So what does that mean when it comes to chicken and eggs? Simply put, eggs hatched and chickens raised in a humane, natural farm environment - as opposed to a huge commercial factory farm - taste better, pack a bigger nutrition wallop and aren't toxic to the environment.
Yes, buying sustainably raised poultry and eggs costs more - on average, $2 to $3 more per pound for chicken, and about the same per dozen eggs - but, as illustrated in the recent documentary "Food, Inc.," cheap food can be a misnomer. That 69-cent-a-pound fryer or 99-cent carton of eggs may bring with it a slew of hidden costs that are damaging our health, the farming industry and the environment.
Cheap food can mean that a farmer somewhere is getting a raw deal, animals have been subjected to poor and inhumane husbandry, and consumers are eating food that may be bad for their health.
On a nutrition level alone, research supports this, showing that meat, eggs and dairy products from pastured and grass-fed animals have higher omega-3 fatty acids, more favorable omega-3 to omega-6 ratios, and lower cholesterol than product from factory farms.
Giants like Tyson and Perdue may beg to differ. But what is indisputable is taste. Just ask a chef.
Your grandma's chicken
"Pasture-fed is a whole different animal than what you have in mass production," said Steven Waxman, chef-owner of Trax Cafe at the Ambler train station. "It's about what the animals are fed - the fact that they aren't pumped full of antibiotics. They can eat insects like they're supposed to. They aren't stressed by being crammed together in little cages. They taste like chicken.
"You can't make that taste in a pen. It has to come from the earth, by eating food soaked in sunshine."
