Guest blogger Mike Ver Steeg with Sarah, Cody, Evan, and Ella on their family farm in northwest Iowa. They have a 850 sow farrow to wean farm, selling the weaned pigs to Mike's father to become pork chops, ham and bacon. All pig feed is mixed on the farm using corn from their own fields, which is rotated with no-till soybeans. Mike is an Iowa State graduate, proud to be a farmer and active in his community.

I’ll be the first to admit that I was a little overweight, and hitting the TUMS nightly for heart burn.  My wife decided to try a three week HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin) diet.  Like a  good husband, I decided to join her.  For three weeks I put some drops under my tongue and was limited to 800 calories a day. No breakfast;  pork, steak or seafood for main course;  lettuce with out dressing and fruit for dinner and supper.  I’ll admit one of the hardest things I have done – but at least I still got my red meat.

I was able to loose 20 pounds and have kept those pounds off for 7 months now.  I have not had heart burn one time since starting the diet.  Those three weeks helped to re-set my body’s metabolism.  The next 3 weeks I slowly started to add other foods back into my meals, and now I eat what I want…..in moderation.  The whole process helped me to re-think what I eat.  I have made an effort to include more fruits and vegetables in my meals, cut down on carbohydrates and only drink diet soda (when not drinking milk).

Through this whole process, my wife continued to purchase the majority of our groceries from the local super market.  She continues to buy fruits, vegetables, meats and processed foods from what some label as “Big Ag” companies and food manufacturers.  The pork we eat is locally grown because we eat what we raise on our family farm.  We have a fairly large garden (to teach our children responsibility) that we enjoy eating from.

There has been a lot of talk recently about how and what we should eat.  Local, organic, unprocessed, raw and vegetarian foods are in the media constantly.  I will never tell someone how or what to eat.  That is a personal choice.  As a farmer, I will never bad mouth one food production method in order to boost sales of another. I appreciate all types of  food production methods and feel that we all need to work together to provide healthy, affordable food products for all to enjoy.  I thank the vegetable, citrus, orchard, small grains, dairy, nut, beef, poultry, and all growers that have the expertise to produce all the foods I enjoy but that I do not produce myself.  I also thank the companies that take the raw products farmers produce and turn them into healthy foods for all to eat and efficiently distribute these foods all over the world.

What we choose to eat comes down to personal responsibility.  Lets focus on producing more food with less inputs and efficiently distributing food so all can enjoy a healthy diet and combat hunger in the process. And on Thanksgiving, let’s all give thanks for the many hands it took to bring food to the table – and the freedom to eat and farm as we choose.

~ guest blog post by Mike Versteeg. He tweets as @foodprovider from the tractor and hog barn as a “Christian, conservative, pig, corn and soybean family farmer.”