When it comes to meat, the best cuts you can buy come from animals that have enjoyed happy, care-free lives in open spaces on an all-natural, no-chemical diet. But the benefits of treating livestock humanely doesn’t just make for great flavour — it also makes for healthier meat. 

Meatme knows that the only secret to procuring great meat is to make sure there are no secrets in how the animals are raised. To ensure the highest quality possible, they work exclusively with transparent local BC farmers whose animals live good lives and provide the best meat possible.

Let’s take a look at three factors that have drastic effects on the way meat tastes: the diet of the animal, how comfortably it lives, and the freedom of movement the animal enjoys in its life.

What do Meatme farmers feed their animals?

First, what an animal eats affects how it tastes significantly, so Meatme only works with farmers that are particular about what their animals eat. For example, Brian Giesbrecht of Giesbrecht Farms keeps his pigs on a strict diet of alfalfa, walnuts, hay for fibre, hops left over from a local brewery, and produce that would otherwise end up in the waste stream. 

This allows him to control exactly how he wants the meat to taste by controlling the quality and content of the pig’s diet, as well as the volume. Like most farmers in the Meatme network, Brian’s approach to raising livestock is part of the “slow food” movement, which means he never gorges his pigs in an attempt to fatten them up quickly. Instead, he devotes time and research into what and how often his animals eat to make for a healthier, less fatty cut of meat.

How do Meatme farmers treat their animals?

Next, an animal's stress level at the time of it’s death has an effect on how the meat tastes. This is mainly due to the amount of glycogen in the blood, as it gets converted to lactic acid after death, which keeps the meat tender and flavourful. 

However, when adrenaline is released it uses up that desirable glycogen, resulting in a drier, less flavourful meat. To keep adrenaline levels down, ethical farmers ensure that their livestock are happy and unstressed for weeks before they are killed. 

This guarantees that the meat is as healthy and delicious as possible. Meanwhile, many corporate farms create conditions that put their animals in a near constant state of stress, such as overcrowding and a diet full of chemicals and GMOs. Meatme only works with farmers that are ethical and respectful in how they treat their animals in life and death, bringing BC residents the best meat they can.

What does it mean when animals are pasture-raised?

Lastly, an animal will taste different depending on how it uses its muscles throughout the span of its life. This means that an animal that is allowed to roam free in a pasture is going to have a drastically different taste to an animal that has been cooped up in a cage or feedlot for it’s whole life. 

Along with being less fatty, muscular animals boast a more robust and juicy flavor, meaning making sure an animal lives a stress-free, active life is not just ethical, it creates a tastier meat. All of these factors make it possible for Meatme customers to “buy the highest quality meat with the highest animal welfare at the most competitive price around.”

Meatme guarantees that every farmer they work with provides their animals with carefully curated diets and supplies them with the conditions to live as stress-free as possible throughout their lives. This makes for the happiest animals and customers by simply engaging in important and ethical livestock-raising choices to make the tastiest meat possible. 

Finally, with products from Meatme being flash frozen immediately after processing, you’re essentially locking in the quality and freshness as soon as it’s butchered. This means you benefit from all the hard work the farmers put in, and the meat ends up being fresher than the meats on display in grocery stores. 

For more information, visit the Meatme website and discover how easy it is to feel good about eating better meat.