NPR: Sheep ranchers, feedlot owners, and processors in states like Colorado, Nebraska and Illinois are banking on America becoming a more diverse place.
Specifically, they want American Muslims to buy more of their lamb.
Today, the average American eats roughly a half pound of lamb per year. That number
has been dropping for decades. Compare that with the more than 50 pounds of beef and almost 90 pounds of chicken each American eats every year. Megan Wortman, executive director of the American Lamb Board, the industry's producer-funded promotional arm, says lamb is saddled with perception problems.
"We've lost a couple generations that just do not have any experience with lamb, or they've had a really bad experience with lamb," Wortman says. "The grandmother who overcooked it, and it was tough and brown and dull and gamey. They put mint jelly all over it."
A report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Research Center puts it bluntly: "The majority of U.S. residents do not consume any lamb." For the most part, growing ethnic populations in the Northeast and on the West Coast have kept the American lamb industry afloat, the report notes.
» | Luke Runyon | Tuesday, May 12, 2015
My comment:
It is not surprising that lamb consumption in the US has declined. In my experience, when you buy 'lamb' in the US, you often end up with mutton. The meat is strong, chewy and often tough. Lamb, on the other hand, should be tender and succulent. Even in the article above, the words sheep and lamb are used almost interchangeably. They shouldn't be: The meat you get from sheep is mutton. Mutton is old and strong, and perhaps 'gamey' too. Lamb doesn't come from sheep; it comes from young lambs. There's a huge difference! – © Mark
