Veal, Cast In A Kinder Light

[Pluff Mudder]

Veal, cast in a kinder light

The rosy meat from humanely raised male calves is reviving U.S. appetites

By Jane Black
Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Eating veal -- or not eating it, to be more accurate -- is one thing many carnivores and vegetarians can agree on. For most, the methods used to produce tender, milky-colored meat aren't a worthwhile trade-off. But what if eating veal were no less ethical than eating pork, chicken or lamb? What if, under the right circumstances, eating veal were actually more ethical than shunning it?

This is not that veal: the mostly flavorless meat from calves raised in crates so small they can't turn around. Humanely raised veal -- sometimes called pasture-raised, sometimes called rose veal because of its color -- comes from calves that drank their mother's milk and ate pasture grass. Its producers argue that if male calves, an otherwise useless byproduct of the dairy industry, are not ethically raised for meat, they are sold to less-humane veal producers or destroyed.

The kinder side of veal - washingtonpost.com

[Food Network Fan]

Once they eat the grass wouldn't that make the meat more pink/red?

[cyberdoc]

I have no problem cooking veal that is humanely raised

[ibcheft]

Once a steer always a steer. Veal if raised properly, I have no problem with it. Meat is Meat, just some better than others.

[Food Network Fan]

I never really understood why people feel that way just because it's a cow. Lambs are around the same age at slaughter as veal.

[Pluff Mudder]

It's the way the veal is raised, not it's age why most people will not eat veal. That's my reason. I saw a TV program on how bad the conditions are for the calves in the "factory farms" when I was a wee lass and decided I wasn't going to contribute to it. Taken away from their mothers at birth, stuck in a pen so small they can't turn around or lay down and kept in the dark to make them endemic so their meat is pale white. I would eat veal if it was some of the kinder raised.

[BerryBaby]

Me too. I use to enjoy it, but just can't anymore. I don't eat lamb, but for other reasons.

[Food Network Fan]

I don't care for lamb.

[cyberdoc]

I personally like lamb.

[Pluff Mudder]

It's been so long since I've had lamb I don't even remember what it taste like. I don't cook any because the DH doesn't like it.