Healthier Way Forward is the latest video release in the Real Pastured Poultry video marketing campaign from American Pastured Poultry Producers Association (APPPA). Healthier Way Forward showcases pasture raised poultry through farmer stories, stunning visuals, and human nutrition.

Healthier Way Forward presents results that show pasture raised chicken and eggs are more nutritionally dense than non-pasture raised. The nutritional values summarized throughout the video are the result of independent laboratory testing conducted on real-world pastured poultry products. That means the chickens were raised using pastured poultry best practices regarding movement, feed, and husbandry.

The nutritional results summarized in Healthier Way Forward were originally published in the APPPA Grit, the pastured poultry community’s journal of record since 1997. Peer reviewed research trials and independent farmer nutritional testing corroborate the findings published by APPPA.

The evidence is overwhelmingly clear. How we raise chickens and what we feed them matters to the health of the people who eat the chickens and eggs.

Healthier Way Forward features the stories of farmers from across the United States, including Matt Cadman of Shady Grove Ranch in Texas. In the video, Matt’s provides a dietary wake-up call. “I was on $700 of medication a month. My wife

and I said, this has got to be diet related." Matt and his family included pastured poultry in total pursuit of better health. "I’m the poster child for what a total lifestyle change can accomplish. I haven’t taken a pill in eight years,” he says.

When it comes to making a more nutrient dense chicken and egg, the movement matters. There are companies who try to market pasture raised eggs based on access to 108 square feet of space per hen from an immovable barn with chickens that may never go outside. That’s a historically inaccurate understanding of pasture-raised because it removes the critical foundation of movement to fresh forage. APPPA asserts that birds that only have access to the outdoors, the free range reality, are different from birds raised on pasture. The peer reviewed research provides support for this assertion. When independent laboratory testing or university research incorporates a movement-based pasture model, the nutritional differences are clearly noticeable. When the nutritional composition of free range birds are tested, the results are less predictable.

When you watch Healthier Way Forward, you see real pastured poultry farms incorporating moveable shelters that enable the farmer to provide a steady supply of fresh rooted in soil vegetation to the flock. The steady access to fresh forage is the foundation for the health of the chicken and the nutrient density of the eggs and meat produced from a pastured system.

You can’t identify real pastured poultry by certifications and labels. You identify real pastured poultry based on movement. The best way to find a pastured poultry farmer is to visit apppa.org/directory.

For more information, contact grit@apppa.org or (888) 662-7772 or download the media kit for Healthier Way Forward.