For years I thought “organic” was nothing more than a marketing gimmick (in the US, at least) – just a label that some producers could slap on with some superficial difference in production, but no substantial difference in quality. But we got some of the $9-per-pound beef chuck (cut into stew-size chunks) from Whole Foods, just for the hell of it, and made stew, and holy crap was it good. Marbled and very, very flavorful, and so good that I crave it. So much better than the $4-5 regular beef chuck from the local grocery chain (Giant, in case anyone’s wondering). So we tried the Whole Foods lamb chops – a little better, maybe, then Giant, but not much. Then I tried the chicken (thighs, usually). Can’t tell the difference at all. Haven’t tried the pork because my wife isn’t a fan (I love pork but have to satisfy my pork needs when we go out to eat).
So for me, at least, there’s a big difference with beef, a small difference in lamb, and no difference in chicken. This weekend a Mom’s Organic Market opens literally across the street from my building, and I’m looking forward to trying it.
Thoughts on organic vs non-organic meat and poultry?
As to the OP, I agree that it’s likely to be an issue of free-range vs. non-free-range. In the US, the standards mention that animals “are raised in living conditions accommodating their natural behaviors (like the ability to graze on pasture).” I suspect this leads to some of the flavor differences you see, as some free-range behavior might inhere in organic meat raising.
I’ve found a tremendous difference between free-range chicken and non-free-range chicken, but I generally can’t afford the organic chicken.
My choice in meat tends more toward how well the animal lived over whether it got organic feed. Pastured chickens is what you’re looking for, not just cage-free (they can be raised “cageless” and be technically organic but still have been stuffed into a barn with a thousand other birds, shitting on each other and pecking/fighting each other). 100% grass-fed beef that’s described as free-range or pastured is another. If you can find all of that plus they got organic feed, great.
The thing with pastured chickens is they don’t have the giant breasts you find in birds from, say, Perdue. Reason being that pastured birds have to move/run around and they hunt and peck for grubs and such outside. Also since they eat whatever crosses their path while outside, they’re harder to classify with USDA Organic requirements. I’d call them more bird-shaped birds. And I think they taste better, but I’m not a white meat fan so not as much of it isn’t a big deal to me.
In Whole Foods terms, I only buy the meats with the “step 4” level. I’d buy the “step 5” level, too, but haven’t seen anything with that number yet (I don’t shop the meat area very often). I do have a farmer I buy directly from, and I’m pretty sure her pork would be step 5+, as she raises her hogs from birth to death right on the farm.
I often miss the details on labels so it may well be that it’s free-range rather than organic. Whatever it is, I’m surprised at how much better the Whole Foods beef chuck is than cheaper stores, while their chicken tastes the same to me as cheaper stores’ chicken.
Oh yeah, I can taste the difference in a free-range chicken vs. the giant farms’ chickens. Since I’m frying them half the time, smaller breasts are a bonus. They’re easier to manage when they’re around the same thickness as the other parts.
I’ve tried to describe the difference and haven’t been able to verbalize it well. Best I’ve come up with is it’s a deeper flavor. Better chicken flavored chicken. :o
I have a friend who has her own hens. They’re very happy chickens (except that night the raccoon got into the coop), they run around the garden/yard pecking and scratching, get healthy feed, kitchen scraps, the kids treat them like pets…
The eggs taste amazing.
Of course, the cost per egg is more than for the bargain-basement eggs you get at the store, but you get what you pay for, right?
I won’t eat any chicken anymore and if you are fond of chicken, you probably won’t want to read why. This probably only applies to commercial chicken.
The spoiler box contains graphic details that people who want to continue eating chicken should not read because it will likely make you very angry.
Well, I chickened out. I’m not going to repeat the details because I don’t want people screaming at me.
Instead, the spoiler box contains a link to the Frontline show called “The Trouble with Chicken”. Please don’t blame me. I didn’t do anything to the chicken.
FRONTLINE investigates the spread of dangerous pathogens in our meat – particularly poultry – and why the food-safety system isn’t stopping the threat. Focusing on an outbreak of salmonella Heidelberg at one of the nation’s largest poultry processors, the film shows how contaminants are evading regulators and causing more severe illnesses at a time when Americans are consuming more chicken than ever.
I switched to buying meat and eggs from our local farmer’s market a couple years ago. It’s only open during the summer months, so during the winter I buy them from the Wegman’s grocery store (high quality but not Whole Foods). Here are the differences I discovered:
The local meat is much more flavorful, well marbled but has inconsistent “veins” of fat and gristle running here and there. That’s no problem for me, but it makes me wonder what kind of Frankenstein animals we get from the grocery store. That meat is so lean there’s no visible marbling, and no chunks of fat running through it. It’s consistently tender but nearly flavorless. It could be meat grown in a vat for all I can tell.
I haven’t noticed a difference in flavor between the locally farmed eggs and the supermarket, but I do see a clear difference in standardization. Meaning that the grocery store eggs are all the same size (I know they’re sorted) and the shells are all the same thickness and color. The local eggs I get are a variety of color and size, and the shells are all different thicknesses so easier or harder to break depending on the egg. Again, that’s no problem for me. Actually I rather enjoy the lack of standard in the local eggs: it’s fun to get the occasional double-yolker, and I quite like the green ones. (Only the shells are green, sadly.) I also think it’s charming to open the box and see the variety of colors and sizes, but that’s me.
I’ll chime in and guess it’s probably the difference in feed that makes the difference, not the organic or not part.
For example, in college, the dining halls on campus got their milk from the campus herd (I went to a top 10 agricultural research university). The cows weren’t treated in any particular hippie-friendly way- I’m guessing they got normal feed, antibiotics, and the whole 9 yards.
But there was a HUGE difference in the flavor of the milk about halfway through the fall and spring semester when they switched the herd from pasture to silage/feed. It was drastic enough that they’d literally put signs up in the dining halls explaining that the milk was fresh and sanitary, and that the flavor difference was due to the seasonal feed change.
Based on that, I have to believe that if you were to feed a cow one sort of feed during its life, and feed its identical twin some other kind of feed, while treating them identically otherwise, that they’d taste quite different, even though they were genetically and environmentally identical other than the feed.
Another thing to keep in mind is that grocery store meat is USDA Choice at BEST. Most is USDA Select, and a lot of that is on the leaner side of the specification. Prime typically goes to commercial users like steakhouses and hotels. If you’re buying from a local farmer, you may be getting Prime or Choice that’s nearly Prime. Same at Whole Foods; the market for super-duper organic hippie Prime meat may well be to be sold at Whole Foods rather than used at some high-end steakhouse.
Also, a friend sometimes “babysits” her neighbor’s chickens, and when she does, she has a lot of extra eggs, and she’s given us some. The yolk is a much deeper yellow, almost orange. And it just tastes eggier. They are far better than supermarket eggs, including the high-end, cage-free, organic, yadda yadda eggs.
The neighbor’s chickens are basically pets, and they eat some chickenfeed, but they eat a lot of whatever grows in the backyard, whatever bugs live int he backyard, and random kitchen scraps.
Indeed. My mom keeps a few hens, and sells the eggs to a handful of neighbors, and while she calls the eggs “cage-free” and “cruelty-free”, she doesn’t call them “organic”, precisely because she can’t vouch for whatever the hens manage to scrounge up on their own (though it probably is almost all organic, since it’s coming from her yard and garden).
Well, I’ll offer a countering view. Being a scientist, I decided a while back to do a side-by-side comparison. I bought one pork tenderloin from a local organic free-range yadda yadda pork farmer (this is Vermont, so, you know, it’s all super-everything) and another from the local big box club store. The fancy super-expensive (seriously, about 4-5 times the price) tenderloin was about half the size of the cheap one, and was also much drier and tougher, with no noticeable difference in taste. I strongly preferred the big-box version.
Our feed has marigold petals in it, which will cause orange yolks.
Of course, we don’t tell customers that.
The eggs are good though. We conducted a small (four tasters) double-blind test of poached* supermarket and farm eggs.
*Not really. 75 C in-shell for 13 minutes, then cracked out. It looks poached, though, just prettier. But adding salt and vinegar to the water doesn’t do much for you with this method.
Not only that, but organic was a word before organic chemistry was a thing.
