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From our family to yours...
We are a 100%-owned family farm, so you can rest assured that everything that bears our name is produced on our farm with the greatest attention to every detail.
You see, we truly care about the health of our family, and we care about yours too.
Our mission is to provide families with truly healthy meat.
Farm Blog
Posted by: Trevor
March 22, 2025
All grocery-store meat is from animals which have been transported in trucks along highways to industrial slaughter facilities. None of them were slaughtered on the farms they came from. This even includes all grocery-store meat labeled as certified organic or humane. The transport experience is stressful for the animals, resulting in severely elevated and sustained adrenaline and cortisol levels.
All Grocery-Store Meat is From Animals Which Have Been Subject to High Stress
Adrenaline and cortisol are the "fight or flight" stress hormones which help creatures survive in the wild. They are the hormones that cause the heart to race, the pupils to dilate, the skin to flush, and the breathing to become shallow and rapid.
When the animals are transported, they don't understand everything that is happening to them. But they do know something is wrong. They smell the odors, hear the noises, and see the confusing machines and unfamiliar people. They know they are no longer at home. It is traumatic and scary for them.
When the animals' stress hormones are released, it causes muscle proteins to be broken down into amino acids, which are then converted into glucose in the liver. The glucose is then released into the bloodstream, where it then enters into cells throughout the body. The cells use it to produce ATP as fuel. In other words, the stress hormones cause muscle-wasting in order to create emergency fuel for the body, so the animal can handle the stress-event it is going through.
As the muscle tissues break down, the structural characteristics of the meat change. The muscle texture deteriorates, the water-holding capacity decreases, and the meat quality suffers (Huff-Lonergan and Lonergan. Mechanisms of water-holding capacity of meat. Meat Science. Sept 2005).
The elevated stress hormones also cause the muscle tissues to be depleted of glycogen. This negatively affects meat quality, because it is the glycogen in the muscle which converts into lactic acid, lowering the pH of the meat. Without glycogen, there is a deficit of lactic acid, so the pH of the meat is elevated.
It is essential for meat quality that the pH be lowered (Knox, van Laack, and Davidson. Relationships between ultimate pH and microbial, chemical, and physical characteristics... Journal of Food Science. April 2008). A lower pH optimizes and balances enzymatic activity, so the meat becomes tender, and the texture is enhanced. The water-holding capacity of the meat also increases, making the meat juicier. A lower pH is also beneficial because it inhibits harmful microbes, reducing the possibility of spoilage.
The nutritional aspects of the meat are also affected. Stressed animals produce meat which has reduced digestibility, and reduced protein bioavailability. When you consume it, you can’t digest it properly. Stressed meat can also have reduced levels of water-soluble nutrients (reduced levels of B vitamins and minerals) due to unnecessary water-loss, as well as fat which has higher levels of harmful oxidation. When you consume meat from a stressed animal, your body will not be able to process and absorb it optimally.
A study (Spengler Neff, Probst, and Knosel. Hoftotung oder Totung im Schlachthof: Unterschiede bei stressanzeigenden Parametern. Agriculture Research Switzerland. 2023) was carried out in Austria, where cattle from a farm were split into two groups. The first group went to the slaughter-house, the second group remained on-farm where they were slaughtered. The group of cattle that were slaughtered at the slaughterhouse had cortisol levels which were twenty-times higher than the animals which were slaughtered on-farm.
This study was the first of its kind, to my knowledge, to measure stress levels in animals on a transport vs no-transport basis. It just proves what we already intuitively know --- animals suffer when they are transported to the slaughterhouse. They are scared and disoriented. As if this weren't bad enough, it also negatively affects meat quality and nutrient bioavailability.
You might be wondering "Why then do animals have to leave the farm at all? Can't they be slaughtered and processed on-farm?" The answer is yes, they can --- traditionally, that is often how it was done. But modern agriculture doesn't do it this way because it is cheaper to transport animals to centralized industrial slaughter plants, where they are slaughtered by the thousands (daily). It is not uncommon for the animals to be on trucks for many hours, sometimes a full day and night. The slaughter plants operate on extremely tight schedules, and enormous pressure is placed on the staff to process animals as rapidly as possible. It is a production line, where both the staff and the animals are under high stress. It is impossible for meat produced under these circumstances to be optimally beneficial for you.
And yet, all of this --- the millions of animals that are processed daily in Canada at industrial slaughter plants --- is done so that meat can be produced as cheaply as possible. And when people buy it from the grocery store, they don't know the conditions under which it was raised and processed. Remember, all meat that is sold in grocery-stores is from animals that have been transported long distances to industrial slaughter plants, even if the meat is labeled organic and humane.
But I have good news for you. Sumas Mountain Farms is the only farm in BC that has its own on-farm government inspected Class A processing facility, approved for all of our species. Our beef, chicken, pork and lamb is all processed on our farm, in a humane, low-stress and peaceful environment, in very small numbers, with a government inspector present at all times. Yes, we are certified organic and humane. That is important. But even more importantly, our animals never leave our farm. This is their forever home.
When you buy your meat from us, you are supporting what we do. You are supporting a system of agriculture which honors the animals and the land, in a way that is equitable, ethical, and sustainable. In return you are getting unique and beneficial products which support you holistically, helping you to optimize your health and be a good steward of the planet, alongside us. Thank you, on behalf of ourselves and the animals, for making it possible to do what we do.
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