THE GRID IRON MEAT MANIFESTO
Grid Iron is all about meat. Not just any meat, but meat that is slow grown from native breeds.
We believe that the meat we eat should be about quality not quantity. Our meat should be raised and killed ethically and come, wherever possible, from native breeds allowed to mature naturally and fed on a diet they were meant to eat.
We appreciate that without large farming it would not be possible to feed the world’s ever increasing demand for meat, but at the same time, as individuals, we have a choice about the meat we eat. In the UK we have an abundance of small farms and a number of farmers who care about their animals and the meat they produce.
Choosing native and rare breeds as an alternative to faster growing cross breeds helps to make them sustainable for the farmers who choose to rear them and to protect them from disappearing forever in the race to produce cheaper meat quicker.
Most of our native and rare breeds take longer to mature and are fed on a diet where the animal forages for it’s own food in it’s natural environment. This is a longer, and therefore more expensive, process for the farmer, resulting in more expensive meat. Native breed beef, will take more than three years to mature and grow to weight where it is suitable for use as meat in comparison to it’s obese cross bred, grain fed, factory farmed cousin who will reach a killing weight often in 18 months (with the aid of hormones and antibiotics to keep it alive).
By buying and eating cheap meat in large quantities, we are supporting a system that is both ethically wrong and damaging to the environment.
Apart from the feeling of self satisfaction you can have from buying and eating good quality meat there are also the health benefits. Grass fed and pasture reared meat has a number of health benefits and doesn’t contain the high levels of antibiotics and harmful fats found in many factory farmed and large scale production environments.
Join us in a journey to discover great quality meat and how to eat it and to support our native and rare breed animals and those who care about them.