When it comes to red meat, there are plenty of options to choose from for all your cooking and barbecuing needs. But what’s the difference between one meat and the other? It can be difficult to tell from site alone.
Most people are content to make their burgers with plain old hamburger, for example. But there are other animal meats that are delicious and even healthier than ground beef that you could be using instead. Buffalo and bison meat are two such choices.
While buffalo and bison may not seem like they’d have very different meats, they’re actually quite unique. In a lot of cases, buffalo and bison meats are used interchangeably, or at least they are in how their names are used, because people don’t realize they are not, in fact, the same thing.
The Buffalo
The buffalo is an animal that is native only to Africa and Asia, and that’s the place you’ll find them now. In a lot of instances, people talk about the American buffalo, but that’s a misnomer. The so-called ‘American buffalo’ is actually a bison. There are two subspecies of bison – you have your plains bison and your wood bison in North America. The buffalo and bison, as you can see, are different animals, and that’s why their meat should not be confused either.
The Bison
Like cattle, the bison only eat grass and are considered herbivores. Unlike when cattle are harvested for their meat, the use of any type of growth hormone being injected into the animal is against the law. As well, the bison tend to grow at a slower rate than their cattle counterparts and so they are not castrated like cattle usually are.
Nutritional Qualities
Bison meat is also a much healthier choice than buffalo meat or cattle. It’s contains less fat, and fewer calories, plus it has a richer, sweeter flavor than either of those other meats. In fact, bison meat is considered to be almost 91% fat free and has 40% more protein than meat from the bovine family. The buffalo is a part of the bovine family, which makes it much more similar to the cow than it is to the bison.
The buffalo, unlike the bison, is also used more for its dairy than it is for its meat. In most cases, buffalo meat isn’t used in restaurants, even if it may be listed on the menu as such. Most of the time its buffalo meat masquerading as bison meat, so it can be confusing to consumers wondering what they are putting in their bodies. But rest assured, in both cases, you’re getting a high-quality meat that’s delicious and an appropriate alternative to the beef you’ve likely been consuming regularly since childhood.