The number one health concern with meat is making sure it’s cooked enough to kill dangerous bacteria, which is something both conventionally and organically produced meats have.

So says Dr. Dana Hanson, a meat specialist in North Carolina State University’s Food Science Department in a piece for WRAL (see below).

“The end result is a healthy food product in either scenario. To say that one is better or more healthy than the other is, quite frankly, a stretch.”

There are also debates about animal treatment, environmental concerns and how antibiotics may impact bacteria strains. But those debates are separate from the nutrition and safety of the meat we ultimately eat.

Those comments were markedly different than those from producers of specialty meats

Ritchie Roberts of Double R Cattle Services Farm near Hillsborough said,

“I know that my beef is all grass-fed and handled correctly and is super good and nutritious for you ’cause I know what goes into it. and I have control of that. It boils down to that sense of being able to support maybe a local industry and that’s really where the benefits of organic come in.”

Draft owner Dean Ogan says, “The most important thing for us is to know where it came from, know who produced it, know the process.”

All worthy objectives — that have nothing to do with safety.