Our Meat
ETHICALLY RAISED MEAT & SUSTAINABLE FARMING PRACTICES
Ethical Meat
At Green Farm we believe in the power of nature so practice regenerative, light-touch, small-scale farming. This means all our animals are free-range, our cattle and sheep are 100% grass fed, our pigs are fed raw veg, local milk and pig nuts, and all animals happily live outdoors for their whole lives. For more information on this approach and how it creates what we believe is some of the best meat you can eat, scroll to the end of this page.
Our available meat boxes and cuts are listed below. All our beef, lamb, pork and mutton is available to purchase from the farm at any time if you call ahead to order, or at our farm gate pop-up every Thursday 10am-12pm. To stay up to date with availability and when fresh cuts come in please sign up to our newsletter.
Fresh vs. Frozen
As we have a small number of animals, we do not have fresh meat all the time, we will make it known when we do as it sells out quickly, but you will be able to get advanced orders in. For the rest of our meat, we passionately believe instant post butchering freezing is the best way to capture the farm fresh quality of the meat, which of course has zero preservatives or chemicals in it.
More About Our Farming Practices
All our farm animals live outdoors for their whole lives, our cattle and sheep eat pasture grass or hay made from our pastures, our young ones stay with their mothers, taking milk, for as long as they both want. Taken together, these regenerative farming pra how ctices make a huge difference to the animal welfare and to the quality of the meat.
While not accredited (we are too small), we are proud to be members of the Pasture for Life Association
Importantly, while feeding corn and soya to ruminants is bad for the planet and less than great for the quality of the meat, pasture fed cattle and sheep can be part of the solution for climate change and soil health; the carbon cycle absorbs carbon into the soil, making it CO2 negative. These animals have evolved over millenia to convert a very low-protein, high fibre diet (grass) into high protein, good fats and highly nutritious meat. The nutritional value of pasture fed lamb & beef is discussed below.
Grass Fed Lamb & Beef
What an animal eats has a direct affect on the quality, leanness and nutrition density of its meat. Cows and sheep are naturally grass-eating vegetarians, so all Green Farm sheep and cattle enjoy a completely natural diet from our traditional weald meadows whilst they live outdoors all the year round.
There are great health benefits to be gained from eating meat of this quality that is 100% grass-fed:
1. Extra Omega-3
Grass fed meat contains as much as three times more Omega-3 (good fats found in oily fish) than grain fed meat. This aids prevention of depression and cancer, whilst lowering blood pressure.
2. More CLA
CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid) is 300%-400% higher in grass fed cuts. This is a nutrient associated with lowering heart disease and cancer risk, as well as reducing body fat and maintaining lean body mass.
3. Lots of vitamins
Grass fed meat is rich in Vitamin A and E, which help strengthen the immune system and maintain healthy skin and eyes. Vitamin E is four times higher in our meat than grain fed.
4. Healthy fats
Grass fed meat is lower in overall fat and in artery-clogging saturated fat than grain-fed. This helps reduce the risk of heart disease.
5. Added antioxidants
There are plenty of antioxidants to take advantage of too. Our meat is jam-packed with carotenoids such as beta-carotene which are sourced from the pigments in the greens that the animals eat.
Rearing our animals in this way may take a little longer but our approach is ethical and sustainable, and that’s important to us. We ensure our animals lead a happy life and that our meat is of the highest quality. Rotating the animals through different pastures means we’re able to preserve native biodiversity, improve soil fertility and eliminate the waste-management issues associated with confined cattle sheds.