A Narragansett Turkey

In the video below, see how beautiful and healthy a turkey should look. The bird is a Narragansett, one of the most popular varieties of domesticated turkeys in the early 20th century, but now labeled as threatened by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.

Thankfully, the Narragansett is making a comeback with small-scale farmers who are trying to meet the demand of a growing market for quality, non-industrial food.

The Broad Breasted White, by far the most popular commercial turkey variety (Thanksgiving and other times), isn’t this beautiful when alive or tasty when dead. In addition, the Broad Breasted White, because of the way it has been bred to have huge amounts of breast meat and shorter legs, cannot reproduce without human help.

Shouldn’t we be demanding heritage breeds, rather than varieties with no flavor that are full of hormones and antibiotics, and require in vitro fertilization to propagate?