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Some years ago, I lived across the street from a butcher shop in the small city of Burlington, New Jersey. Every year, the shop would get free range, organic turkeys in for Thanksgiving. Orders had to be placed weeks in advance, but once I mentioned it to my mother, she made a point of getting one each year.

A free range, organic turkey has several advantages over a factory-farmed one. It has been raised largely outdoors, with more open space around it, so it has probably gotten more exercise, which should translate to more muscle and less fat, for leaner meat. It's also eaten a more natural diet, and because it hasn't been kept in close quarters with thousands of other turkeys, it's had less opportunity to be exposed to nasty diseases, up to and including the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which killed thousands of turkeys at an English farm in early 2007.

Because it's organic, you can also be relatively certain that it hasn't been fed medications, meat byproducts, or other strange things that turkeys ordinarily wouldn't want to eat.

All in all, it's closer to being pure turkey - and in my experience, it tastes like it!

Learn more about this author, Dan Birchall.
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