Dear Member,
I got my Thanksgiving Day turkey in the mail this year. When my 8-year old son, Dylan helped me unpack it he asked, “Hey Dad, what’s a free-range turkey?” After I told him that real free-range means that they have the chance to run around outside eating grass and bugs, he looked genuinely excited. “I didn’t know turkeys ate grass!”
Wild turkeys forage on green leaves, grass, grass seeds, clover, berries and insects (grasshoppers, beetles and ants). Some of their other favorites include blackberry, buttercups and violets.
This native diet makes them one of the most nutritious birds for you to eat. A free-range turkey that has access to its native diet has nutrients like:
•Selenium: A proven cancer fighter
•Zinc: Found in almost every cell – essential for your immune system.
•Niacin: Balances cholesterol, raises HDL (good cholesterol) and lowers LDL (bad cholesterol).
•Beta-carotene: Powerful antioxidant; protects eyesight and lowers risk of cancer.
•Vitamin B6: Helps your body make proteins and new cells; lowers homocysteine
•Vitamin B12: Essential for healthy nerve cells, red blood cells and DNA production; lowers homocysteine.
The B vitamins found in free-range turkey help your body reduce homocysteine. If you’re a regular reader, you’ve heard me talk about how the build up of homocysteine causes inflammation of the lining of your blood vessels. This is one of the real contributors to heart attack and stroke risk.
But don’t expect to find the same level of benefits in a conventional turkey. In the same way that grain-fed beef lacks CoQ10 and farm-raised salmon lacks omega-3 fatty acids, many of the nutrients you’ll find in wild turkey are missing in their caged counterparts.
Free-range turkey is good but it’s better if you know the details of how the bird lived. Some farms slap a “free-range” label on the turkey, even if the bird never saw the light of day. A technicality in the law states that poultry must have “access” to the outdoors to get a “free-range” label. But that doesn’t mean they actual spent much time outside.
Vitamin E: Caged vs. Free Range
Free-range birds have extraordinary levels of vitamin E. Far more than what you’d find in a store-bought bird. Among its many benefits, vitamin E has shown the remarkable ability to help prevent heart disease, cancer and cataracts.
This gives you some idea of just how different the nutritional values stack up between commercial and free-range birds. And it’s not just vitamin E. The levels of heart-healthy omega-3s are much higher in free-range birds too.
There are other significant differences between caged and free-range birds. Overall, free-range turkeys have:
•21% less total fat
•30% less saturated fat
•28% fewer calories
•50% more vitamin A
•100% more omega-3 fats
For a quick and reliable way to get real free-range poultry, grass-fed beef and wild Alaskan salmon, I’ve put links in the resources section of my website.
https://alsearsmd.com/content/index.php?id=114
I use these same places to order for my own family.
Happy and Healthy Thanksgiving,
Al Sears, MD