Greener Eating: Look for Grass-Fed Meat

scleaver — Mon, 26 May 2008 00:00:00 -0400

The chickens at Kris Hirth’s Old Pine Farm in Manchester, MI spend their time strutting around the farm, happily ruffling their feathers and ignoring barn cats. Instead of being cooped up in a huge CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) where they never see the light of day, these chickens are free to roam outside as much as they want, and retire to a roomy coop when they get tired. Old Pine, as Heather Newman wrote in this week’s Detroit Free Press, specializes in grass-fed beef, pork, chicken, and emu, and raising animals the old-fashioned way.

As we learn more about just how our food is really raised, many people are turning to grass-fed meat. Grass-fed and pasture-raised meat may be harder to find, but it’s leaner, tastier, and chemical-free. Moreover, farmers that raise their animals on pastures make a greater profit per animal, and are happier, according to David Conner, research specialist at Michigan State University.

What’s the best way to incorporate grass-fed meat into your diet?

1. Pay attention. “We’ve all lost touch with the animals that become our meat,” Catherine Friend, a farmer in Zumbrota MN, and author of The Compassionate Carnivore, told the Free Press. “Paying attention is the first step, and it’s the hardest because we’re busy.”

2. Start slowly. Can’t incorporate grass-fed meat into every meal? Try one or two, or seek out restaurants that cook it when you’re going out.

3. Read labels closely. Don’t assume you’re getting pasture-raised meat at the grocery store. And, because of how meat is processed, meat coming from small farms may not be in your local grocery store, and if you do find it at a local market, it likely won’t be packaged in the way you’re used to.

4. Seek out local farmers. It takes more effort to pick up eggs, chicken, and slabs of beef from an out-of-the way farm, but it’s worth the drive. In metro Detroit, those pigs that Jim Koan used as pesticide on his apple farm are now being snapped up for pork, bacon, and ham. Find local meat producers and learn more about grass-fed farming through Eat Wild.

Photo of an emu at Old Pine Farm taken from the Free Press article.