Sweet and tender, new-style lamb is in the shops. Give it a try and be knocked off your feet.

Lamb we are buying now is sold as spring lamb, but I am not fooled. It is winter lamb and much of what is in the shops has probably spent the past few months grazing on practically bare earth and drinking dirty water because of the drought. Difficult to see how these conditions could produce great-tasting meat.

However, I was given a sample of lamb from Tasmania. I grilled some double cutlets and stopped mid-bite in amazement. Most meat-eaters in Australia love lamb and have a pretty clear idea of what it is going to taste like, how it will cut and how tender it is likely to be. And this was tender, deliciously flavoured sweet meat that cut like butter. Intrigued, I contacted the farmer, Michael Doherty of Aurora Gourmet Produce in Cressy, to find out more.

I have visited beef feedlots and those for raising milk-fed veal. I am aware that these practices are controversial and hesitated to write about them, but I believe food-lovers need to have all the information before making up their minds. Doherty says Aurora lamb is raised entirely on grain after weaning at four months. Successful grain-fed-only lamb is new to Australia. He says a great deal of science has gone into calculating the exact mix of grain that delivers optimum health and condition.

I was not alone in pronouncing the meat excellent. At a recent trade show in Chicago, some US chefs claimed this was the best lamb in the world.

I asked the tricky question: isn't it true that vast tracts of land are covered in broadacre crops simply to feed these animals, putting the environment under stress and often grown using lots of nasty things? Doherty says irrigated pasture in Tasmania would run about six sheep an acre. The same acre would produce four tonnes of grain. And four tonnes of grain sustains 33 sheep raised in the feedlot. The feedlot sheep have 1 per cent mortality compared with 5 to 10 per cent mortality in conventional farming, says Doherty.

And yes, they are penned. The pens are open to the air and they have fresh running water. Doherty says each animal has about 1.6 square metres and that the feedlot floor is covered with a thick layer of hay. Apparently, there are hills the lambs like to climb and there are even beach balls. In Europe and other cold-climate countries, it is considered perfectly normal to herd animals into pens for weather protection. Like one of my heroes, British chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, I believe that an animal deserves to be treated with kindness, fed and sheltered well, and slaughtered without stress. You can always ask the producer if an animal or a fish has been raised humanely and in a way that permits it to develop to its optimum condition.

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