Real Food for a Stronger Year

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January 7, 2026

Over the past few years, I’ve gotten into the habit of choosing a word to help shape the year ahead. Not a resolution. Just a word I can come back to when things feel busy or noisy.

Last year, my word was Create.

It showed up in ways I didn’t expect. In how we approached projects on the farm, how I thought about growth, and even in how I gave myself permission to try things, adjust, and keep moving forward without needing everything to be perfect. I’ll be sharing more about that reflection soon, along with the word I’m still settling on for 2026. Stay tuned for that.

As a new year gets underway, I’m also very aware of how loud the online space can become. Every January brings a wave of trends, programs, and influencers telling us what health should look like. Personally, I’m working to stay grounded this year, and to keep coming back to what we already know works.

Real, whole food.
Daily movement through real work and everyday life.
And a thankful heart.

Growing up, both of my grandmas lived well into their mid-90s. Their lives looked different from one another, but they shared one common thread: they filled their plates, and their family’s plates, with real food most of the time. This was long before convenience foods flooded the industrialized food system. Meals were simple. Food was familiar. And nourishment was steady.

That way of eating, and living, has stayed with me.

Our farm intentionally goes against the grain of the modern food system. We know the hands involved in how your food is raised, processed, and delivered. Hands that you in turn can know and trust. That consistency matters. It’s what allows us to produce food you can rely on time after time. Food that cooks well, tastes good, and supports real life.

That’s what led us to create a new page on our website called Real Food for a Stronger Year.

It’s a place to share how we raise food on our farm, how those choices show up at the table, and how many families get started without needing an overhaul. Whether you’re walking through a season of healing, or simply trying to keep a steady, sustainable food rhythm for your household, we will meet you where you’re at.

You can explore the page here:

👉 jakescountrymeats.com/real-food

Wherever you’re starting this year, we’re grateful to be part of your table and your story. Thank you for trusting our farm to help feed your family.

Wishing you a strong, grounded start to the year,
Renee
Jake’s Country Meats

PS - I’ll be sharing more soon about my word for 2026 and what last year’s word taught me on the farm. I hope it encourages you to find something simple to anchor your own year, too.

What 7 generations of Farming Teaches Us...

Earlier this month, we welcomed the Cass County Historical Society to our farm for their September event and meeting. We gathered together to talk about the history of our farm, seven generations of agriculture, and all the ways farming has changed along the way. Then we loaded everyone onto hay wagons and headed out to see what farming here looks like today. It was an evening about history, but the conversation felt just as relevant to the future. Because the story of how agriculture has changed is also part of the story of how we all buy food today. Walk through a grocery store and there are plenty of labels trying to help you decide what to buy. Natural. Local. Grass-fed. Pasture-raised. Sustainable. Premium. You can spend a lot of time reading packages and researching claims and still wonder what any of it actually looked like on the farm. That's one reason we believe knowing where your food comes from, and knowing the people who raised it, matters. Our Farm Changed, Too Generations ago, farms in this area were diversified because they needed to be. Livestock, crops, gardens and families existed together on the same piece of ground. Animals provided fertility for the soil, crops fed animals and people, and farms relied heavily on what they could produce themselves and on the communities surrounding them. As agriculture changed, farms became larger and more specialized. Livestock increasingly moved into confinement, and farmers became more dependent on commodity systems where they could be very efficient at raising something while having very little control over what they were paid for it. Our family lived that story. We raised hogs in confinement and sold into the commodity market. When hog prices collapsed in the late 1990s, our family had to take a hard look at whether that system could provide a future for our farm. Instead of getting bigger, we eventually chose a different direction: downsizing, diversifying and getting closer to the people actually eating the food we raised. Animals moved back outside. Pigs returned to pastures and woodlands. Cattle and sheep became part of our grazing system. Chickens and turkeys moved across pasture. We began thinking more intentionally about the relationship between soil, plants, animals and people, while building our own market to sell our food directly to you. What Does That Have to Do With Your Dinner? Quite a bit, actually. If you're trying to feed your family well, there's an overwhelming amount of information telling you what you should and shouldn't buy. One of the things a direct relationship with a farmer can offer is something much simpler: a source you can actually know. You can ask us what our pigs eat, how our cattle are raised, where our animals are processed or why we make a particular farming decision. You can visit the farm, see our animals and pastures, meet our family and employees, and follow along throughout the year. When you have questions, there's a real person on the other side of them. To us, that's one of the most valuable things about local food. "Local" shouldn't only mean that something traveled fewer miles. It can also mean accountability, transparency and a relationship with the people responsible for raising your food. We Aren't Trying to Farm in the Past After our talk, we headed outside to see some of these ideas in practice. We talked about grazing, livestock, soil and pasture, and we visited some baby pigs that held everyone's attention more than any story we could tell. Some of what we do today probably looks familiar to farmers from generations ago, but we're not trying to recreate the past. We use electric fencing, portable watering systems, tractors, refrigeration, USDA-inspected processing, delivery trucks, inventory software and online ordering. We're combining principles that have worked for generations with the tools and knowledge available to us today. That's part of agriculture. Farmers have to adapt. The question for us isn't how to make farming look like it did 100 years ago. It's how to take care of our land, raise animals well, produce really great food and build a farm economically strong enough to still be here 100 years from now. Strong Farms. Strong Communities. There's a lot of conversation about supporting the American farmer. When you choose to buy directly from us, you help create a market for farmers who want to do things differently. Those dollars help keep farmland in regenerative agriculture, employ local people, support processors and other small businesses. You help build strong communities, and maybe even more importantly with the average age of the American farmer on the rise each year, you give another generation a reason to believe farming can still provide a living. A Strong farm gives you an option. One that you trust to nourish you well. One that you trust to provide food that tastes incredible. One that you trust will consistently serve you. One that you trust to take care of the animals and land with respect. A strong farm gives its community a better way to feed itself, and a strong community gives its farms enough support to keep farming. Seven generations ago, our family couldn't have imagined what this farm would look like in 2026. We can't know what it will look like seven generations from now either. But we hope the people living here will still have the choice to know where some of their food comes from, to ask questions about how it was raised, and to know the farmer responsible for raising it. Thank you to the Cass County Historical Society for giving us an opportunity to look back at where agriculture has been and think about where it's headed. And thank you to every one of you who chooses to be part of what comes next. Strong Farms. Strong Communities.Real Food. Rooted Living. Renee & the Jake's Country Meats family

Beef In The News

There has been a lot of beef in the news lately. Beef prices are high, cattle numbers are low, and now there is talk about bringing in more imported beef at a discount to help combat prices for consumers. Then, almost in the same breath, there are announcements aimed at helping American farmers and ranchers by addressing some of the processing and market-access challenges we face. Despite what feels like whiplash, anything in the news today - will take it's effect on American farmers overtime, and the outcomes of these decisions will all be determined in due time. So what do these current events mean for our small family farm? And what can you actually do to help American farmers?

Create Your Own Job...

That’s exactly what my parents instilled in us kids growing up on the farm, among many other things. But this one…this one really stuck with me. And I bought into it a little too far, I’ll admit some days, and created a job with responsibility much bigger than I ever dreamed.

Real Food for a Stronger Year

More from the blog

What 7 generations of Farming Teaches Us...

Beef In The News

Create Your Own Job...

Jake's Country Meats