Judging from the increasing number of companies that are offering bison meat for sale, it seems as though the public is really ready to branch out beyond beef, poultry and pork. Bison or buffalo meat is an 'alternative' red meat, similar enough to beef to satisfy most of us, but with several distinct advantages.

Why are people drawn to bison meat for sale? One reason might be that they are disillusioned with beef, for one reason or another. The beef industry is huge, and it has been the object of quite a bit of criticism, some of it justified. Certainly, all of us were disturbed to hear the reports of mad cow disease in Britain.

At the same time, the medical profession cautions us not to eat red meat (in other words, beef) too often, because of its considerable cholesterol content. The possibility of contracting e. coli from poorly cooked beef is another consideration.

At the same time, health conscious or not, there are some of us who would simply not dream of giving up beef altogether. But when a substitute is desired, bison meat is a great alternative to beef. In the first place, the taste is very comparable - and that's to be expected, if you consider the similarities between bison and cows. They are, after all, in the same family of animals.

The difference is that bison are far less domesticated - or at least, when they are domesticated, it's on a smaller scale. Companies offering bison meat for sale are not going out and shooting them in the wild, of course - bison are raised on farms, but they tend to be smaller farms. The industry is not huge, like the beef industry, so farming practices tend to be far more natural.

There's a great incentive for raising bison, of course - for one thing, they are bigger than cows, so more meat is produced from a single animal. The market for bison meat for sale is definitely growing, as more and more meat lovers come to appreciate what was, at one time, an unusual or exotic meat.

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