Are Happy Animals Tastier?

 

My husband and I had a discussion this morning.  Free-range versus wild-caught versus farmed animals: which is tastier?

I propose the following: stress hormones and difficult existences cause animals to be more gamey, less tasty, with tougher meat.  This is why free-range eggs are generally more yolky tasting and orangey colored and delicious.  The chickens roam around, free from restrictions, able to scratch as they please, and still get to eat and enjoy their lives.

Happiness is delicious.

This is also true when it comes to wild-caught salmon versus farmed salmon.  People seem to really think that the wild-caught salmon is so much tastier. I don’t eat salmon, so I can’t say that I have too much of an opinion.

I feel like this is also true of birds like ducks: farmed ducks versus wild-caught, hunted ducks.  I feel like the more room and space animals have and the happier lives they live, the tastier they are.  However, if they are constantly hunted by animals higher up on the food chain, they have higher levels of stress hormones.  These would reduce their perceived tastiness since they would have to focus their existence on survival, rather than simple enjoyment.  If they had a large preserve where they were not hunted by larger animals and were protected or cared for, they should be more appetizing once caught and prepared.

Even Dr. Temple Grandin has proved it on a farm in Ireland where the cows live happily, right up to the end.

What do the hunters and food connoisseurs of Ricochet think?  Do happier animals make for tastier food?  Have you noticed a difference between wild animals and their domestic counterparts that are free-range?  Do you notice a difference in traditionally farmed animals’ taste versus wild hunted animals?

Please note: I am not here to discuss veganism, vegetarianism, animal rights or hunting.  I’m just making an observation and attempting to have a conversation based upon anecdotal and empirical evidence.  Additionally, I am not interested in discussing price structure, cost versus value, or how/why the organic farms are/aren’t a scam.

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  1. TheRightNurse, radiant figure of feminine kindness Member
    TheRightNurse, radiant figure of feminine kindness
    @TheRightNurse

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Hartmann von Aue (View Comment):

    Hugh (View Comment):

    “Calm” is the operative word here. In the feedlot we tried to keep life for the feeder steers boring boring boring. No excitement at all. even loading them on the truck we try to keep the steers from getting excited. Its all about the release of hormones (or whatever they are) into the meat.

    A calm fat Steer is a tasty steer.

    Shooting a moose is the same. If the moose just sees you the meat will be only fit (in my mind) for sausage and burgers. You want to shoot the moose dead so fast they don’t have the time to be surprised which will taint the meat.

     

    This jives with my experience on the farm. We always let our cattle have as much space as was available and it was…college before I regularly ate store-bought beef. The taste difference was startling.

    That might be mostly the differences of the type of cattle, and what they were being fed: grass vs grain, etc.

    Could be a lot of things, but particularly interesting is that it is “store-bought”.  The question is: was it all the store-bought?  Grass fed, organic, etc, etc.  Because then you can start to (at least) narrow some of it down.

     

    • #31
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