by Isadora Pandora

Created on: November 24, 2008

Free range, home-grown goodness!

One main reason for choosing a free range turkey; the lack antibiotics and other potentially dangerous medications in their meat.
Healthy, well kept animals usually do not get sick and require being medicated. When you have countless thousands of creatures living in very small, cramped pens you're bound to get a nasty outbreak of something. And sometimes; that something can kill you.

Do you recall a few years ago when all those cattle were put down; the ones with Mad Cow Disease? Do you recall HOW they got the disease? Eating an improper and infected diet is how. Unscrupulous farmers were feeding their cattle; cattle.
Now, turkeys are not bovines but; they are living creatures with specific needs for good health! And many mass produced, crammed in there birds are not being well cared for; in diet or in space requirements.

Humans too; we are "animals" with specific nutritional and lifestyle needs.
We do not need the medicines contained in grocery store meat, we do not need the chemicals found in the animals' feed.

Why are free range turkeys better than the "others"?
Well, there are a few reasons-

Adrenaline has long been touted as a meat spoiling thing. When an animal is stressed and scared; adrenaline pumps through their systems and into their meat. It lends an off flavor; not something most people like the taste of.
Free range animals are simply stressed less than those crammed into "nano pens".

Medications; they're worth mentioning again. All those stressed animals are very prone to getting sick. Probably the fastest (and cheapest) way for a company to save money; pumping them full of potentially harmful medications. Do you take antibiotics when you don't have an infection? Yea, you DO, just about every time you eat store bought meat. People build up a resistance to many of these medications; so when they DO get sick the antibiotics you get from the doctor may not work as well; if at all.

Dirty; dirty, dirty, dirty! Have you SEEN one of these "farms"- I have and let me tell you it is NASTY. The stench is overwhelming and the poor creatures are walking in their own feces. How's that for a Thanksgiving conversation piece? Yuck.

Think of the animals; they are destined to die yes; I am not vegetarian, and I know my meat was once a living animal. But; they shouldn't suffer from the day of their birth, which is just cruel and so very uncalled for.

Do yourself and that poor turkey a favor- spend the few extra dollars it costs for a free range turkey. You'll feel better knowing the animal was well cared for; and it will taste so much better!

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