You probably don't want to know what really goes on with chicken!
I drive across Washington state to visit "my" farmer, because the
best beef grows on the other side of the mountains. I bought a
freezer, but otherwise, buying it straight from the farmer is WAY
cheaper. Farmers don't get much for beef cattle: the middleman gets
most of it, and a lot of the profit goes to "fattening up" the cow.
Last time I checked, a grass-fed young beef at auction cost
something like $300, which isn't much.
What I did was call the local grange and ask where I could buy
a longhorn cow. The lady knew all the local farmers, and recommended
one. His beef is not rated "organic", but I went out and visited his farm
and talked beef with him: he doesn't bother with grain or antibiotics
because well, it costs money and the cows are just there for fun
and a little extra cash. Longhorn rarely get sick in any case!
I checked at a buffalo farm too, and they said a non-trophy buffalo
on the hoof would be something like $900. Which is a LOT of
buffalo! The butcher costs something like 40 cents a lb on top
of that, so by the time you see the meat, it is cut and wrapped
and looks a lot like it would at the store.
Chicken and pork are getting ultra-weird though. They are fed
so much antibiotic that they are becoming MRSA factories,
and something like 20% of retail pork proved to be infected
in one Canadian study. This came home to me because
my Mom got a MRSA infection after cutting up some pork
roast. Chicken is sometimes contaminated too.
We raised our own meat chickens one year, and didn't
feed them anything special. They still got those huge
breasts ... it's the breed, and they will eat and gorge
themselves til they can't walk. We had to move the water
dish 10 feet from the food dish (that is the recommendation)
to force them to exercise! They got huge ... they were 13 lb
chickens at a little over 2 months.
I didn't do it again because I felt sorry for them, just being
who they were. Most of our chickens fly and and are basically
happy egg-layers. But what I don't understand is this: I didn't
do anything special for the meat chickens. I even used
commercial food. But they tasted better, and they didn't
get ill or need any special care. Which makes me wonder
what all they do to the commercial birds, that they require
so much in the way of medicine. Or growth hormones, for
that matter. Those chickens grow FAST.
Given the MRSA issues though, we'll probably grow a batch
of chickens this year. I think it's a better way to go, having
someone local grow a batch and share with the neighbors,
than having the big commercial places grow them. You can
get a nice batch of chickens in a space the size of a dog
kennel, so it's perfectly compatible with suburbian living,
space-wise. They also live nicely off the stuff that goes
down your garbage disposal, and produce wonderful
fertilizer! They grow to supermarket size (4 lbs) in about
6 weeks.
I think we are not doing pork any more though. Way too
many issues there ... they can catch human viruses and
vice versa. Except bacon ... I don't think I want to give
up bacon ...
On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 6:16 PM, thentor <bherring@fast-5.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the info about pork & poultry. Sort of like with the Tour de France and major league sports, I wouldn't be surprised if hormones are used even though they're not allowed. I cut up some chicken breasts a few nights ago that were so big it made me wonder what the chickens were on. I wish I could trust that just because hormones aren't allowed, they aren't used. Maybe it's all genetics and antibiotics.
> -Bert
>
>
>
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