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MyspacePerhaps the last you heard about American buffalo is that they were nearly hunted to extinction a couple centuries ago, which might make you feel a bit guilty about chomping down on a bison burger. Well, they’re back, with nearly 500,000 bison roaming American soil once again, and most are being raised for human consumption. So eat that burger, and feel good about it too, because bison — which is only a distant relative of the “true” buffalo species from Asia and Africa — is also lower in fat and cholesterol than beef. And now, thanks to artist and landscape designer Lori Ann David (who you might know from her mosaics at the new airport terminal or the Chumash one on West Cabrillo Boulevard), there’s an option for buying bison from California’s Central Coast.
“I invested in bison years ago with friends who were producing in Wyoming,” said the natural food-loving artist, who grew up in New Jersey learning such lost arts as shoemaking, sewing, and leather tanning from her Sicilian-American family and has previously raised grass-fed cattle, sheep, goats, and chickens as well as fruit trees, herbs, vegetables, and grains. “I always had it in the back of my mind to get involved in a bigger way, perhaps when my kids went to college, but in my heart I knew that I would go back to my roots in agriculture with some type of large-scale ranching and farming operation. So that time is now!”
David’s Aurora Farms is now selling all types of bison cuts, from osso bucco and tenderloins to tri-tips and burger-ready ground meat, and she explained that bison is an excellent alternative to beef. “There is no better nutritionally dense food, or one that is superior in content,” explained David, noting that the meat is high in protein, iron, vitamin B-12, and omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids while remaining low in fat, calories, and cholesterol. “We need meat — good, primal, first-source natural meat, no hormones, antibiotics or anything added — to run this thing we call a human body at optimum performance for optimum health.”
To take part in the bison meat revolution, you can pick up Aurora Farms’ grass-fed, organic buffalo through Harbor Meat and Seafood at 215 Helena Avenue, Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Or, if you’d like to meet Lori Ann David, she is on hand at Harbor the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month. For more info, see aurorafarms.org or call 805-569-5009.
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Comments
Wow, this is great! Admittedly I'm not a big meat eater. I eat fish about once a month. Three times a year I might have something like venison or bison, I try to avoid pork and beef. I will be going down soon to get some bison from this fine establishment, if for nothing else to support their noble venture!
I urge anybody reading this comment, if you eat meat go and pickup some bison and try to start including it in your diet as a substitute for beef as much as possible. It is much healthier and better for the environment.
loonpt (anonymous profile)
April 30, 2012 at 10:29 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Ok, now I have to include my political "agenda" in this story because it is such a great example of how private property and the free market can help to ensure that rare animals can survive.
Elephants have neared extinction in Africa due to the high demand for their tusks, or ivory. If elephants were 'farmed' in Africa, and their tusks could be sold as a commodity after their meat is sold to the market. This would solve a couple of problems. It would allow elephant farmers who can't get very much money for the meat from the elephants to sell that meat to the inhabitants of Africa who are relatively poor. Now more poor people will be fed and less will starve. They would be able to do this because the tusks could be exported and could then subsidize the low prices they have to sell their elephant meat for. Suddenly, buying that ivory piano is equivalent to helping feed people in Africa rather than killing an endangered species!
This would lead to an explosion of the elephant population in Africa, just as we've seen the bison population increase in this country as people have been allowed to own and graze bison.
The point is, when the government says they are "protecting" a species by not allowing people to own and sell that species, they are in fact doing the opposite. If there is a demand for the animal, then humans will propagate the species as much as possible and ensure that the population doesn't disappear.
loonpt (anonymous profile)
April 30, 2012 at 10:42 a.m. (Suggest removal)
This is great! California is so caught up in it's food and how things aren't organic or whatever trend people follow these days but bison meat is really good!
In regards to the elephant and starving in Africa, even if there were farms of elephants and have their meat sold to Africans to feed them...that won't work. When your family is literally starving to death, you're not going to shell out money for meat when you can kill an elephant, take it's tusk and feed your family for a year. The problem is Americans don't know what it's like to be starving to death and that's a normal way of life in other countries. On a side note, even though your post didn't mention it, animals aren't equal to humans, they're here to feed us and service people. Plain and simple. I don't care if you think your dog has feelings, when it comes down to it, it took thousands of years to breed those qualities in your dog so they could service man and not kill man.
Muggy (anonymous profile)
May 4, 2012 at 1:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)