Does the welfare of animals during rearing affect the taste of the meat?

Question

Yahoo! UK & Answers team note: This is the real Jimmy Doherty asking about how the farming of animals affects the taste of the meat.

Answer 1

I would say yes. The welfare of the animal, what it eats during it's life and the way it is slaughtered will affect the taste of the meat. I will only buy my meat from a local organic butcher - it is much more expensive so I just have less of it but to me, the welfare of the animal is paramount. When I see programmes showing animals being pumped full or drugs to make them grow quickly and the awful conditions they are kept in it makes me weep.

Answer 2

Ultimately it must be the consumers responsibility due the mechanics of supply and demand. If the consumer demanded higher welfare and boycotted meat that was not reared to this standard then it would no longer be produced. However, it's very easy to make the right decision re: ethically sourced meat when you have a small holding in Dorset and your own TV series. I would never darken a supermarket's doors again I've I lived like you Hugh, why would I need to? However, when you live on a council estate in one of the most deprived areas of the country and you're the only one working in your household as your partners lost his job due to the recession, it's a bit more difficult to choose the £8 free range chicken from the butchers over the £3 one from the supermarket. I do try to take the high road and go to my butcher and whatever I buy I never throw any of it away, it's all used in stews and soups and frozen if I can't think what to do with it (even the bones for stock) but when I've got £30 to live on a week and a winter gas bill coming up it's not so cut and dried as "Is animal welfare my responsibility' and unfortunately a £3 chicken will feed us for 3-4 days the same as an £8 one will.

Answer 3

Most definitely! the way an animal is raised while young is a big factor in the taste of the meat. Free range chickens will give a better taste than those chickens raised in a barn all day with no room to move and pumped full of drugs to keep them "healthy". Same goes for a calf that has very little room to move and is formula fed with additives so it can have "tenderness" once slaughtered. If an animal is abused while being raised it will affect the flavor, and the way an animal is slaughtered, that also affects the taste of the meat too. If an animal is treated good, fed good and let out to get exercise, the difference of taste is unbelievable!

Answer 4

I'm not for any kind of abuse towards any living thing. I believe that the environment(clean or dirty) in which they're raised in and the food they eat (processed feed with steroids and antibiotics added rather than a farm fed animal eating scraps corn from the farmers fields and so on) makes all the difference. I don't like not knowing about all the chemicals fed or pumped into the animals we eat. I would rather purchase a steer from a local farmer and send it to the slaughter house instead of buy the meat in the store. You have a little better idea where that animal was raised what it was fed and where it was processed.
It must really bite to live in a big city and not have that option. No wonder so many people are becoming vegetarians.
I don't believe if you are just mean or not caring towards an animal the meat will taste any different.

Answer 5

Depends what u feed them on, good corn etc, maybe some inject steroids in more commercial big outfits and that may effect the taste, ie more salt in the meat (is that the white fluid type stuff seen when frying bacon?) as for the welfare, if the animal is stressed or not has a bearing on taste? no idea but a healthy happy animal surely must have better taste, also preparation is the key, curing bacon is an art as my butcher friend say's. Good luck with the farm, see ya on TV soon again i hope....i think some vegetarians may give some thumbs down on these answers but it's a free world yeah? Dave

Answer 6

Obviously the type of food the animal is reared on affects the taste more. The dispatch of the animal also has to be taken into account especially as the Chinese do the opposite, in that the DOGS they slaughter are purposely killed within sight of each other to TERRIFY them so they release a certain hormone. This is "supposed" to make the meat taste better. With this in mind (well not) it stands to reason the humane dispatch of an animal could also affect the taste.
Give them their space, good diet and a humane death will all contribute to a better tasting meat.

Answer 7

It certainly does. There are stress tests that are carried out on animals at the time of death to ensure that the animals are not put under too much stress as they release hormones at times of stress, which can affect the taste.
On the other side of the coin though it has been observed that animals whom are given too much excercise and freedom can become too muscular making the meat tough and undesirable.
Me personally am a vegitarian so would like to see all animals treated with respect although also a realist so know this will never happen.

Answer 8

I think it does. We have been buying our steaks from a meat locker that only fed their cattle corn and never used anitbiotics and stuff on the cows and I loved the taste of the steak. now they are feeding the cows fescue or something and it tastes terrible. I think that if the animal is in an environment that stresses it out and is unhealthy the meat will be terrible. If a person is under stress and in an unhealthy environment they will look sick and terrible. Why would it be any different for an animal? I feel free range and meat that hasn't been given anti-biotics and things taste much better

Answer 9

Absolutely. I used to live on the west-coast of Ireland where the sheep grazed out on the heather bogs. The taste of the meat was just so much more flavoursome than anything bought in a supermarket. Wild Salmon is much tastier and has a much better texture than farmed salmon. I guess you could say the same about most game really.

Free range and organic is well worth paying extra for - both for taste and to know the animal hasnt had a life of hell.

Answer 10

when a hunter shoots an animal in the wild they usually refer to it as being "wild meat" with a "wild" taste. So yes, I would think if people ate the meat of a deceased animal that was not in the wild but was treated well on a family farm and fed well it would taste "sweet". I would think meat would taste "stressed" and maybe even stringy if the animal was stressed and stuffed and crowded during rearing.