Brandon and Lauren start by reviewing the important information: Meatsmith has 3 holiday gifts you can offer your loved ones this holiday season! Membership, the (spanking new) Knife Folio, and harvest classes. The meat of the episode covers 3 questions offered by members of our intimate Patreon community.  The first is about vacuum sealers.  The second pertains to ruling out botulism in your cures.   The third is more rumination on commodity use and commodity value, which results in general admiration for the working tradesman.  They arrive at a solution (for the problem of exploitation in the food industries) of individual consumers educating themselves to further invest in and support (never altogether abandoning) local communal economies.