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[fishcat]

tonight at trader joe's i saw a package labeled "grain fed buffalo". wtf. i thought buffalo could only be pasture fed. now, i feel much less sure about buying buffalo at the store. grrrrr. more research needed.

grain fed meat bad.

Comments

[colombenoire]

WTF?!

Ugh, this makes me cranky, too. My home is so far from any stores that carry grass-fed beef that I'd started buying buffalo instead.. and NOW WHAT. Possibly bad news.. I should have known.

[fishcat]

I haven't done any research yet but i found this in the frozen section there -in the meat section they carry grassfed ground beef. at least it's something. feh.

[colombenoire]

Further on the grain-fed buffalo..

I talked at some length with a guy running a table at the farmers' market today. The business he represents usually sells "exotic" meats.. elk, venison, buffalo.. plus some grass-fed beef. I went looking for ground beef but ended up buying ground buffalo and asked him about the grain-fed issue. He said that most buffalo sold in supermarkets is raised on feed lots and fed grain -- that something like 85% of bison sold in this country is from feed lots!

He also told me that you can tell the meat of a grain-fed animal from a grass-fed one by its color. The former will be pink, while the latter will be a dark, almost red-wine red. I imagine you might have already known that factoid but I did not!

At any rate, I'm going to be sad when the farmers' market closes. They are my favorite and most convenient source of good meat. I wish I lived closer to a good store.

[fishcat]

I didn't know that little fact for sure but have noticed that the grassfed beef always looked really dark. I bought bison this week (before the TJs incident) from Wild Oats and now I wonder what I really got....grrr.

I'm so glad you had this conversation! Meat is such a tricky business in this country. Buying bad meat has so many ramifications, health just being one of them.