Thursday, March 17, 2005

Eat buffalo instead of beef!

Dinner and Dancing




March 17, 2005




tr_catlin01.jpgTreeHuggers
eat buffalo. No exceptions except for strict vegetarians. If you've an
interest in soil and water conservation, biodiversity, keeping family
farms around, avoiding possible exposure to Mad Cow disease, energy
conservation, and personal health, you owe it to yourself to give it a
serious try. And I’m not talking about the pre-formed frozen "Buffalo
Burgers" sold by the big grocery chains.



Credit George Catlin, plains 'Painter in Residence' before settlers
ended the Bison's reign, for giving me a romantic view of the Buff. But
credit critical thinking, a strong desire for sustainability, and my
love of cooking for sending me on a TreeHugging Buffalo hunt. The
taste, I can report, is its own reward. Romanticism only carries so far.



George Catlin’s painting of the sacred buffalo dance (above)
documents what has been reported by European observers as a
'thanksgiving' celebration. I have a hunch it’s a lot deeper than that,
but, regardless, we all ought to dance for joy that the American Bison
was not driven to extinction. Thanks to Canada and more thanks to Teddy
Roosevelt for the rescue.



Let me count the reasons.



Buffalo are twice as efficient as beef cattle at
converting wild grass forage into animal protein. Add some more
efficiency because they need no “feedlot treatment” of hay, corn, and
antibiotics. Buffs are also more drought tolerant and less attracted to
natural waterways than are cattle: good for stream quality. Add up the
energy, land, and water inputs for a pound of meat and Bison wins by a
wide margin.



Bison are very well adapted to cold weather extremes, requiring
farmers to expend less energy to keep them warm and sheltered during
the depths of winter.



bison-nutrition2.jpgFat
content of all buffalo is substantially less than beef or chicken. Less
fat coupled with the generally lower water content of buffalo meat
means lower cooking temperatures suffice. This, in turn, saves cooking
energy.



Buffalo meat producers tend to be family based. This could be a
transitory situiation, but TreeHuggers can have at keeping it that way
for a bit longer.



Pricing seems to vary widely so be sure to shop around.



Where to buy: -- In the interest of saving money and energy, as well as supporting a family enterprise, I ordered from a small farm in
Northern Minnesota, on the Eastern edge of the Bison’s native range. To
locate a supplier near you, you can try this trade organization GIS map, or just do a web search with “buffalo + meat + yourstate”.



Tradeoffs: -- It’s a tradeoff between unit cost,
shipping distance, and buying direct from a family producer versus a
large scale online retailer. Worth exploring who does the meat
processing and freezing. I was unable to find a Native American
supplier because of the deluge of web “hits” associated with cultural
and political history. Commenters?



TreeHuggers who have been paying attention to the issue of Peak Oil
may be interested in what large portions of the Great Plains might look
like sometime after 2030: buffalo grazing amongst the wind turbines,
rubbing their backs upon the concrete foundations.

posted by ken @ 10:45 AM

1 Comments:

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