Earlier this year, we began scratching our heads with a question.

Can we tell a complete story of one plate of food served in Chattanooga?

Is it possible to trace one meal back to its source?

And tell its story? Start to finish. Beginning to end.

Can we tell the full story of one meal from one local restaurant?

Often, food is served under a context of illusion, not unlike a magic trick. We order and viola! - out from the kitchen and its mysteriously closed doors, our meal arrives. We know something happened, just not exactly what.

Dozens of questions go unanswered every time we eat.

Who farmed the land that grew and produced this meal? What are his practices? Her ethics?

How far did my dinner travel? How did it get here? How were animals treated? Workers? The land itself?

You know, the backstory of dinner.

One casual morning, shooting the breeze with two local restaurant owners, we brought this idea up.

A half hour later, we had a game plan.

Now, months later, our story is ready.

This Sunday, we're publishing our biggest feature yet.

We're telling the full story of one dinner from one cherished local restaurant. Thousands of Chattanoogans have eaten this meal; now, you'll know the story behind it.

We've put dozens of hours into this. Met with strangers who've become fast friends. Learned leagues of information about processing plants, butchering, the cost of meat and the priceless value of respect.

Our intention?

We want to promote people and places doing it right.

We want to spotlight the people making decisions that are wholesome, ethical and beneficial to the land, animals and us.

Thousands of Chattanoogans have eaten this meal; now, you'll know the story behind it.

Now, we need a favor.

On Sunday, our story contains images from inside a Tennessee processing plant.

If you see these images - all PG-13 rated - yet feel troubled or reactive, we ask you to consider the larger system.

American slaughterhouses can be unimaginably cruel.

But we've found one Tennessee family whose processing plant rests on a foundation of respect and a do-no-harm ethic.

Yes, animals must die for us to enjoy dinner - trained workers make certain it's a pain-free death - yet, their entire lives were spent wholesomely aligned with the land and natural processes. From their first breath to their last, these animals are cared for and loved.

Plus, cattle farming done correctly regenerates so much. By supporting farms like this, we are, in turn, supporting Tennessee soil, carbon sequestration, wholesome fertilization and overall health: for workers, families, animals, the land.

Unless we all stop eating meat - not going to happen, nor should it - then it becomes paramount to distinguish between the people and places acting nobly versus cruelly.

Put it this way: as we drove away from our morning at this processing plant, Sarah and I both said out loud: we wish every county had one just like it.

We imagined a similar, family-owned processing plant as a Hamilton County cornerstone, part of the food ecosystem, like bakers and brewers, that turn the wheel round and round.

You may imagine brutal; instead, we saw something beautiful.

In searching for the answers to our question - can we tell the backstory of one meal? - we were reminded: every time we pick up a fork, we support something. We vote with our stomach.

For practices that are humane and noble.

Or practices that are harmful.

Unless we shine a light on the former, we are left in the dark, unknowingly in support of the latter.

That's our Sunday story.

Oh yeah.

What meal? Which restaurant?

See you next Sunday.

• We love and admire Letty and Curtis Smith and their beautiful, rich Circle S Farm.

On a mountaintop in Rising Fawn, Georgia, they're stewarding land, growing vegetables, raising cattle, feeding families and, as we reported, using their beloved horses - two sisters - in a most beautiful way.

Not only a farmer, Letty's also a musician and writer; she publishes a Circle S blog.

On Sunday, she published a gut-punch of an essay.  

It starts like this:

Letty goes on, describing the immeasurable beauty within her mountaintop farm. The love she and Curtis use to farm. The preciousness of the land.

And its vulnerability.

The bulldozers are arriving, she said, in the name of 'development.' Down the road from Letty and Curtis, some folks are trying to build a gun range.

Thursday evening at 6 pm, the Walker County Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on a request for McLemore Club's special-use permit request for an outdoor firing range.

Letty's asking her readers, friends and the larger community: show up, speak out. A firing range has no business next to Circle S Farm.

She writes:

Can you imagine a country with no farmland?  No pastural views, no cattle or crops?  Rural America is disappearing.  We are being pushed out. ...

Thanks for supporting rural land, local farms and please stand up for clean water, clean air and family farms.  Once it is lost, it cannot be reclaimed.

To keep reading, visit Circle S's webpage.

Story ideas, questions, feedback? Interested in partnering with us? Email: david@foodasaverb.com

This story is 100% human generated; no AI chatbot was used in the creation of this content.