Lavale, MD - Shoppers accustomed to thinking of white meat as poultry and “the other white meat” as pork have a new choice in some western Maryland grocery stores: “the all-white meat.”
It's rabbit, marketed by a Garrett County cooperative since November as part of a federally funded program to promote rabbit and goat meat production in the region.
There is a ready market for rabbit, according to Bernard Dixon of Country Pride Meats, a Friendsville slaughterhouse that processes 300 rabbits, or more than 1,500 pounds of meat, weekly.
Project organizers said Super Valu Inc. buys and distributes the USDA-inspected meat to its County Market, Foodland and Shop 'n Save stores in Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Several shoppers who sampled braised rabbit with barbecue sauce Friday at a County Market in LaVale were pleased with the product.
“I know it's good,” said Cumberland resident Wanda Overbaugh. “I grew up on fresh rabbit.”
William Petit, a Furnace Acres, W.Va., resident with heart problems, said rabbit suits his diet because it is lower in fat than conventional meats and poultry.
“A good steak is delicious, but it has all that fat attached to it,” he said.
A 3-ounce serving of untrimmed rabbit meat has 5 grams of fat, compared with 6.8 grams for turkey and 12.8 grams for chicken, according to Jennifer Thorn, a registered dietitian with the Garrett County Cooperative Extension Service.
Cut-up rabbit, at $4.69 a pound, is closer in price to steak than chicken. That didn't deter James and Helen Rice of Artemas, Pa., who bought several packages.
“We just like the taste,” she said.
Others had no appetite for rabbit.
“It was good until I found out what it was,” said Sheila Butler, shopping with her 4-year-old daughter, Kiersten, and Kiersten's grandpa, Dick Richardson.
Thorn said she was working to get rabbit into more stores. The county extension service received about $100,000 last year from the U.S. Agriculture Department to foster a rabbit and goat meat industry in Garrett County, she said.
The animals are raised by members of the Mountain Pride Cooperative Inc., an organization in Mountain Lake Park with about 65 members in five states.
Ms. Thorn said the cooperative was aiming for $30,000 in rabbit sales this year and beginning to market goat meat as well.
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