Healthy Chicken

A few years ago, the Salatins submitted some skinless chicken breasts to a food science lab in Virginia Tech for fat analysis, comparing them to conventionally raised birds. (The Salatins provided the model for pastured poultry that we try to follow here at Cedar Cove.) The findings are not surprising to me, but still amazing. The pastured chickens were found to be 70% lower in fat. Of the fat that was present, they found that both saturated and monounsaturated fats were lower while polyunsaturated fat (the good stuff) was higher than the store bought chicken. Other farms around the country raising chickens on pasture had similar results. They als found that the feed mixture the birds consumed, although all natural/organic, had little to do with the results, rather, the fresh daily pasture (grass) consumption was the key.

More studies were performed on skin samples sent in by the Salatins. They wanted to measure bacterial contamination, measured in colony forming units per milliliter. Conventional birds from the supermarket averaged 3,600 CFU/ml. The pastured chickens measured 133 CFY/ml. A rather large difference.

Now I'm not saying that our birds are going to be equal to this, nor am I making any claims to that extent. But, I think it is safe to say that pastured poultry is safer to eat by far. The health benefits are tremendous. I believe that trace minerals found in healthy soil play a large part in these findings. Most living creatures (including us) have a ph that is out of whack. Most of us and our animals walk around on the acidic side of the ph balance, which leads to many health issues. This ph imbalance is due to years of strip mining the soils. The plants lack it, therefore anything that eats plants lacks trace minerals that are essential to good health. (This includes humans. We not only eat the plants but we also eat the meat that eats the plants.)

There is some interesting reading on the website: eatwild.com Check it out.