My local chain grocery store has placed Memorial Day reminders prominent locations, everything from charcoal and lighter fluid to buns, ketchup, and mustard. You still have to trot over to the coolers to pick up hamburger, hot dogs, and bratwurst.

In the coolers, the only brands present are the nation’s largest industrial farms. It is challenging to find products from smaller operations, and you have to go somewhere else to find steak from a cow that was raised humanely.

Farmers markets, food co-ops, and natural foods stores usually showcase local suppliers who run sustainable, humane operations. It can be expensive — maybe not kobe beef expensive — but be prepared to pay two, three, or even four times as much. While the price is discouraging, I like to think of it as encouragement to eat more vegetables.

Lately, I’ve been enjoying bacon and bratwurst courtesy of Black Oak Farms in Byron, Michigan. Here’s how they describe their fare:

We farm a 700 acre, second generation, sustainbale family farm on the south branch of the Shiawassee River nestled in the rolling hills of Shiawassee County. We raise Berkshire and Chesterwhite breeds. We ranked 1st in pork quality among 20 producers winning Organic Valley’s 2009 Best Pork Quality Award. We provide for the humane treatment and the health and welfare of our animals. Our animals eat all vegetarian food raised on our farm. Our meat is grown without any checmical additives, antibiotics or hormones.

Black Oak’s products are delicious and they have kept their prices very reasonable, making my shopping decision easy. Unfortunately — other customers at my local natural foods store feel the same way, and Black Oak sells out within a day of weekly re-stocking.

If you want to avoid the industrial meat coolers but can’t find a decent local farm, another option is to make your own sausage. My entire background in homemade sausage is a 30-second clip from an episode of Seinfeld. Luckily, Kevin Weeks from NPR has helped fill in some of the details. Over at that link you’ll find instructions for making italian sausage, lamb sausage, bratwurst, and more. I don’t think sausage-making will enter my weekend plans, but it’s something I’ll think about later this summer.

Global demand for meat is on the rise at the same time transportation costs have spiked. Every day, more people on this planet are asking for bacon (or something else) with their breakfast whilst simultaneously becoming more costly to ship it to their late. 70% of the world’s agricultural land is already used for livestock, and creating more room means cutting down rain forests. Demand will be up, supply may not be, meaning that meat will become scarce.

What’s a patriotic, god-fearing carnivore to do? One researcher suggests that we start getting used the idea of eating insects.

Marcel Dicke is an agricultural entomologist who believes that the answer is simple: bugs. 80 percent of the creatures on Earth are insects, and there are 200 kilos of insect biomass per person on the planet. Speaking at TEDGlobal 2010, Dicke outlined a future where humanity’s consumption of mammals is replaced with Entomophagy — the consumption of insects.

He gave several reasons why this would be a good idea. Firstly, growing insects for food is extremely efficient, compared to more traditional meat sources. 10 kilograms of feed will generate just 1kg of beef, 3kg of pork, and 5kg of chicken. It generates 9kg of locusts.

As well as efficiency, that also means less waste to deal with — manure isn’t generated in anywhere near as great a quantity, and the waste that does result from the process is lower in ammonia and greenhouse gas emissions than equivalent manure from mammals.

Then could also health benefits, Dicke suggests. Insects are rich in all the proteins, fats, and vitamins that are crucial to our diet. One hundred grams of giant silkworm moth larvae provide 100 percent of the daily requirements for copper, zinc, iron, thiamin, and riboflavin. Crickets are high in calcium, and termites are rich in iron. With six million species to choose from, picking a diet is easy.

While giant silkworm moth larvae does not sound appetizing, it’s just a matter of perspective. Over 1000 types of insects are already eaten for nutritional gain in developing nations. The United Nations has even said that insects are an essential component of meeting food demands for the planet’s growing population.

All signs are beginning to point to a buggy future for citizens of wealthy nations. Or maybe, you know, we could just eat less meat.

To briefly sum up, O’Reilly’s rationale is:

1. Non-factory farms provide a better life for the animals (well, up until they are slaughtered).
2. You tend to put dollars straight into the pockets of your neighbors, not goliath corporations.
3. You’re promoting the environmental welfare of your community.
4. You eat healthier when these animals are given organic feed and kept off of growth hormone and antibiotics.

If you read my recent piece on meat transparency, those points should sound familiar.

Though each thought is distinct, they all relate to the higher concept of health. When buying meat products from a local, sustainable farm, you are contributing to the health of your neighbors, your community, and even your self.

Factory farms use economies of scale to turn a profit. Sure, you save a few dollars at the grocery store checkout, but that cheap price is offset by hidden societal costs.

If you’re reading this, you’re already avoiding factory farm meat. Or you’re thinking about it. Or you’re a vegetarian/vegan. For you, the personal choice to eat healthier is a simple one to make. Convincing others, however, is a challenge.

I skip meat at these places because I don’t know where it’s from.

My own kitchen only serves up meat from humanely-raised animals (or wild-caught). It’s nice knowing that the pig behind my bacon had an opportunity to enjoy a nice pig life, or the cow behind my hamburger could graze in a pasture (like cows used to do).

Transparency is missing in the grocery store.

When we buy meat and food from the grocery store, we don’t know how it got there. Ignorance is bliss. We trade transparency for cheap, convenient food.

Unless I know where the meat came from and what kind of environment the animals were raised, I simply choose not to take the chance.

Is industrially-produced meat less healthy than meat from humanely-treated animals? Maybe. Research suggests that meat from pasture-raised cows contains proper Omega-3/Omega-6 balance and less fat. The literature isn’t overflowing on the topic, however.

Personally, though, I think pasture-raised meat tastes way better.

While it’s great that society does care about what food we eat, we also need to think about what our food eats. Treat our food well, and it will treat us well.

Hidden from the view of Americans is where a lot of grocery store and restaurant food gets its start. That de-boned chicken breast was at one point part of a chicken; it was not born in the cooler of your neighborhood Walmart. Similarly, your ground beef patty was (hopefully) part of a real cow in the not too distant past.

An opaque veil obscures the origin of food in an industry effort to commoditize it. Huge, cost-efficient factory farms want consumers to believe that there’s no difference between a chicken confined to a 60 cubic inch pen for the duration of its short life and a chicken raised on a pasture, free to peck away at grubs and revitalize the soil.

Yeah, there’s a big difference, and if you don’t know where to look it can be REALLY hard to find an alternative. Heck, I spent six weeks going vegetarian while sorting through my options.

There are two easy places to start:

1. A local food co-operative (the kind that sells mostly organic products and has a few employees who could easily be described as “new age-y”).
2. Farmers markets (just open the coolers scattered around).

But be ready to pay a little more! Prices at co-ops and farmers markets tend to run about 50-200% higher than grocery store meat.

For me, it’s a huge comfort to meet the farmer who raised my hamburger patty and know the kind of environment the originating cow grew up  in. Also, it tastes WAY better.