Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum

Raw Paleo Diet Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: JaX on April 24, 2009, 10:29:01 pm

Title: What's the quality of your meat
Post by: JaX on April 24, 2009, 10:29:01 pm

Are the meat products you buy certified organic as well as grassfed

There are lot of farms that have started to advertise with the claim that their animals are "grassfed" and as it becomes more fad to choose grassfed beef, more of these industrialized farms seem to find a way to get in on the cash flow. I've seen the term "grassfed beef" in the menu at numerous restaurants. Lots of beef sold over the internet is now "grassfed and antibiotic, hormone, pesticide free"-- how sure can you be of these statements without even seeing the farm?

I'm a bit skeptical about the "grassfed" term since pretty much anyone can use it. The organic certification provides a little more confidence in that the farm is inspected and organic cows have to be outside on pastures at least 6 months per year to follow organic rules (I think.. correct me if I'm wrong) Plus you avoid all the antibiotics, hormones and pesticides so commonly used in conventional farming.

I am aware that there are small scale farms with few animal that can't afford to get the organic certification even though they follow organic standards. The disadvantage though is that most of these only ship prefrozen meats and it's only economical if you buy large quantities per order.

Title: Re: What's the quality of your meat
Post by: TylerDurden on April 24, 2009, 10:39:57 pm

Organic is often a misnomer as this label mostly applies to the big agricombines who feed their animals ccrappy foods(such as feeding fowl on 100% grain-diets), and there are even organic grainfed cattle. IN short, the organic label while a good choice for playing safe is not a guarantee of quality by any means(it just means the animals have a little more room and aren't fed antiobiotics/hormones).

In my own case, I eat mostly organic grassfed or  wildcaught land animals and wild seafood. I have to say, though, that I'm not terribly impressed by the taste of most of the 100% grassfed/organic sources I get. Wild meats/seafood taste so much better and I've often come across small farmers who can't afford to switch to organic status whose food tastes far better than standard organic-labelled fare(trouble is it takes a while to find such reliable small producers).