Eco friendly meat- How do you feel about this?

[Carro- atyoursenses.com]

Please don't lynch me! I am new here and I don't know the etiquette yet.

I have been reading about all fantastic venison, lamb, seafood, etc in your posts and I wonder how you feel about the environmental factor concerning the meat industry and factory farms?

Am I starting a food fight?

[Carro- atyoursenses.com]

I want to start off with two "good" examples. At the larger supermarkets in Sweden you can buy meat from deer and moose. Most often frozen, but always organic and always have lived their lives in the forests roaming free. Since, moose and deer aren't farm animals here. Same goes for all the saluhalls.

There is a lovely organic farm about a 15 minute drive from us, out nowhere. Their pigs, cows and chickens run around outdoors and do things they are supposed to be doing. Their prices are higher than a supermarket, but the meat is so much more tasty.

[haresfur]

You asked about environmental factors so I'll steer away from animal quality of life issues, although when it comes to wild food, sustainability is an environmental issue IMO.

The topic is timely for me, because I have been considering eating more pork and less beef/lamb to save the planet. In Australia and probably in most countries, the majority of greenhouse gas production from farming is on-farm production, not in the "food miles". Some of that is the fuel and fertilizer use but most is the methane and N2O production - largely in the intestinal system in the ruminants. Swine produce a lot less greenhouse gas. I think that climate change is the biggest environmental danger we face.

That being said, I'm not that big on pork, except for bacon. I try to eat less meat and more vegetarian food, already.

We had some interesting discussions of sustainability in the Aussie fish&chips thread. I'm not against eating wild meat but I don't think we can use that to replace agriculture to any significant degree.