Another reason to grow your own meat

[Cyngbaeld]

'Stress prior to slaughter is one of the most important influences on ultimate meat tenderness. Research in Australia and in New Zealand has shown that when stress in transport, yarding, handling and slaughter was minimized, beef meat was consistently at the tender end of the scale, regardless of breed. Similar results have been shown for deer and for sheep.'


http://www.naturalhub.com/buy_food_meat_tenderness.htm

Interesting article about meat tenderness. Too long to put the whole thing here, but you can read the remainder at the web site. Warning: first thing you will see is a "Vegan' ad. Just ignore it and scroll down a little.

[Ronney]

Hi,
I didn't read the whole article but would agree 100%. All our pork, mutton and beef is slaughtered on-farm and we eat the best meat there is. I try to work it so that animals are killed at a time or in a situation where they are not going to be toey and upset at a change in routine and most of them never know what hit them. Pigs are killed at feeding time, sheep are used to being brought in and out of the yards for drenching, shearing or being drafted off into smaller mobs so aren't aware of anything out of the ordinary and if possible, I run the beef destined for the freezer with my milking cows for a month or so. This ensures he's on good grass to finish and is used to the handling and change in his otherwise boring routine of grazing. On the morning the homekill man arrives, I put both cows and steer into a holding paddock with good grass, I'm still around so they aren't overy concerned about a stranger in the paddock and over he goes. No stress and no extra workload for me either.

Ageing meat is important and is the other side of the same coin. Unfortunately we don't have our own chiller so are at the mercy of the butcher who prefers to get the meat in and out as soon as possible. When I did have access to a chiller, the beef would be hung for up to 10 days before butchering. We kill and butcher our own mutton and pork and that hangs for a minimum of 24 hours before butchering, longer in the winter.

Why they have to do research on this amazes me because anybody with half a brain could work out that the whole scenario of sending stock to the works is going to be stressful - I could have told them that 30 years ago and so could most farmers.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[Valmai]

The bit where they say stunning the beast before slaughter makes the meast more tender suprised me. I was told that beasts which were destined for the local market were stunned, but beasts heading for the export market were shot. Shooting (properly) supposedly causes less stress than stunning.

BTW Ronnie are you going to the LSB get together party and if so which one???

[Ronney]

Hi Valmai,

No, I'm in the Far North and with cows and pigs it's not feasible for me to get away to the closest which would be the Auckland one. Isla and I usually get together with our respective spouses and crack a bottle or two and chew the cud. It would be great to attend though and put faces to names. Where are you and are you going to try and attend one?

Cheers,
Ronnie