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Choosing Local Meat

Consumers who want to know where their meat comes from – and how it lived before it hit the chopping block – now have an alternative means for buying meat: Fresh from the folks who raise it.

A growing number of consumers are buying their meat by the half or quarter steer, or buying whole chickens, pigs and lambs that are raised without being force-fed growth hormones or feed that is laced with antibiotics. The meat, which is leaner that what you find in the grocery store, can be stored in the freezer and used for many months.

The trend of buying straight from the farm got a boost in 2002, when Berkeley author Michael Pollan published a story in the New York Times depicting problems with American beef, such as illnesses caused by poor diet, routine hormone and antibiotic use and outbreaks of E.coli at feedlots.

Buying by the half or quarter animal also gives consumers more cuts of meat, including some they may never have heard of. There are websites that give people tips for how to cook grass-fed beef and offering directories of farms that sell directly to customers.

Eating animals raised without antibiotics and growth hormones not only offers you a cleaner dinner, it helps reduce pollution by reducing the amount of antibiotics and hormones running off into local water supplies.

To find a directory of farmers that sell straight to consumers, go to www.eatwild.com.

To read more about this story, click here.

To read more about this and other environmental health issues, go to: www.environmentalhealthnews.org, www.ourstolenfuture.org, or www.healthandenvironment.org