Why is free-range meat considered so good?

[Orion Balls]

Free-range is of course a misnomer when it comes to large commercial farms. In the case of chicks, they get two square feet per bird and must be outside six hours a day. Smaller farms will kinda just let their animals roam. Small farms are almost all actually free range to a certain extent. More property if course means a higher cost in meat. But it's very much worth it. Free-range animals taste better, because they live slightly better lives than other livestock. As others have said, stress takes a toll on meat quality. I've seen chickens that live in a box their entire lives. It's a little sad. But what else can you do to produce food for a country as large as ours? No, most farmers are not raking in the dough.

 

[Dread First]

Whenever I visit the farming village back home, the one thing I'm taken aback by more than anything else is how different the meat actually tastes. Coming back to the USA every time I visited the motherland kinda makes me briefly vegetarian because almost all of the meat we have available in grocery stores is just so... tasteless. This happens even if I visit another country like Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana, and so on - jerk chicken, oxtail soup, and so on just tastes better for reasons I can't fully articulate.

My dad says it's because the meat here in the USA is bogged down with preservatives, growth hormones, and all kinds of extra stuff to the point where the meat loses its flavour. My grandpa said that it's because traditional slow-cooking methods like the kinds they use for preparing jerk meat in the Caribbean are actually illegal due to consumer health laws.

I have no idea what it is, but the one thing I'll always be grateful for whenever I leave the USA for holiday is the type of savoury, tender meat that you just can't get here otherwise.

 

[NoReturn]

Whenever I visit the farming village back home, the one thing I'm taken aback by more than anything else is how different the meat actually tastes. Coming back to the USA every time I visited the motherland kinda makes me briefly vegetarian because almost all of the meat we have available in grocery stores is just so... tasteless. This happens even if I visit another country like Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana, and so on - jerk chicken, oxtail soup, and so on just tastes better for reasons I can't fully articulate.

My dad says it's because the meat here in the USA is bogged down with preservatives, growth hormones, and all kinds of extra stuff to the point where the meat loses its flavour. My grandpa said that it's because traditional slow-cooking methods like the kinds they use for preparing jerk meat in the Caribbean are actually illegal due to consumer health laws.

I have no idea what it is, but the one thing I'll always be grateful for whenever I leave the USA for holiday is the type of savoury, tender meat that you just can't get here otherwise.

I have to second all of this except the "leaving the USA" part. If you live in rural areas you can still get good meat if you buy it directly from your neighbors.

 

[Dread First]

I have to second all of this except the "leaving the USA" part. If you live in rural areas you can still get good meat if you buy it directly from your neighbors.

True that, although farmer's markets where I live have been absolutely gentrified by all of the white hipsters moving here from Ohio or Tennessee on mommy and daddy's money. We have Whole Foods specifically for those degenerates, but they still make the trip here.

Needless to say, I'm not gonna be paying $10 a pound for some damn chuck steak.

 

[queerape]

When it comes to free ranging chickens, they have a more varied diet. Factory farmed chickens are fed mostly grain, while free range chickens can eat more grasses and other things. This gives the yolk of their eggs more flavor. I saw a factory egg compared to free range, and the free range egg was more orange (more carotenoids) than the factory egg.