Heritage vs. Organic vs. Regular

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm559s-3Uj4

Yesterday of course was turkey day, and I realized that I was lucky enough to go to two different Thanksgiving dinners.  One was done with a beautiful free range turkey and the other was a heritage turkey.  Both were good, but it was evident that heritage turkeys are the best.

I discovered the heritage turkey in my world about 3 years ago.  I decided to cook a turkey for thanksgiving.  Because I'd never done so, I knew I had to do a little research.  What I found to be the best was a heritage bird.  I looked into organic, free-range, cage free.  But really all of that was included with the word "heritage."  So i asked the question, "What make a heritage bird so special."  My butcher Doug from Prather Ranch Meat co, handed me a 40 page article on Herritage Turkey's.  Inside was not only a guide abou why the "herritage" bird was superior.  But also instructions on how to cook it.

The very first thing that you will knotice about herritage birds is that there is less "white meat" and more "dark meat."  That's because ordinarily Turkey's do not really have such huge breasts like we've genetically bred them to be.  First our women all now have large fake boobs, now our turkeys! When is it going to end!  The second thing that you will notice, is that it is much jucier and tastyer then a regular bird.  But the most pronounced difference with the bird and it's raising process is that a herritage bird can reproduce on it's own.

This brings up an important point about an animal.  Artificial insemination is necessary with the "conventional" turkey, or even a "free-range/organic" turkey.  The root of the animal and it's very gene pool is "organic" or "wild."  Since Thanksgiving is a holiday that historically reminds us about the Native Americans and Europeans joining together, the heritage turkey would be what they ate.  But with the commercialization of food and the turkey, we've found a way to destroy a perfectly good animal and make it "crap."

Organic turkeys are still good because they are raised properly.  In the open pasture, as close to their natural environment as possible, not to mention they are generally disease free.  The process of raising a turkey is finicky and quite difficult especially when it's a genetically altered turkey.  The gene pool needs antibiotics, hormones, and other drugs, because the animal is weak from start.  Not to mention the very fact that organic birds have eat nothing but good quality organic feed.  The price of these birds, let alone the extra space they take up is much more open and free.  But let's be honest, it is much more economically correct to jam a bird into a crowded room for all it's life.  It would be like living on the MTR during rush hour.

So, why does not everyone just buy a heritage turkey?  First off there is the price issue of $6.99 a pound.  Since the average turkey weighs 15-20lbs a $100-$140 investment just doesn't seem worth it.  The butterball turkey is only $0.60 which makes it a cheep commodity.  Even an organic turkey at $3-5 a pound seems like it's a better deal.  The other problem is that there may only be ten thousand or so birds available.  And with repeated press, they are in high demand.  The heritage bird seems like a bargain when you think of the number of birds they have and how much time and effort it takes to raise them.