Pastured
Chicken
Pastured
Chicken
Let's get this straight from the get go.
No one, here or anywhere else, has real 100% grass-fed chicken
meat birds. If anyone claims their meat bird chickens are
"grass-fed" they are not being upfront. At best, they
can claim their chickens are "pastured." Pastured
means raised on grass but supplemented with grain-based feeds.
"Grass-fed" would mean chickens on pasture being fed
nothing.
Even though they are supplemented,
pastured chickens are still in a league all their own.
"Free Range" birds are raised in huge chicken houses
with doors that allow access to small outside pens that are nothing
but dirt. All of the food and water is inside the building just
like Tyson birds. Therefore "Free Range" birds are fed
grain, lots of grain and virtually nothing but grain. Therefore
in terms of nutrition, they are no different than any other bird sold
in the super market.
The same can be said for organic
chickens. Chickens that are not pastured but fed organic feeds
are nutritionally exactly the same as mass produced Tyson chickens.
Grain's nutritional drawbacks are identical whether the grain is
organic, GMO, natural, whole grain, or milled. For more on that
see The
Atomic Bomb of the American Food System.
On the other hand, when we say
"Pastured Poultry" or "Pastured Chickens" the
birds were literally put on grass where they ate grass and bugs that
ate grass. Either the birds are kept in very large,
grass-covered paddocks where they roam at will, or they are in small
pens and the pens are moved on a daily basis to fresh grass.
Pastured birds will have grazed grass and eaten bugs (bugs that
eat grass) while still being supplemented with grain. They are
not 100% grass-fed, but they are nutritionally far better than any
other poultry classification.