Healthy Happy Chicken = Healthy Happy People

There are many different arguments as to why someone should or should not eat free range meat. There is a pile of ethical reasons why it wrong but I don't want to talk about that here.

About a month ago I decided to start eating only Free Range meat products. Although what got my attention was the ethical problem with keeping animals so caged up, what kept me devoted to the idea of eating free range is the benefits of it.

When animals are not kept free range, they often kept in either extremely close quarters to one another, or in tight pens where they are unable to move at all?. How are chickens(for example) supposed to stay healthy when they are up against hundreds of other chickens and there is fesses on the ground that is rarely cleaned up?

These extremely tight quarters all day, everyday lead to animals being malnourished and just plain unhealthy. People often state that they wouldn't sell any meat that was malnourished, but the neglect to realize that most of the meat we eat today is pumped with water and hormones to make sure that they don't look unappealing.

Strictly upon the fact that any meat is shot up with hormones and unnecessary water makes it unappealing for the health factor. When trying to get healthy, you want to stay with as many natural things as you can and hormones to make a chicken look plumper is definitely not natural.

Beyond that fact when an animal is cage bound they are fed a certain type of grain. The grain they are fed has things such as corn and protein that animals aren't meant to break down. When they eat what they would normally eat if they were in the wild their body would naturally break down the food and turn it into protein for us to eat.

On top of all that, free range animals actually have less calories and fat than caged animals. In fact, grass fed beef has the same amount of fat as chicken or turkey and so therefore it actually isn't as bad for you as regular caged red meat. There is also Omega-3 found in free range meat( yet not in caged). According to Eatwild.com "Meat from grass-fed animals has two to four times more omega-3 fatty acids than meat from grain- fed animals. Omega-3s are called "good fats" because they play a vital role in every cell and system in your body."

With all these facts in mind you might wonder why more meat isn't free ranged. After all, a lot of the land and our food goes to feeding the animals that don't actually need our food to be fed. The answer? It is slightly cheaper. If we were to free range all animals we would no longer have things like the McDonald's dollar menu. Fast food chains started off this abuse animals scheme and people like the food so much they ignore the problem and the health.

If everyone was eating healthy, we wouldn't have to worry about fast food places. There have been some restaurants that strive that are free range. The most obvious example is Chipotle. Here is a restaurant that is doing extremely well and all their meat is free range. It isn't even really all that expensive, people just aren't willing to shell out a few extra dollars.

Be careful of the wording though. There is no FDA watch over free range and so many animals who are "free ranged" are really just given 5 more feet to move. You want to look for animals and animal product that is free ranged organic. That will tend to lead you in the right direction. On top of that, find places you trust to buy things of that nature and stick to it. Places like Trader Joes in California has a wide variety of free range meat, cheese and egg that will definitely keep you on the right track. If you want to be picky about it and you aren't sure read the box, they often explain their definition of free range. If they don't, the generally put the area they are from and you can look it up for yourself before purchasing a product. The extremity of your decision is all yours. You can not do any of it or you can do all of it. If we are what we eat, do you really want to have hormone deranged meat inside you? This is a life altering decision due to the scarcity of free range meat, so don't worry if you don't think you can commit to something like this. This blog is just meant to give you and idea. Now you can make your own decision.

More to come,

The Health Guru