Eating meat that is organic and free range is important for maintaining your health, and you can really taste the difference! Animals raised non-organically retain a toxic residue in their bodies from a lifetime of chemical-laced feed that is passed on to us when we eat their meat.

• Chemicals in the Food Chain. It is estimated that 90% of the environmental chemicals that get into people’s bodies are from meat, poultry, eggs, dairy and fish. Almost all meat sold in both natural and conventional grocery chains is not organic and is rarely free range, which means the animals are not humanely raised and they contain more chemical residue. You need to ask at meat counters where there is no labeling to know for sure.
  
  As chemicals move up the food chain from plants to animals to us, persistent toxins become increasingly concentrated in a process called biological amplification. Residues of antibiotics, growth hormones and other chemicals increase the workload of the liver, which over a long period of time can cause hormonal imbalances. The residues can also cause serious illness including cancer and neurological ailments such as Parkinson’s disease, as well as diminish the effectiveness of certain drugs when we need them.
  
  
• Confinement Operations. As you may know, the majority of animals in this country are raised on corporate factory farms in confinement operations where they are given drugs to make them grow more rapidly and to combat disease caused by overcrowded unnatural environments. Even with many “natural” meats, the feed includes genetically modified grains grown with heavy doses of chemicals, and the animals are kept standing on concrete floors in their own waste, deprived of their natural social and feeding behaviors.
  
  These operations are a cheaper way to raise animals because they require fewer acres of land, less time for the animals to reach maturity and the feed is a fraction of the cost of organic grain. But cheaper is certainly not better for the animals or us! Independent local farmers delight in having people visit and see firsthand the good life they provide for their livestock. Eating organic pastured meat is definitely the healthy, ethical way to go!

Fresh Picks will carry delicious local pastured organic beef, bison, poultry, lamb, goat and pork.