4 Things to consider before buying pasture-raised meat.

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February 22, 2024

So you’ve decided you’re ready to try pasture-raised meats. A quick Google search leaves you with more questions than answers about where to start. Here are 4 quick things to consider before purchasing pasture-raised meats.

Practices-

You first must figure out what farming practices and principles you care about. (Organic, grass-fed, humanely raised, pasture-based, environmental impact, etc) The amount of information now readily available on the internet is truly immense. Make sure to thoroughly search each farming aspect you care about and rank them in order of importance to you. This is a vital first step that will help you begin making your decision.

Transparency -

It is more important than ever to make sure you have healthy and safe food on your table. It is easy to get caught up in the convenience of running to the supermarket and grabbing the cheapest option from the meat case. You can look at the packaging and see buzz words like humanly raised, grass-fed, and pasture-based. Words like these have turned from meaningful labels guiding consumers on what to purchase to marketing tactics used by big companies that persuade you to buy their products.

Federal and state agencies watered down these guidelines to ensure large companies can use these labels to promote their product. If you take the time to read up on the requirements for some of these labels you will realize that they are bogus. (Remember that these are also the bare minimum requirements farmers must follow to use the label!)

How can you find transparency in today’s food market?

By knowing your farmer!

We live in an age where everything we do can be pictured, recorded, or documented in a matter of seconds. As customers, you deserve to see how your food is being raised. You should always feel free to ask questions and learn more. Find a farmer who is willing to share his/her practices with you either on social media, a website, a newsletter, or better yet willing to take you on a farm tour!

Local-

As the Row 7 Seed Company co-founder Dan Barber said, “Buying local isn't always the easiest or cheapest option, but it's an investment in the health of our communities and the vitality of our food system. And that's a price worth paying."

Buying locally has changed a lot in the past 100 years. When my great-great-grandfather began to deliver his local produce to the neighboring coal towns, he loaded his horse and wagon by hand, made the 10-mile trip over the mountains that took 4 hours, went door to door selling his produce, and then made the 4-hour trip back home.

Now with the same or less amount of effort, we can ship farm fresh products through UPS over 200 miles directly to your door. You can take virtual farm tours, watch us on social media, and have direct conversations with your farmer in real-time from anywhere in the world.

To us, buying local means supporting your community. Communities are no longer limited to a geographical location but by individuals with a common goal in mind. By supporting smaller farms, you’re not only helping the farmer’s family, but you also help the family butcher shop, a hatchery trying to pass down its business to the next generation, the local feed supplier, and the struggling small-scale packaging supplier who is trying to get his business started.

I’m sure you see where I’m going with this, buying locally no longer has to mean buying from someone close to you on the map. It means to support a business whose goals and aspirations for the growth of your community are closest to yours.

Value to your family -

Now that you’ve decided you're ready to try pasture-raised meats, you load your cart up with some of your favorite cuts of beef, chicken, and pork, then you see the price tag. Due to the smaller scale, time, and effort, small-scale family farms often have to charge more than the supermarket to overcome the cost of production.

We get it, it can be a struggle to justify the price compared to the supermarket. Remember you’ve done the research, you're positive it is a superior product, and you want what is best for you and your family. Here are a few questions to ask yourself to help ease your mind,

Are you comfortable with the food your family is eating?

What value do you put on your family’s health?

How does the food you eat correspond to your health?

What am I willing to do to make my family healthier? Happier?

I hope this helped you to make new, informed decisions on what you feed your family. Feel free to contact us with questions or concerns about how your food is being raised.

Nathan Masser

info@redhillharvest.com

PCOS Medication for Chickens?

While scrolling through one of my subscribed bi-weekly AG E-Newsletters, a headline caught my eye - “Chicken or the egg (or the drug)? - Research shows that a common diabetes medication for humans (metformin) can help broiler breeder hens produce more eggs.” I was sitting across from my brother John, and words came out of my mouth that resembled something like, “What in the world are they giving to our chickens now?!?” As he is subscribed to the same newsletter and is a little more organized than I am, he already read the article; he just smirked. Once I finished reading the article, we discussed whether we thought this was a good idea or not; you can probably guess our opinions. In summary, the article says researchers at Penn State have discovered that metformin, a medication commonly used to treat type 2 diabetes and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in humans, can significantly enhance egg production in broiler breeder hens. In a 40-week study, hens administered a small daily dose of metformin laid more fertile eggs, showed reduced body fat, and showed healthier reproductive hormone levels than untreated hens. The study revealed that metformin influences liver gene activity, increasing the production of yolk proteins and stabilizing blood sugar levels while decreasing genes associated with fat accumulation. These effects mirror metformin's action in humans, where it improves insulin sensitivity and hormonal balance. Penn State This research suggests that metformin could be a tool in poultry farming, potentially extending the productive laying period of hens, reducing flock turnover, and enhancing overall farm efficiency. Significantly, metformin is rapidly metabolized in hens, thus they claim, minimizing any risk to the food supply. (Here’s a link to the full article) If you read the article closely, you can see that this medication is NOT being used and has yet to enter our food system. However, it is a good example of how the American ag industry can create its own problem and solve it by throwing a drug or chemical at it. Let me put this in simpler terms and use the example of Metformin in chicken production. How Big Ag Views the Dilemma Problem: Broiler Chickens do not lay enough eggs, and we can make more money if they lay longer and more fertile eggs. (It will take fewer momma chickens) Solution: Give chickens drugs that affect their hormones, enhancing their egg-laying abilities. Here’s How We View the Dilemma Problem: Broiler Chickens do not lay enough eggs, and we can make more money if they lay longer and more fertile eggs. Solution: Don’t grow chickens unnaturally fast! The issue is that we’ve bred our livestock and crops to grow so fast and so large for the sake of “efficiency” that we’ve become too reliant on drugs and chemicals to keep up with this fast-paced farming method. Chickens, for instance, used to take 16-20 weeks to reach their market weight; now, they are bred to reach market weight in about 6 weeks! This rapid development causes the chickens to grow unnaturally fast, which has significant side effects for both the chicken and the person. Things have developed too far for the case of efficiency in our food system. Statements like this tend to give rise to many arguments, mainly along the lines of There are not enough farmers to produce all of the food.It’s not good for the animals to be out in the open without antibiotics.We can’t grow enough food to feed the world. 1) There are not enough farmers to produce all of the food - Let’s start by looking at the farmers. In 1776, 90-95% of Americans were farmers. They grew all of the food they needed to survive. Most people had their own garden or small livestock herd. Now, around 1.3% of the population in America are farmers, with the number declining every day. So, how did we get here? Once cities and populations began to grow, it became increasingly desirable for people to hone in on one skill and trade it with others to make the community thrive. (For example, blacksmith, cobbler, preacher, builder, farmer) Most people traded their services and goods within 10 miles of where they lived. This built strong community ties and a willingness to work together. Eventually, the Industrial Revolution came along and built faster transport, better equipment, and communication. Businesses could trade their goods over a farther distance. This new ability to market to larger numbers of people started the corporatization of the American Farm. Farming became more efficient after World War 2 with the use of chemicals, tractors, and bigger equipment, which meant that those who were the best marketers, and could sell the most, had the most money to buy new farms and plant more crops. They could afford to buy up bigger and better equipment and land, and in turn, could grow more food cheaply. This caused prices to drop, and the little farmers could not keep up. If we exclude the less than 10-acre farms (which are still vital but don’t make up for a large portion of food eaten in America), we can see that in 1920 the average farm size was 148 acres, whereas in 2022 the average size was 1500 acres! A 1000% increase in size! This shows the devastating number of farms and farming families forced to shut down their tractors to make room for these big farms. To grow food in a more natural way, we would need more farmers, each with a common goal to feed the world with good food. 2) It’s not good for the animals to be out in the open without antibiotics We will not spend much time on the next argument, which is that it’s inhumane for animals to be raised without the use of antibiotics and drugs. I somewhat agree with this argument. Let me explain. It would be inhumane for us to raise animals in a confinement system without the use of these drugs. All of the animals would be sick and more than likely die, simply because they were not designed to be grown in this manner. At Red Hill Harvest, we believe that God designed animals to be raised outdoors without antibiotics or drugs. When raised in the pasture, there is a much lower risk of getting and sharing diseases because they are never over their manure for more than one day and do not breathe and share the same air. In the case of a confined animal operation, it might actually be more ethical to have lab-grown meat. I don’t see much difference between raising chickens in a barn, where they are kept in a very crowded environment and only fed a specific ration of feed (not free choice), and in a “lab” where the meat is being manufactured. 3) We can’t grow enough food to feed the world. The final argument that we will not be able to grow enough food is simply untrue. Many farms, especially where we live, simply are not suited to have crops grown on them. Rather than increasing a subpar crop of corn and soybeans, we could grow a bountiful crop of grass and other high-quality forages and walk the animals to the feed. (You would also eliminate the need for heavy machinery and help the environment tremendously.) How much sense does it make for us to grow feed, harvest it, truck it, store it, re-truck it, grind it, haul it back to the farm, and finally feed it to an animal? We recently bought a piece of land that was about 60 acres in total. On the sale bill, it said 40 acres were tillable and around 20 acres were wooded. Really, there are about 5 acres that we consider “tillable” that would produce a decent crop. Rather than trying to grow a grain crop, we let it grow and turn into grass. Then our cows can walk across the steep hills and valleys without causing harm to our machinery or the land. This way, we can utilize all 60 acres (yes, we even let the cows graze the woods when it gets hot) and still produce tons of feed! Way more than we could ever grow if we were to try to plant row crops. It all comes down to the fact that there are no longer enough farmers. Feeding the animals right off the land requires more management and labor to set up fences and work with the animals. With the current number of farmers in America, it would be challenging to scale back to a manageable size. How can we solve the problems in our food system? I believe it would be very difficult to emerge from the hole we have dug as a society. Farms are controlled by so few people that it would be hard to attract new farmers and start more farms. It would mean promoting and helping new farmers buy land, meaning the large corporations would have to dissolve. I don’t know what you think, but I don’t see that happening without significantly disrupting our food system. You CAN make a difference, however. You can control how your food is produced by choosing where you source your food. A growing number of people are fed up with the current food system and how things are being raised. Things will change if we all join together and make smart decisions in choosing where we source our food. While there are many promising things happening at the government level to promote healthy and sustainable farming practices, it’s not enough. If we reject food from the corporate world, and support small farms and farmers who raise their products the way you want them to, we can make a change. I hope that the last paragraph encouraged you to start making a difference. Money controls politicians and businessmen alike, and where you choose to spend it will shape the course of our future. With the developments of social media and websites, you can see exactly how your food is produced without even setting foot on a farm! You can reconnect with your farmer, reject the highly industrialized, unethical farming method, and support a farm that wants to support your health!

Video: Planting Potatoes at Red Hill Harvest!

Learn how we plant potatoes in central Pennsylvania.

Tariffs: How they will affect meat prices, our farm, and how you can protect yourself from higher prices!

Lately, we’ve had folks asking how tariffs might affect meat prices and what that means for our farm. The short answer? Tariffs could raise costs across the board—from feed and fertilizer to equipment and meat itself, especially in large-scale, conventional agriculture. But at Red Hill Harvest, we’re not tied to global markets the way big ag is. We’re working toward becoming 100% self-sufficient, relying on natural systems instead of imported inputs. That means healthier soil, healthier animals, and more price stability for you. We also sell directly to you, our customer—not through middlemen or commodity markets—so we can set prices based on what it actually costs to raise good food. That transparency and relationship is what helps us weather uncertainty and protect you from price swings. So what can you do? Get closer to your food. Support local farms. Ask questions. Visit. Build relationships. When you choose to buy from people who care, you’re investing in a better, more secure food system for all of us.

4 Things to consider before buying pasture-raised meat.

More from the blog

PCOS Medication for Chickens?

Video: Planting Potatoes at Red Hill Harvest!

Tariffs: How they will affect meat prices, our farm, and how you can protect yourself from higher prices!

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