O Woe is Meat

As I walked passed a woman in front of the Lifeline Farm’s stand last Saturday at the Farmer’s Market, I heard her say, “I can’t afford to eat quality meat”.  It’s hard not to agree with her.  The meat that I feel good about eating can be very expensive.  So I did some research and gathered some facts and I am now able to share some good reasons to spend a little more to eat high quality (which often equates to “local” meat). 

The first is nutrition.  The fact is that when we eat an animal we are also eating what that animal ate.  If a cow has spent the majority of it’s life in a CAFO or Concentrated Animal Food Operation or in simpler terms, a feedlot, that cow has been pumped with antibiotics to keep it healthy in incredibly cramped quarters, it has eaten off the ground which is covered in feces and it has often been fed an unnatural diet heavy in grains which makes the animal grow bigger faster.  Meat from cows, chickens, pigs and lambs that are raised on a diet of grass has a much higher level of vitamins, antioxidants and healthier fats such as omega-3s which is then passed on to you when you consume aforementioned meat. Proof is often in the color.  For instance, the high level of beta-carotene from fresh grass can be witnessed in the bright orange yolks of the eggs laid by grass-fed chickens.  



Can you tell which one is from Jerome at the Farmer's Market and which one is from Target?
(Hopefully you can because I just realized this picture is terrible!)



The second is taste.  That $2.50 per pound chicken at the big grocery stores may be cheap but frankly, it tastes funky.  Mass-produced beef really just acts as a filler in recipes whereas a locally raised steak only needs a little salt and pepper to help it shine. It’s hard to describe this with words.  Challenge yourself to a taste test sometime so you can taste the difference yourself.

So now that you know some reasons why you should buy local meat, how do you manage it?  I've found that the best way to add high quality expensive local meat to our diet is to eat less of it. I'm no nutritionist but I know that we Homo sapiens simply don’t need as much meat as we currently consume. It doesn’t always have to be the star of the dinner plate.  When I plan my meals, I try to stick to a mainly vegetarian diet with about three or four meals a week that use meat.  And I confess, that meat sometimes consists of decadent bacon or sausage, highly flavorful ingredients that I don’t need of great deal of to have a tasty meal.  Also, try making meat one small ingredient in a multi-ingredient dish.  Check out my recipe on the Recipe page for Steak and Potato Salad, a great example of meat adding just one of the many mouth-watering flavors in a meal.

For great resources on finding locally raised, grass fed meat visit www.eatwild.com or www.localharvest.org.