Sustainability Profile: Turkey
Did your turkey come from a responsible farm?
Eating meat all day every day is definitely not sustainable, BUT everyone's favorite Thanksgiving bird can be part of a sustainable holiday table. In this post, I'll tell you how to make your turkey as sustainable as it can be.
Pick a sustainable turkey
The way I see it, there are two ways to buy a sustainable turkey: buy organic or buy local.
"Organic" just means the turkeys have not been fed antibiotics or steroids. Feeding animals preventative antibiotics is not sustainable because it can lead to antibiotic resistance (aka, scientific chaos), which we most def want to avoid at all costs.
Because organic birds haven't been fed antibiotics, they aren't contributing to antibiotic resistance. This is a huge win. However, this issue is a little complicated because antibiotics can be sustainable if farmers only use them when their animals are sick.
The problems with antibiotics arise when farmers use antibiotics to promote growth in their animals rather than just using them to treat sick animals. This leads to the overuse of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance.
If you know that the farmer uses antibiotics responsibly, it might not be necessary for you to buy an organic bird. This is where the local bird comes in to play. If you know the farmer, you can make sure they use antibiotics responsibly and can ask exactly how they treat their turkeys and how much space the turkeys have to roam.
As a bonus, buying a turkey that was born and raised nearby means that the turkey hasn't released massive amounts of GHGs during transportation.
Bottom line: Opt for local, organic or both.
Use the whole turkey
Another way to be a sustainable turkey eater is to use the whole bird. The bones and giblets (neck, heart, liver, gizzards, and sometimes the kidneys, wing tips, feet, and head) can all be used in cooking.
The bones, neck, feet, and head can all be used to make turkey stock. This stuff is super scrummy and super nutritious, so drink it up or use it to make soup.
As far as the rest of the giblets go, you can add them to your gravy or get a little more creative. I'm not a big meat eater, so I'll leave the explaining to the folks over at The Kitchn and Food52.