Farmers Market Showcases Environmentally Friendlier Meats & Cheeses

If you are what you eat, then you’re also what your food eats. So if your diet includes conventionally raised meat and dairy products, you’re ingesting the same hormones, antibiotics and pesticides found in farm animals, which isn’t good for you. In addition, livestock nowadays are typically fed corn that’s heavily sprayed with artificial fertilizers and other chemicals produced with fossil fuel, which isn’t good for the earth.

But this Saturday, the Raleigh State Farmers Market will showcase a different approach to cheeseburgers with “Grazin’ in N.C.,” an event highlighting pasture-raised meat and other products. Pasture-raised animals eat a diet of grass rather than grain and do not take growth hormones or antibiotics. And since grass-fed cattle don’t consume their ground-up brethren, they’re presumably at less risk for mad cow disease.

“Pasture-raising animals is beneficial to the animals and the environment,” says Mike Lanier, an Orange County Cooperative Extension agent.

There’s also evidence that pasture-raising is healthier for farmers, who are not exposed to the toxic dusts and gases that result from confining livestock indoors, and consumers, as studies have found that meat from grass-fed animals is lower in calories and unhealthy saturated fat and higher in healthy Omega-3 fatty acids than meat from feed-raised animals. In addition, the flavor of pasture-raised meat reputedly is more complex and, like wine, varies from place to place.

About a dozen regional producers of cattle, chickens, pigs, goats, lambs and cheeses will display their wares at the market this Saturday, Nov. 20 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Pasture-based farmers "typically sell directly to consumers,” says Lanier, “and hopefully this event will open up a new market for their products.”