company which, supposedly, ensures the quality is much better.

I know the beef which is sold under this label, and while it probably contains lower levels of hormones and antibiotics than your basic supermarket or restaurant beef, I also know what this beef tastes like.

It tastes insipid.

Insipidness is an unavoidable consequence of raising food for yield and low cost rather than for quality. Keeping cattle in a feedlot, feeding them not their natural diet but instead cheap subsidized GM corn raised principally with petroleum, using artifical methods to get the animals fat at 10 or 12 months instead of over several years — these decisions are cost-driven, not flavor-driven or quality-driven, no matter what a “USDA Prime” or “USDA Choice” label might lead you to believe.

You can taste the insipidness of industrial food not just with meat but with fresh produce like bagged lettuce, which looks like it should have some flavor or body but is nothing like what Barry grows. Stone fruit, even from the best markets like Whole Foods, is only occasionally worth eating, unless you get it directly from a great farm. And dairy, which I imagine everywhere used to taste like something, now only has flavor in a few places like Woodward, Iowa.

On one hand, we have a lot of people in our community that fear change and lash out against real, not-insipid food as “elitist” or “pretentious”; and on the other hand there are a lot of people who suspect that there might be good-tasting food out there but end up being dazed and confused by all the marketing babble and celebrity chef nonsense — what is “natural beef”, anyway, and does “organic” lettuce mean it tastes better? And what makes a restaurant farm-to-table?

We didn’t get into this kind of cuisine to get on TV or because it impresses our friends at parties; we got into this because we were fed up with being fed tasteless ingredients and we wanted to eat food with flavor and body instead. Our restaurant doesn’t have a lot of fancy amenities or presentations, and like people in any rapidly-changing environment we make occasional missteps, but one thing we can guarantee is that the ingredients we put on your table will have not only form but also essence.

Now, I just want to shake people and let them know that they don’t have to eat insipid food. Robust food costs more but it’s an option. It only costs more because it’s grown right, by people who care, with the idea that it will be good and not just cheap. That’s worth something, and you can taste it if you listen to your mouth and your body.