Not all turkeys are equal: The benefits of getting pasture-raised bird this Thanksgiving
Pasture-raised turkeys may present some issues to farmers like exposure to predators, but columnist and board president James Rubenstein writes that the extra difficulty is worth it for the health, flavor and environmental benefits.
The association of turkey with Thanksgiving is a nineteenth-century invention.
The writer Sarah Josepha Hale (author of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”) is credited with leading a campaign during the mid-nineteenth century to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday, an effort that culminated with Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation in 1863. Hale authored books and magazine articles claiming that the 1621 meal included turkey, but researchers suggest that deer, geese or ducks were more likely to have been served.
Size is important to make sure you have enough food to go around this holiday season. Figure one pound per person when buying a whole turkey, and 1/2 pound per person for a boneless roast. You will want to buy more than that in order to have leftovers — more about that in a couple of weeks.
I offer three reasons to consider local turkeys: They are treated better, they are healthier for you and for the environment, and they taste better.
If you order a turkey from MOON Co-op, you’ll get a fresh pasture-raised bird from Bowman & Landes Farm, located in Miami County near New Carlisle an hour northeast of Oxford. Orders at MOON Co-op have to be placed by Wednesday, NOv. 15, and pickup starts Monday, Nov. 25.
David Bowman purchased the farm in 1915, and his son Orville (guess which famous Dayton resident he was named after) started raising turkeys in 1938. Dennis Landes was hired to work on the farm in 1943 and became a partner with Orville a year later. Orville moved to California in 1948 and sold his share of the farm to his brother Kenneth. The fourth generation of the Bowman and Landes families are now involved in running the farm.
Bowman & Landes turkeys are treated well by living outdoors as much as they wish. Back in 1948, most turkeys were raised this way, but more than 90 percent of turkeys are now raised indoors, according to the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center.
Raising turkeys free range can present difficulty in keeping away natural predators. If a predator gets through the fencing, it can kill enough turkeys to erase the year’s profit. Bowman & Landes uses heavy-duty fencing, and dogs and donkeys roam the farm.
Bowman & Landes turkeys are healthier for you and for the environment because they are never injected with antibiotics or hormones, and they are fed a diet that does not include genetically modified organisms (GMO). Instead, they consume a mixture of wheat, corn and soybeans grown on the farm, using no-till, turkey manure and other sustainable field practices.
Bowman & Landes has been certified by the Non-GMO Project, a nonprofit organization that verifies that a farm follows rigorous standards for avoiding genetically engineered ingredients. The organization’s label appears on a number of products at MOON Co-op.
Even when the turkeys are inside, the Bowman & Landes farm is eco-friendly. Three solar arrays provide 350,000 kWh of power for the farm. (The average home uses around 10,000 kWh annually.)
This time of year, we welcome a flock of wild turkeys to our heavily wooded backyard. Just before sunset, they march in, and each in turn shoots up vertically into a tree. They leave before dawn.
Our turkeys are entertaining, but for holiday consumption, it’s Bowman & Landes for us. In the past, Bowman & Landes turkeys were a good bit more expensive than industrial turkeys, but even that is no longer the case.
James Rubenstein is president of the Board of Directors for the Oxford Free Press and professor emeritus of geography at Miami University.
