A Wonderful, Magical Animal...

I'm, of course, talking about our friend the pig. 5 geek points for the first commenter who know where the title of this entry came from or who said it. I digress. Sue and I had the opportunity to try some grass fed, free range pork chops. A little darker in color than what you'd get at the grocery store but the taste! Excellent and, if the whole treating animals well thing doesn't do it for you, much healthier than regular pork. Frontline had this to say about grass fed beef:

Meat from a grass-fed steer has about one-half to one-third as much fat as a comparable cut from a grain-fed animal. Lower in calories, grass-fed beef is also higher in vitamin E and omega-3 fatty acids, which are thought to help reduce the risk of cancer, lower the likelihood of high blood pressure, and make people less susceptible to depression. Further, meat from grass-fed cattle is rich in another beneficial fat called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which supposedly lowers the risk of cancer. The benefits of CLA are so widely acknowledged that some ranchers who don't grass-finish their cattle add CLA supplements to their animals' feed once they're taken to the feedlots.

Another good article on the benefits of grass fed meat is here. So get yourself to the farmers market and get some grass fed meat. Tell them Homer sent you.