On Sun, 03 Apr 2016 13:15:56 -0500, "cshenk" > wrote:

wrote in rec.food.cooking:
>
>>
>> I believe US lamb is grain fed as opposed to grass grazing which
>> accounts for different flavour.
>
>I think you will find we import most of the lamb today, much to the
>dislike of our few lamb farms who wanted to keep the price artifically
>high (and were instumental in our not having a catagory for age of the
>'lamb' I suspect).
>
>Due to history and beef cattle winning the battle here, sheep became a
>high priced specialty. They were not all all amused when the USA
>changed to allow exported lamb to come in at 30% or so the price of USA
>grown. OZ folks were not amused either then their prices went up but
>overall, their trade balance did well bringing more money to the
>country from what I gather. Not sure if that maintained the same good
>thing, but it was good to get imported lamb here at last at a price
>that could be afforded.

That's fine, but it doesn't alter what I said about grain vs grass
fed.