Grass Fed Beef - Chickens with a life

[Guest shelley]

Any suggestions on where to purchase grass fed beef that is antibiotic free? And free range chickens that are antibiotic free? Doesn't have to be deemed organic - I would just like to purchase outside of the industrialized food chain

[MtnMama]

I buy my meat and chicken from the shops on Morelos in Joco and at Joco indoor. I watch them bring in the great hunks of recently slaughtered cow or pig and the chicken is extremely fresh. I've been told they kill them out back. It tastes like chicken I used to get from some guys NOB who kept a coop in their backyard. The meat is chewier but that's why I have teeth. I expect there are similar shops in Chapala.

[RVGRINGO]

The butcher you should talk to is in the SE interior corner of the Mercado Publico in Chapala; right next to a chicken shop, which may also be his family.

[Guest shelley]

Thanks - to Chapala I will go. And nice to know about Joco!

[Guest Gringal]

I like the taste of the chicken at Puritan Poultry, although I know nothing of the chickens' lifestyle or drug habits before they arrive there.

[Guest shelley]

I like the taste of the chicken at Puritan Poultry, although I know nothing of the chickens' lifestyle or drug habits before they arrive there.

I did ask if they were antibiotic free (in english) - they replied no. Does anyone know if this is true or not true? In some areas, Puritan does carry free range antibiotic free chicken - Someone else said you could buy hormone free there on request - but I guess that means hormone free with antibiotics. This is getting way to complicated! But I would prefer a drug free chicken - that has the ability to walk while growning up - compared tothose fed growth hormones to produce instant obseity and the inability to stand up and stay up

[Doolittle]

I did ask if they were antibiotic free (in english) - they replied no. Does anyone know if this is true or not true? In some areas, Puritan does carry free range antibiotic free chicken - Someone else said you could buy hormone free there on request - but I guess that means hormone free with antibiotics. This is getting way to complicated! But I would prefer a drug free chicken - that has the ability to walk while growning up - compared tothose fed growth hormones to produce instant obseity and the inability to stand up and stay up

Are you saying that Jose's Puritan Poultry is part of a chain? Where are the others?

[Guest shelley]

Are you saying that Jose's Puritan Poultry is part of a chain? Where are the others?

Thought it was - as I had assumed the name/brand had an international copyright - but looks like other stores are selectively in California - so guess no relationship - just a copycat name

[Lakesidechaps]

Any suggestions on where to purchase grass fed beef that is antibiotic free? And free range chickens that are antibiotic free? Doesn't have to be deemed organic - I would just like to purchase outside of the industrialized food chain

Recently Wendee from ACA Centro Ecologico told me that they have the space and would like to have free range chickens, so they could supply the lakeside with healthy eggs and chicken meat. However before they can have the chickens there, they need a roof for it also and the funds are missing. So if you know someone to help out ACA with raising the funds, please let us know.

http://ggs.com.mx/

http://greatgreens.org/

[Kevin K]

I thought I might revive this thread in hopes of learning more.

My understanding from reading the wonderful "Mexico Cooks!" blog is that the chickens sold locally get their yellow skin and deep yellow yolks from being fed chrysanthemum in their feed. They seem leaner and are certainly more flavorful than any chickens (including supposedly free range/organic ones) sold in places like Whole Foods in the U.S., but I assume they are still raised in large CAFO (Captive Animal Feeding Operations) as they are in the U.S., and while I'd like to believe they might be hormone and/or antibiotic free I have no idea if that's the case.

I believe that most of the local beef - and pork? - is primarily fed on grass, and as others have mentioned the animals are clearly very recently slaughtered and not usually aged at all - which translates into lean and tough meat. I have no problem with that and grass is what these animals are meant to eat, but again I assume that most of these animals are raised on feedlots and wonder if conditions there all the way through slaughter are appreciably more humane than in huge CAFO farms N.O.B.

If anyone has any solid information on any of this I'd be most interested.

[More Liana]

I thought I might revive this thread in hopes of learning more.

My understanding from reading the wonderful "Mexico Cooks!" blog is that the chickens sold locally get their yellow skin and deep yellow yolks from being fed chrysanthemum in their feed. They seem leaner and are certainly more flavorful than any chickens (including supposedly free range/organic ones) sold in places like Whole Foods in the U.S., but I assume they are still raised in large CAFO (Captive Animal Feeding Operations) as they are in the U.S., and while I'd like to believe they might be hormone and/or antibiotic free I have no idea if that's the case.

I believe that most of the local beef - and pork? - is primarily fed on grass, and as others have mentioned the animals are clearly very recently slaughtered and not usually aged at all - which translates into lean and tough meat. I have no problem with that and grass is what these animals are meant to eat, but again I assume that most of these animals are raised on feedlots and wonder if conditions there all the way through slaughter are appreciably more humane than in huge CAFO farms N.O.B.

If anyone has any solid information on any of this I'd be most interested.

Psst, KevinK--not chrysanthemum, but marigold.

[Doolittle]

I doubt that pigs are raised here on grass for two reasons;a) they're not grazing animals, and there's very little grass. Cattle on the other hand are grazed then "finished" in feedlots. Pork is never aged, up north most commercial beef isn't aged either although the best e.g. restaurant grade is. Poultry in Mexico is primarily rasied CAFO style. Drive to Guanajuato or Morelia and you'll see big poultry facilities of Bachoco the largest producer in Mexico. Poultry raised in such a manner are alway given antibiotics as a preventative. Disease spreads rapidly among poultry so one sick bird can wipe out the whole facility.

[tio copas]

Psst, KevinK--not chrysanthemum, but marigold.

Psst, not marigolds but an additive extracted from marigolds is added to commercial poultry feed.

[Kevin K]

Thanks More Liana and tio copas for your corrections and Doolittle for your info, all of which makes sense.

Like some of you I've read quite a bit about the dubious nature of "free range" and organic claims and certifications for chickens and their eggs in the U.S. - it seems to boil down to needing to keep them in pretty close confinement in order to produce birds and eggs at prices people will pay. My wife and I have had plenty of truly free-range birds in rural France and Italy, and I must say the average grilled chicken here tastes a whole lot closer to those than do the exorbitantly expensive chickens we used to splurge for at places like Whole Foods up north. Much of this may be because freezing the meat and adding water solutions to it are common up north given the vast shipping distances, whereas here it's easy to buy meat that's been slaughtered on the day it is sold.

I appreciate the information very much.

[the walkers]

freshly slaughtered meat is generally very tough. you must let it relax in the fridge for a few days until the rigor has subsided. in india, when we didn't have a fridge and we had to cook it that day. that's what pressure cookers are made for....

[Guest Gringal]

I'll admit to ignorance on what is being done to which animals where, but what I have noticed is that NOB, you could pay some fancy prices at Whole Foods or Trader Joes for eggs which tasted raunchy and stunk up the kitchen like elderly eggs, whereas even the cheapo brands here in the markets are much tastier and fresher smelling. NOB, I used to buy eggs from a man at the farmers' market and they were fresh tasting and had mellow yellow yolks.

My guess is that the eggs were taking longer to get to the shelves. Anyone know the answer on that?

[Kevin K]

I'm sure you're correct Gringal. I do know that average transport distance for food from origin point to point of sale in the U.S. is 1400 miles, meaning that fruits and vegetables often have to be picked under-ripe in order to survive the journey, other foodstuffs pumped full of preservatives, etc. Living here in Mexico with seasonal, local food available year round is a great blessing, and I sure taste a lot more vitality or "life force" in just about everything here. I love my occasional trips back home but it is weird how tasteless (not to mention expensive) the food is. Shopped at a Whole Foods last time N.O.B. and after paying something like $50 for a single bag of groceries my first thought was "get me back to Mexico where the food tastes like food and I can afford to eat it!"

[Guest Gringal]

I'm sure you're correct Gringal. I do know that average transport distance for food from origin point to point of sale in the U.S. is 1400 miles, meaning that fruits and vegetables often have to be picked under-ripe in order to survive the journey, other foodstuffs pumped full of preservatives, etc. Living here in Mexico with seasonal, local food available year round is a great blessing, and I sure taste a lot more vitality or "life force" in just about everything here. I love my occasional trips back home but it is weird how tasteless (not to mention expensive) the food is. Shopped at a Whole Foods last time N.O.B. and after paying something like $50 for a single bag of groceries my first thought was "get me back to Mexico where the food tastes like food and I can afford to eat it!"

Amen. Unfortunately, it will probably change...but I celebrate the present.

[tio copas]

Shopped at a Whole Foods last time N.O.B. and after paying something like $50 for a single bag of groceries my first thought was "get me back to Mexico where the food tastes like food and I can afford to eat it!"

My daughter, born and raised in Guadalajara, just relocated to Europe. She found a "Mexican" grocery today while in Munich. A 2k bag of Maseca masa harina was 10 euros. Fresh papaya, something we always have here at our breakfast table, was 18 euros a kilo. She said she had purchased 4 fresh jalapeños because of the cost. Here we fill the bag at the market with handfuls!

[budman123]

Chicken and Pork here is far superior to NOB.

[newinajijic]

budman - Agree 100%. No matter what brand chicken you buy, Tony's, Walmart or Costco it's all great!

Center cut Pork is sooo tender you can cut it with a fork.

[Doolittle]

I'm sure you're correct Gringal. I do know that average transport distance for food from origin point to point of sale in the U.S. is 1400 miles, meaning that fruits and vegetables often have to be picked under-ripe in order to survive the journey, other foodstuffs pumped full of preservatives, etc. Living here in Mexico with seasonal, local food available year round is a great blessing, and I sure taste a lot more vitality or "life force" in just about everything here. I love my occasional trips back home but it is weird how tasteless (not to mention expensive) the food is. Shopped at a Whole Foods last time N.O.B. and after paying something like $50 for a single bag of groceries my first thought was "get me back to Mexico where the food tastes like food and I can afford to eat it!"

I question your assertion of a 1400 mile average. At least on the west coast,where I lived for 40 years before moving here, it's bogus. Look at a map and you'll see it's true. Either that or you don't know where food is produced in the west.

[Kevin K]

The 1400 mile figure is correct (indeed conservative, if you include the huge amounts of imported foods consumed - from Argentinian asparagus in February to Driscoll berries from here) all over the U.S. Here's one of many sources:

average food miles

You might also want to read Michael Pollan's excellent book "The Omnivore's Dilemma," or Barbara Kingsolver's equally enjoyable "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" to learn more about these issues.

Those who live in California are the exception that proves the rule. The problem is that that state is supplying much of the rest of the country - including places like Iowa that used to grow all kinds of food but now basically just grow corn. As Pollan and others have pointed out the centralized production of food in CA and lack of local food sources is both a health and a national food security issue.

Food transport distances in Mexico are not small - it's a big country - but the ability to grow stuff year round and still being an agricultural country are big plusses.

[Guest shelley]

I question your assertion of a 1400 mile average. At least on the west coast,where I lived for 40 years before moving here, it's bogus. Look at a map and you'll see it's true. Either that or you don't know where food is produced in the west.

The 1400 food miles is a figure that is in common use. Doesn't mean it is correct. I think all they can do is guess. Gets sort of funny when you start thinking about what they would need to know to come up with that figure.

It appears the 1400 number comes from 2004 based on 2001 data. But whatever they are, they are too many

Here is an article from 2004

The food miles metaphor. Food miles have the potential to serve as such a metaphor. A food mile is the distance food travels from where it is grown or raised to where it is ultimately purchased by the consumer or end-user. It is relatively easy to calculate food miles for a food product that remains intact from the time it leaves the farm until its purchase. Using fresh produce as an example, carrots grown in the San Joaquin Valley in California and transported to supermarkets in Des Moines, Iowa will travel approximately 1,400 miles. Chilean grapes transported by ship and truck to Des Moines, Iowa markets travel 7,270 miles.9

To obtain the average food miles a certain food item travels via all sources to reach a certain city or community, it is necessary to calculate a Weighted Average Source Distance (WASD) food mile. This distance estimate combines information on the distances from producers to consumers and amount of food product transported. A WASD food mile was calculated for a sampling of produce sales data collected in 2001 by the Practical Farmers of Iowa (a nonprofit information and research organization). Iowa farmers sold produce to hotels and conference centers that were then featuring locally grown meals for a number of conferences and workshop events. WASD was calculated based on where the produce items (which were purchased locally in the Iowa data set) would have originated had they come from conventional sources within the continental United States.

The average food mile total for the set of 16 Iowa grown produce items to reach local institutional markets was 56 miles, while the conventional food mileage for the produce to reach the same points of sale was 1,494 miles, nearly 27 times further.10 If imported produce were to be included in the conventional estimation there would likely be an even greater difference in food miles between the conventional and local food totals.

To read more http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/staff/files/local_foods_HEN0604.pdf

[Doolittle]

Like I said, if you live on the West Coast (CA,OR,WA) the 1400 miles doesn't apply. We lived in OR; most of our veggies traveled less than 3 miles, our beef less than 100 yards, our pork about 10 miles, our lamb about 25 miles, chicken and eggs less than 25 miles, salmon, crab, & oysters about 80 miles. Apples, pears, apricots & peaches from 40-80 miles. Wine was between 10 and 150 miles. I don't know about CA but in OR and WA it's easy to get locally grown, raised, and caught foods. I realize that it's different in other parts of the country. My point is that when it comes to food we all have choices not averages.