Question for those who maintain an organic diet...I need advice.

[NGT ANGL]

Applegate and Coleman are organic two brands of meat that I have purchased and they are pretty good - pricey but good. If you have a Wegman's nearby, they have a large organic section as well. The best way to determine if it is organic is by the USDA label on the packaging.

 

[Kuntry Klucker]

Thanks for all the great posts.

I did go out to the store today and took a good look at the meats and talked to the meat department in the stores.
They were very helpful. For beef I found a brand called Laura lean. The meat is pricey but all natural.
Pasture raised cattle, no hormones or steroids used in growing the beef. Cooked it tonight and it tasted
so different from what I have been purchasing. Really good. May stick with that brand unless I find something better

For chicken I found a brand called Gerber's Amish Farm Chicken. Chicken raised with no hormones, arcenic, antibiotics,
feed a veggie diet and allowed to free roam. I looked the company up on line and from what I have researched
so far they live up to what they stand for. I have not cooked it yet but I will soon. It is a lot more pricey
but I am willing to pay a higher price for meat that is raised without all the junk that is in cheaper meat.

I do plan on processing my own chickens, but till I have the equitement and the birds I will have to
be a picky consumer.

 

[country lady]

Roy, we buy a chicken as you described from Walmart (w/o junk and a veg. diet). I can't remember the name (Harvest-something) but it does list the farm where it came from. It is pricey compared to Tyson but we get about three meals from one large chicken costing about $6.50. I think it is $1.47 a lb.

My aunt used to fry the most delicious chicken from the farm. It was much skinnier and fried in lard or Crisco with just salt and pepper. Today's chicken is harder for me to cut up because it is a Cornish cross with a thick breast. (We like the wishbone) I always cut up a chicken because years ago I read that chickens with tumors are allowed to be sold with tumors removed, as chicken parts.

It's not easy to avoid all the junk in our food. Fortunately, a neighbor hunts our land and shares deer meat with us. Even deer meat likely has some pesticides since deer are browsers. Farmers around here always complain that deer eat soybeans, etc.

 

[DuckLover2399]

Quote:
Try checking out side. That's where the local farmers are.

Well that was rude

 

[KenK]

I'm sorry you thought so. It was not intended to be.
The local farmers around here don't have fancy websites or any other kind of online presence.

It strikes me as odd that somebody who wants to get with the local food movement restricts their search to the interweb.

 

[DuckLover2399]

Quote:
Well, it would be better to say that.

 

[Kuntry Klucker]

country lady,

Chicken meat can be sold with tumors in it!!!! Really that is nasty.

I would figure that quality control would not let that go
into the food market.

Tell me, in raw meat what does a chicken tumor look like? Is it just a bump or look like something else.

Also, do the cancers in the tumor become harmless when cooked at a high temp?

Thanks for the info.

 

[country lady]

Roy Rooster, the law allowing removal of chicken tumors was in an article that I read years ago but if you google you will see the subject is still around. I only know what I read so I assume it was true then, probably now. There is a chicken "factory" near me and I see chickens taken to be processed frequently. It is an awful sight. It is a fact of life, and I sometimes wonder how the pretty chicken meat in the super market is the same going down the road.

I've never seen a chicken tumor and I didn't mean to alarm you. Evidently, our government feels the meat is safe to eat. I am personally very careful cooking super market chicken, using bleach in the kitchen, etc. There have been numerous articles about our food in various country living magazines. I believe chickens butchered at home would be very safe.

 

[Kuntry Klucker]

country lady,

ok, thanks, I will google that and see what I can find on the subject. That for letting me know.