Do you believe meat farming habits determine the taste and quality of meat?

[jennifer_bloom]

I read that Subway is better than McDonalds in how they treat poultry and McDonalds is better than Pizza Hut and if you have been to these restaurants, the chicken at McDonald's tastes 6 times better than the chicken at Pizza Hut and the chicken at Subway tastes 6 times better than the chicken at McDonalds. My parents used to buy chicken they considered to be free range and organic and I hated the taste even more than I hated the taste of regular chicken so it was most likely a lie and not organic and free range chicken. I heard from Dr. Berg on YouTube most of the pure olive oil you buy is fake and contains other ingredients and if you actually try real high quality pure olive oil, you will know its real because of the amazing taste.

[purplepoppy]

Quite a few things affect the final taste of meat.
BREED. Older breeds tend to have a higher fat to meat ratio or can take a bit longer to reach slaughter weight. That extra grazing time puts more flavour in the meat. Muscle fibres can also vary and affect tenderness, limousin being a good example. Be warned that meat labelled with premium breeds such as "welsh black beef" Don't need to be pure breds.

For most cooking I wouldn't worry about breed but if you're making something special it's worth asking your butcher.

FEEDING. You are what you eat and that applies to livestock too. A good example salt marsh lamb where sheep are allowed to graze on plants on tidal marshes. Similarly sheep with access to wild herbs will taste better. Generally you'll pay a lot more and will usually have to go a a proper butcher. Most of this type of meat is snapped up by restaurants long before the public gets it.

AGE. Generally the faster you get your animal to slaughter weight the less you need to feed them and the more profit you make. But as mentioned above you can get a better price for slower grown older meat if you've got the right market. The public prefers young lamb but chefs often prefer hogget and mutton. Fatten them up to quick and the quality drops.

GENERAL CARE. Animals need to be watched, inspected for diseases, problems etc as well as allowed to exhibit their natural behaviour. Obviously a well cared for animal is going to be healthier and that will improve the meat quality. A big problem with organic meat is the farmer will often tolerate a higher parasite burden or in many cases not even treat their animals.

[FreyaRed]

Chickens which grow up in garden are after 8-10 weeks still bigger chicks, don't lie eggs and have 1/3 mass of chicken which are slaughtered after 8-10 weeks in bird farming industry. "Organic".."free Range"..."grain fed"... it's everything marketing rubbish. The difference is fed quality those chicken get in few weeks they are living. However 300% more mass they have compared to chicken which grow up in garden, does not appear magically from another dimension.

[blackgaletiger]

100% farming makes a huge difference in meat quality. I go for Ontario raised lamb and goat and I found a huge difference then New Zealand imports. I have been to a lot of the farms as well and you can see how they are feed what they are feed with and how they live. The livelihood of the animal factors so much and even how the name is slaughtered as well. I heard the more scared the animal is the tougher the meat is and when they are relax the meat is more tender. That what the farmers say at least

[MissMam]

Definitely, espshily the food they are given and the way they are treated, it can change the gaminess of it the littoral flavor changes depending on the type of food, the percentage of fat, and you can tast a very big difference between the different types of one jandra of meat. A good example are cattle (cows) the bread and there diet that the farms give them changes the quality of the meat.

[Guy___]

None of the fast food places keep real chicken. Often what's labeled organic meat isn't even actual meat.

To know whether you've got pure olive oil it should work to refrigerate it, the monounsaturated fat solidifies. Unless they even fake that now. I think a lot of it is pure but the cheap ones are just old.

[linka_pat307]

Yeah, surely