Eco-friendly meat?

[VM]

What sort of decisions does anyone make about most sustainable choice of meat to eat?

Currently we buy quite a bit of beef, pork and lamb from a small producer at a farmer's market - rare breed but not organic. I like supporting them and the beef in particular is very good quality - but apart from supporting a small producer who is maintaining an old breed of cattle, it doesn't feel a very environmentally-friendly choice of meat to eat. Poultry seem good if organic and free-range, and venison a fairly good choice as deer will be culled anyway. And what about other game - no idea what the environmental impact is of pheasant being reared in large numbers for shooting?

Just interested to know what other people think/know/do.

[Islaskye]

this is a hard question to answer, rearing animals for food in any way has an impact on the environment.
this doesnt mean we should all go veggie as the majority of soya is farmed in rainforrest areas and have been responsible for a lot of deforrestation.
It would depend on what area of eco-freindly you want to work on, as nothing is perfect!
I only buy meat from the local free range farmer who sends them to slaughter in the local abbetoir and then butchers and sells it himself, that way food miles are very small and the animals arnt stressed by a long journey.
plus I can go to the farm and see how they are kept, he slaughters them at a lot older age so they have a longer life and he doesnt use antibiotics or chemicals. he tries to raise them as naturally as posible but hasnt paid for the organic lable.
we also get meat at the local farmers market where the sell rabbit and venison which is naturally wild and is culled so the meat is not wasted. again, food miles wise it has minimal impact. Im concious about environmental impact but its more about the animals welfare that I work on.

I would say if you buy from a local farmer who is practicing organic farming or locally shot wild food that would only be culled anyway then you are doing an extreamly good job at being eco friendly when it comes to meat.

[hmk]

I don't know that one type of meat is more eco-friendly than another. There must be so many variables I wouldn't fancy calculating it.

Pheasant sounds good, but those I've had have had crops stuffed full of corn- not ideal when that could go to feed people, and where did the pheasant food come from?

On the other hand, the pork we eat comes from less than 2 miles up the road and is fed on barley which is grown on the same farm and is fertilised using the manure. Green manures are used to add nitrogen. The abbatoir is less than 15 miles away and the butcher is on the farm. They'll sell me trotters, head...whatever I want (they're fab!).

I was vegetarian for 25 years, mostly because of objections to how most animals are kept/raised. Free Range wasn't widely available then, and it took a while to realise I could eat the FR/organic that is around now and not cook 2 meals most days

I'd started to think I either had to become vegan or eat meat when I read 'Animal, Vegetable, Miracle' by Barbara Kingsolver. She suggests that in most Western countries a vegetarian diet is a luxury choice- much veggie protein is imported long distances and is not 'green'. Many areas of the world, even in this country, are not suited for large scale arable farming and meat is the only viable farming choice for those farmers. As Islaskye said, crops like soya beans are also linked with rainforest deforestation (as is beef farming, but we're talking local meat here).

For me, the best option has been somewhere between the two. We only buy local, well raised meat (beef, lamb, pork, poultry and game). We use all the cuts, not just the popular ones. (One of my children' favourite meals is HFW's Chinese style pigs trotters!) We still eat veggie meals, sometimes with imported protein, sometimes with local dairy and sometimes with none- we're not exactly short of protein in a western diet. I'm sure it's not perfect, but it's as close as I can get at the moment.

[oldjerry]

I think all these contributions are balanced and considered.As some sad old (now ex) smallholder and pigman,I thought I was ploughing a lonely furrow banging on about the difference between 'local' and 'organic'.You guys seem to understand it 100%, You've, genuinely, made my day. OJ

[phil55494]

We try where possible to buy most of our meat from our local butcher. The butchers have their own abattoir and source most of their stock from local farms. No it's not organic but it is local and the quality is excellent.