What A Turkey
By Bruce Lee Deuley - 11/26/03

When you sit down to enjoy your Turkey dinner this Thanksgiving day, it may be hard to realize that although domestic and wild Turkeys are genetically the same, that’s where the similarity ends.



"The wild turkey in a sprint can outrun a galloping horse," said Dave Baumann, Turkey Project supervisor for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources (DNR). "Although it is one of the largest game birds, weighing up to 25 pounds, it can fly distances of more than a mile, sometimes at speeds of 55 miles per hour."

However, the Broad Breasted White Turkey of Thanksgiving fame is very different from the wild Turkey of yesteryear. Theses birds are raised by the millions in “factory farms” usually with no windows and no access to the outdoors. However bright lights illuminate the barns 24 hours a day, keeping the turkeys awake and eating.

They are fed on a diet of processed food and antibiotics so that they are ready for the market in about 12 weeks, about half of the time a normal farm turkey would take to reach prime weight. The antibiotics are necessary because these birds have a weak immune system due to all of the inbreeding and lack of natural exercise used to produce a bird that is mostly breast, barely able to walk on its own and unable to breed.

This dependency on a single strain of genetically hybridized domestic bird could be a single unique pathogen away from being eliminated from the American dinner table. The future of the Broad Breasted White Turkey as we know it rests on only one genetic strain. The fewer genetic strains of a bird or animal that exist, the less likely the genes necessary to resist a lethal pathogen are present.

Even so, 45 million of these birds will end up on a Thanksgiving table this year. After slaughter, but before arriving in your grocer's meat case, these commercially raised birds are subjected to one more process. Due to their monotonous diet and lack of exercise, their flesh is so bland that they are injected with saline solution and vegetable oils; to improve "mouth feel" increase shelf-life and add weight.

Because the day of the “small family farm” is passing, the dozens of turkey varieties that used to exist including the Narragansett, Bourbon Red and my favorite the Royal Palm are on the brink of extinction. Markets no longer exist for them.

Fortunately, there are a few individuals working to ensure the continued existents of these great birds and their dark, rich tasty meat. Now called “heritage” Turkeys they are raised on farms where they can free range and do what turkeys were meant to do. Chase grasshoppers, catch insects, eat natural seeds and plants and breed before becoming some families tasty Thanksgiving dinner.

By the time you read this most of you will have had your Thanksgiving dinner but next year why not make a little extra effort to go out and find a real turkey to dress your table on this day of thanks.

Whole Foods, Sun Harvest and even HEB are now carrying some of these naturally raised birds. If the demand increases, the supply will increase-that’s the American way.

Happy Thanksgiving