Please Help!!! RE: Meat

crees87

I've seen quite a few shows on cruelty to chickens(jamie oliver, food inc.) but my question is, are turkeys treated the same? It is not super easy to get free-range chicken near me so I was wondering if reg. turkey would be an alternative.

Also, I haven't seen anything about beef or pork. I live in Canada - not sure if that would make a difference.  

TIA!

CarrieB.

I've heard on NPR that that turkeys are bred to have such large breasts that they can barely walk. 

uncannycanuck

Nothing that is bred and raised to grow as fast as possible as cheap as possible has a great life.

Where are you from? There are probably more options than you realize. 

Alisha_A

All animals raised for slaughter in conventional methods are treated horribly. But I bet you'd be surprised at what you have available around you once you start looking. Check out farmer's markets, and look even on Craigslist for smaller farms.

zelda25

We found a local meat market near our house and have been buying all of our meat there.  They get most of their stuff from small, local farms (every time we buy something, i ask where it came from).  We pay more for it, but it's worth it to me.

crees87

Thanks for the replys! I was just hoping since I hadn't heard much about treatment of turkeys that it would be different from chickens. I guess I will have to venture out of the supermarket and see if I can find anything local.

uncannycanuck

Try kijiji or craig's list, depending what's popular in your area.

If you're in a city, there are commercial options. If you're in a small place, you're closer to farmers.

GRKaters

crees87:

Thanks for the replys! I was just hoping since I hadn't heard much about treatment of turkeys that it would be different from chickens. I guess I will have to venture out of the supermarket and see if I can find anything local.

The supermarket isn't the best place to find local meats, usually. Try the things and places people above have suggested! I think you will be pleasantly surprised. I found a local food co-op around us that I didn't know existed.

 

SuperGreen

uncannycanuck:

Nothing that is bred and raised to grow as fast as possible as cheap as possible has a great life.

Where are you from? There are probably more options than you realize. 

Ditto this.  All factory farmed animals are kept in extremely crowded conditions, standing in their own excrement, and their feed has hormones to make them grow as fast as possible, and antibiotics because they are unwell their whole lives from standing in their own poop.  In the case of cows, the antibiotics also help with the fact that cows evolved to eat grass, not grain.  Grain makes them sick.  The PP is correct about turkeys.  99% of the turkeys in the U.S. are Broadbreasted Whites, who grow so fast their legs can't hold them and often break.

Try localharvest.org or sustainabletable.org for local food options.  I highly recommend the farmer's market, you can ask them how they raise their animals.  Most of the farmers at my market have websites, Facebook, or Twitter pages, so you can learn more about them.

IndiaInk

Conventionally-raised turkeys are kept in the same conditions as conventionally-raised chickens.   With either one, it's best to buy pasture-raised if you can find it.  You're going to have a difficult time finding pasture-raised chicken or turkey in Canada though, because of Canada's regulations which make it difficult for small farmers to raise and butcher their own meat.   The cost for a small farm to have their meat butchered in Canada is so astronomical that it prohibits most businesses from being able to provide that product.

The broad-breasted white turkey, as others have alluded to, is definitely bred to grow so heavy it can't run around like a regular turkey.  However, we've tried raising other breeds on our farm and they take so much longer to get big that they end up being very expensive to raise.  It's kind of a tricky situation.  If I were you, I wouldn't worry so much about the breed as the way the bird was raised.

If you can buy free-range pork and grass-finished beef, that would be ideal also.  Conventional living conditions for those animals are pretty bad (I have a degree in Animal Sciences, so I have hands-on experience in the ag industry), especially for pigs.  Find someone who raises their pigs outdoors, and you can be sure those animals were living the best life possible.