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Ask a Food Blogger: What Are Free Range Meats?

Question: I keep seeing in my grocery store certain meats being advertised as ‘free range.’ They are much more expensive than ‘regular’ meat. Can you tell me why this meat is called ‘free range’, why it’s so much more expensive, and if it’s better for my health?

This is an excellent question! Since you’ve really asked three questions. . .I’ll have to give you three answers.

What Is Free Range Meat?

Free range meat is a cut of meat from an animal that is allowed to roam in unrestricted pastures. Sort of. The USDA defines the term ‘free range’ such that farmers have to adhere to certain guidelines in order to call their meat free range. Sometimes the wording is vague so for example, chickens merely have to have a bigger pen in order to be allowed to be labeled ‘free range’.

So when you see the free range label, it hopefully means that before the piece of meat was killed, it was roaming freely on the range, eating grass and feed at will.

Why Is Free Range Meat So Much More Expensive

It has to do with how the food is created. The short answer is that free range animals don’t produce as much therefore farmers have to charge more in order to make money. Here are a few examples:

Most cows are given growth hormones to get the most meat out of the cow when it is slaughtered. Free range cows are not and so they may not produce as many pounds of meat. Likewise, a free range chicken lays approximately 80 eggs per year. Since she is allowed to roam freely, she lays eggs on her biological clock. However, traditionally, chickens are kept in a tiny pen and their biological clocks are ‘tricked’ by heat lamps and lighting so that they produce about 270 eggs per year–thus rendering them cheaper.

Are Free Range Meats Healthier?

I’m sorry to say that an egg is an egg is an egg. There really isn’t a difference according to studies about free range food being healthier than traditionally processed food. In fact, many are concerned that if you allow particularly poultry to roam freely, they are more susceptible to diseases that may find their way into our food. On the other hand, free range food should be free of growth hormones.

Really, eating free range meats is more about the ethical treatment of animals than it is about health. Many feel that animals on farms are treated very poorly to produce the most amount of food possible for as little price. Free range animals are supposedly treated better and ethically. Therefore, if you feel particularly convicted about how farms produce meat and eggs–you should probably go for the free range stuff.

Do you have a question for me? Leave a comment below or visit the ask a food blogger forum!

Winter ’06 Families Cookbook

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