What is Healthy Meat?

I believe in consuming high quality healthy meat. Meat that comes from animals that haven’t been mistreated, have been fed their proper diet, and have lived a good life with one really bad moment at the end.

Too many people go and grab a package of meat from the grocery store without even thinking twice. Or they say ‘Gee, this free range thing sounds good’ and grab the expensive ‘Free Range Chicken’ and think they’re doing good.

Getting ready to go for a ride in the trailer….

Three Rules for High Quality Healthy Meat

Animals that are mistreated during their life are unhealthy. The meat is sub-par. Animals need plenty of space, good shelter, and be safe from predators.

Animals that are not fed a proper diet are unhealthy. In many cases, their meat is toxic. You can’t feed a cow grain it’s entire life and expect a healthy animal.

Animals that are mistreated during the last minutes, hours, even days are stressed animals, full of stress hormones. The meat is tough and usually has an off taste due to the stress hormones. A proper kill at the end is non-negotiable.

Healthy vs Storebought

Here’s an example of healthy meat and some … not so good stuff

Here’s a picture of some store-bought pork chops. This is a marketing picture they are PROUD of, which as we know doesn’t really represent what you get at the meat case.

Look at the pale color and the lack of significant marbling in the muscle, and if you take a look at where the chops are stacked you can see that the meat ‘flops over’ a little. Not good.

The meat is pale because these pigs were fed junk, probably lots of dairy, corn and bakery discards. There’s no marbling in the muscle because the pig was confined into a small space and got no exercise. That’s also why the meat is floppy (no muscle tone) and contributes to the light color (low vascular activity in the muscle)

If you pick up one of these chops it feels light. The meat is not dense, and if you take a look at it when it’s in your hand, you can see it in the texture as well.

Contrast that with this picture of pork chops from my pigs.

The first thing you’ll notice is the rich color. And then the readily visible marbling in the muscle. The meat is firm, dense, and has a tight texture.

Why? Because I feed my animals a healthy ration with ample supplementation, they aren’t crowded, and they have lots of space to root around, find fun stuff to eat in the pasture, and just be a pig. No stress lifestyle, they come up for scratches when we bring up table scraps.

A great life with a split second bad time at the very end. No stress hormones, just delicious meat. Heavy, dense and toned muscle, deep color thanks to both a quality diet and good exercise. And the flavor …. you can’t even compare it to feed lot pork.

You will touch the meat and just KNOW this animal was healthy and led an active life. Just like humans have the ability to look at healthy soil and just feel that it’s good dirt, we have the ability to instinctually recognize healthy meat.

I guarantee if you look at these chops in person side by side with store bought, you’ll know which one you should eat.

Oh, that big fat layer? Sign of a healthy animal. It’s white, dense, and consistent. Perfect fat layer for a pig. We don’t trim it off because when you throw that chop on a hot grill, bring the meat to 145, the fat keeps the meat on the edges from overcooking. If you trim off all the fat, the outside of the chop gets overcooked. The fact that the fat renders out into something that tastes like sweet buttery candy that melts in your mouth when you eat it is a side benefit.

It’s Just Marketing

Even that organic free range chicken we were talking about a minute ago probably doesn’t pass any of the above three tests. “Organic” and “Free Range” are just marketing that lets them charge you a premium for the same product.

Take “Free Range” for example - When you hear that, you think about how a chicken lives on a farm like mine …. acres and acres of freedom, running around eating bugs, dodging hawks and eagles, living the life.

What it usually REALLY means is that there’s a poultry grow house where they cram birds in tight as fuck, but over on the wall somewhere there’s a door where a few of them can go into the ‘yard’ … the yard being big enough to fit four or five birds out of the four or five thousand in the grow house.

Not really what you had in mind when you hear ‘free range’, right?

This general concept holds true for just about every marketing term that’s slapped on a label. Remember, these folks are VERY good at spinning a tale to make you buy their product over someone else’s … even with (or especially with) commodities like meat.

So screw those guys. Go to the source. Get quality meat from someone who you can meet in person, shake hands with, and trust to provide quality meat.

Buy From Your Local Producer

I guarantee that no matter where you are in the United States (and probably in many other parts of the world) you can find high quality meat direct from the guy that raised it.

You can usually go visit the farm where the animal was raised, see what it’s like, make sure it meets your standards for a good life. You’ll know if conditions are bad, even if you don’t really have much experience (and if you have any doubts, reach out with details)

In some cases that’s going to come at a premium, but you might be surprised. Especially with prices what they are today, you might be better off buying local from a financial standpoint.

That it’s better for you to eat goes without saying. Don’t put garbage in your body. Eat high quality meat that has been treated well, fed properly, and had a good life.

If your food eats garbage, you are eating garbage too.

I’ll write about the process and economics of buying from a local producer later on this week.

Enjoy….