Feeding of Livestock in Poland

Hi,
I'll be making my first trip to Poland this coming July. I have not eaten any beef, pork or poultry in nearly 15 years (I eat fish, though), but intend to break that "meat fast" when I am in my ancestral homeland. I cannot imagine being there and not enjoying the fabulous food.
I must retrain my system to digest meat and intend to do this before I fly from Newark to Krakow. I have heard that this can be distressful, because my digestive system may lack most or all of the flora it usually has available to aid in digesting meat. This is why I want to get this out of the way before making my trip.
I am wondering about the quality of the pork in Poland. What are most of your livestock animals fed? Are they pretty much free-range, or are they kept in pens, like most American livestock, where they are forced to eat an unnatural diet of mostly corn? Does this vary by region? I will be exclusively in the southeast - from due south of Gorlice to south of Jaslo. What quality of meat should I expect there?
I have been told that Polish meats and produce are much more organic than most that are made available in America - would most of you agree or disagree with that?
Please help a near-vegetarian to enjoy all the wonderful foods of Poland when I arrive this summer.
Many thanks to all who contribute to this topic.
Rakky

Seriously, you'll be fine.

Polish food is great... I was a vegetarian for 8 years and never ate meat for most of that time (except on a few occasions when I was in China and in Russia on business, and didn't want to offent my hosts), however lots of recent trips to Poland are making me rethink what I eat, and I am back to eating meat.

I had the most devine piece of veal last time I was in Lublin... served with wild musrooms...

a vegetarian here :)
(but not tempted by meat like previous posters)

Rakky, it will depend on whether you will be served home-made meat (then probably livestock fed in a more natural way) or some meat bought at shops (then probably animals fed like on all mass production farms, unless it's from "organic" production, but then it costs 4-5 times more than the "normal" meat in shops and is usually available in bigger towns with lots of rich people who can afford to pay extra for the quality)

There are two kinds of porkers in Poland: the ones kept on big farms for mass production and the ones kept by individual farmers, or rather peasants, in small sties next to the house. The latter ones are tastier, I suppose, but fewer in the market.

As for pigs which can roam freely in Poland, there are none, I am afraid. You are mistaking pigs with hens and Poland with Vietnam or Angola.





The farms in southeast Poland are small, not industrial type production. Meat should be tastier there.

But, to tell the truth, you can buy meat safely everywhere in Poland provided it is sold in the butcher`s or a store. They sell meat which has been certified by vets.

If you buy meat from a private person, you might run into health problems. It is called "meat of unknown origin" in Poland.




First let`s explain what organic means.

OK, let's consider this the worst-case scenario of what might be put in front of me. I can't imagine the means of mass production in Poland to be as horrific as they are here in the USA. I'm just hoping someone there can give me a fairly accurate idea of how its done there. Are they kept indoors, in huge facilities with giant swamps of offal all around them? What are they fed? That kind of thing.
By I mean "less industrial than US methods."

Yeah, I can buy meat here that is USDA-certified, but I wouldn't eat it.

What is deemed to be of good enough quality by the powers that be is not necessarily what you would want to eat. My butcher (I hasten to add I don't travel to Poland to buy meat) is of far superior quality to the perfectly legitimate supermarket-quality meat that I occasionally stoop to buying.

It probably depends on how much demand there is for quality meat (as opposed to stuff filled with growth-hormones and water).

be very careful when going back to meat. it will be very hard on your intestines. also meats are different in PL then in the US.. PL meat doesn't have all the hormones and all that other crap.

good luck and have fun. :)

Polish meat is awesome, and although there are of course big animal farms where everything is computerised and the animals are fed with artficial feeds, there are also plenty of little private sorta farms (my parents own one) and the animals get proper food apart from the feeds, such as fruit and vegetables, and they are let outside to feed on the grass in the summer. It is such a difference between a piece of pork or a chicken bought in the supermarket and the meat you get from a local farmer. Smoked pork and sausage, and home made chicken soup... Its heaven... My Scottish man loved the Polish kitchen! The meat was absolutely delicious.

Would missus care for a bit of pork, a sausage perhaps? lol. Joking aside, the standard of meat here is great, especially wędliny. I try not to eat too much myself but I treat myself now and again

Thanks everyone for your input on this subject. I'll dash off a note to the couple who will be our guides for our trip and ask about the source for any meats we'll be served. I doubt they'll be able to answer for all of it, but it's worth asking. I'll hope for the locally farmed type.
I'm glad to see you're still working on the photography, JustysiaS! Nice work!
plk123 - thanks for the note of caution. I intend to be VERY careful. I should be able to find high-quality meats here to use for the break-in period, and I'll eat very little of it to start.

It seems to me the whole world is involved in mass production. I live a sustained organic life on my organic farm without the drug induced or chemically sprayed foods. And yes it tastes wonderful. I did however purchses some pork ribs from denmark the other day. It doesn't seem to make sense that ribs from denmark are cheaper than those from USA. ....Justy Your guy is lucky !

I'm reading a great book called "The Omnivore's Dilemma" that goes into great detail about what's behind this - the need to consume all of the corn that's being produced. There's just so much of it, at so cheap a price, that novel ways are being created daily to market more of it around the world. That's why so much livestock is now eating a corn-based diet instead of the foods they evolved to eat. A cow can only eat this crap for so long before it kills them - which is why they're shot full of anti-biotics and other drugs right up until the day they're slaughtered. The life span of a cow raised for its beef is now only 14-16 months - that's all it takes to get them to the desired weight with that diet and their non-existent exercise regiment.

Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver is also a good book