A Kentucky man with a meat allergy was craving a burger. So he got into ostrich farming

When a friend approached Brent Williams four years ago with a business proposition to start an ostrich farm, he was more than intrigued — he had a personal motivation as someone who developed a life-threatening allergy to red meat, triggered by tick bites.

The problem, known as alpha-gal syndrome, was first linked to a particular species of ticks about 15 years ago. But cases are on the rise as more people report symptoms such as hives, diarrhea and itchiness after eating as little as a mouthful of red meat. The allergy doesn’t extend to seafood or poultry. Chicken, turkey and eggs are all OK to eat.

And so is ostrich meat.

The flightless bird’s meat, red in color and high in iron, has a look and taste similar to beef.

“The people that have alpha-gal that I talked to that have tried an ostrich burger, most of them are almost in tears,” said Williams, a nutritionist and partner at Alpha Roost Farms in Danville, Kentucky. They say, “You just don’t know how bad I missed this.”

The farm is looking to nearly double its herd by next year. It recently built a new barn for hatchlings of the birds, which are native to Africa and are the world’s largest, standing at nine feet tall (2.7 meters) and weighing more than 300 pounds (136 kilograms). The farm has more than 400 birds, and expects that number to grow to 700 by next year.

Alpha Roost Farms owner W.D. King, who approached Williams with the idea of raising ostriches, said the interest from those with alpha-gal is helping drive the demand.

“People who haven’t had a hamburger in six or seven years really want one,” King said.

And they are willing to pay: A pound of ground ostrich can cost more than $20, and choice cuts can sell for more than $40.

“We have people that drive here from all over the state to get the ostrich,” said Leah Gibbs, who runs Dry Branch Farm market in Danville, Kentucky, that sells ostrich cuts from Alpha Roost Farms.

“They are elated to have something that’s an alternative to beef,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it tastes exactly like beef.”

The Alpha-Gal Association, a nonprofit advocacy group that provides online resources to people with the allergy, recommends ostrich as a dietary substitute that tastes like beef.

Boyd Clark, who runs a large ostrich farm in Texas, said he expects to increase his herd of about 1,200 birds by 50% next year. Clark has raised the big birds since the 1980s, and said the few full-scale ostrich farms around the country are trying to meet a growing demand.

“We get calls weekly from various restaurants or even small stores in different parts of the country that you wouldn’t think would even want to carry ostrich, but they’re looking for it because they’ve got customers wanting it,” said Clark, who runs Clark Ostrich Farm, about 90 miles (144 kilometers) northwest of Austin.

The latest interest comes after ostrich farming saw a surge and crash in the 1990s, when many farms and investors were eager to get into the ostrich market but lacked experience dealing with the wild birds.

“The U.S. producers that jumped both feet in in the ’90s, they were all operating under the premise that these were 300-pound chickens,” said Michael Lehman, vice president of the American Ostrich Association and an ostrich farmer in Oregon.

The farms tried to apply the high-density approach that works well with chickens, but ostriches need free range space, Lehman said. The farms weren’t able to get the yields they expected, so supply wasn’t able to meet demand, he said, and the industry crashed under skyrocketing prices.

Lehman estimated there are only about 10 to 15 farms operating today that have large ostrich herds, and those producers have a better understanding of the animals’ behavior and free range needs.

Williams was diagnosed with alpha-gal seven years ago. His first allergic reaction came in 2017 after eating a steak sandwich while traveling for work, something he had done hundreds of times before.

He went to see an allergist for help in diagnosing the puzzling and painful flare-up.

“The very first visit, he asked me, ‘Have you been bitten by a tick?’ I just laughed and said, ‘Sure, hundreds,’” said Williams, who has spent most of his life raising livestock on farms where ticks thrive.

The tick that bit him was carrying the alpha-gal sugar, which is found in the meat of most mammals, but not in humans. The sugar is harmless when eaten directly, but not when exposed via ticks’ saliva. When it entered Williams’ bloodstream, it caused an immune system reaction. The antibodies created from the reaction learned to identify and attack alpha-gal sugar molecules, making meat from mammals toxic to his system.

Alpha-gal syndrome is relatively new to medical study after a research paper linked it to tick bites in 2011. In 2023, a government report said there were about 100,000 people in the U.S. with the allergy, though experts said many people don’t know they have it and the number of sufferers could be closer to a half-million. Last year, researchers said they documented the first known case of a death related to alpha-gal , after a 47-year-old New Jersey man died in 2024.

Once Williams got his diagnosis, all meat from mammals, even the fumes of it from a grill or gelatin on a pill, were off-limits.

“It’s been eight years, but I still vividly remember how sick I was,” Williams said.

So when he tried ostrich meat for the first time, he said it was the closest thing he had to beef in years. His wife bought some online and he cooked an ostrich steak.

“The mouth feel, the taste, the texture, it brought me good memories … because there’s only so many ways you can cook a chicken,” Williams said.

四年前，当一位朋友向布伦特·威廉姆斯提出开办鸵鸟养殖场的商业建议时，他非常感兴趣——他本人也有着切身体会，因为他被蜱虫叮咬后对红肉产生了危及生命的过敏反应。

这种被称为α-半乳糖综合征的问题，大约15年前首次被发现与一种特定的蜱虫有关。但随着越来越多的人报告称，即使只吃了一小口红肉，也会出现荨麻疹、腹泻和瘙痒等症状，病例正在不断增加。这种过敏反应不涉及海鲜或家禽。鸡肉、火鸡肉和鸡蛋都可以放心食用。

鸵鸟肉也是如此。

这种不会飞的鸟的肉呈红色，含铁量高，外观和味道都与牛肉相似。

“我跟一些患有α-半乳糖不耐受症的人聊过，他们尝过鸵鸟肉汉堡后，大多数都感动得热泪盈眶，”威廉姆斯说道。她是肯塔基州丹维尔市Alpha Roost Farms农场的营养师兼合伙人。“他们说，‘你根本不知道我有多想念这种味道。’”

该农场计划明年将其鸡群数量增加近一倍。农场最近新建了一个鸡舍，专门用来饲养这种原产于非洲、体型巨大的鸟类幼鸟。这种鸟类身高可达2.7米（9英尺），体重超过136公斤（300磅）。目前，该农场饲养着400多只鸡，预计明年数量将增至700只。

Alpha Roost Farms 的老板 WD King 曾向 Williams 提出饲养鸵鸟的想法，他说，那些患有 alpha-gal 的人的兴趣正在推动需求。

“那些六七年没吃过汉堡的人真的很想吃一个，”金说。

而且他们也愿意为此买单：一磅鸵鸟肉碎的价格可能超过 20 美元，而上等部位的价格可能超过 40 美元。

“我们这里有很多来自全州各地的人开车来买鸵鸟肉，”肯塔基州丹维尔市的Dry Branch Farm市场老板Leah Gibbs说道，她出售来自Alpha Roost Farms的鸵鸟肉。

吉布斯说：“他们很高兴能有牛肉的替代品。我的意思是，它的味道和牛肉一模一样。”

为对α-半乳糖过敏的人提供在线资源的非营利倡导组织 Alpha-Gal 协会推荐鸵鸟肉作为牛肉口味的膳食替代品。

博伊德·克拉克在德克萨斯州经营着一家大型鸵鸟养殖场。他表示，预计明年他的鸵鸟数量将比目前约1200只增加50%。克拉克自上世纪80年代就开始养殖这种大型鸟类，他说，全国为数不多的几家大型鸵鸟养殖场都在努力满足日益增长的市场需求。

“我们每周都会接到来自全国各地各种餐馆甚至小商店的电话，你可能想不到他们会想卖鸵鸟肉，但他们都在寻找鸵鸟肉，因为他们的顾客想要这种肉，”克拉克说道。他经营着克拉克鸵鸟农场，位于奥斯汀西北约 90 英里（144 公里）处。

鸵鸟养殖业在 20 世纪 90 年代经历了一波热潮和一波崩溃之后，人们再次燃起了对鸵鸟养殖的兴趣。当时，许多农场和投资者都渴望进入鸵鸟市场，但却缺乏处理野生鸟类的经验。

“上世纪 90 年代，美国那些全力投入鸵鸟养殖的生产商，都以为这些鸵鸟是 300 磅重的鸡，”美国鸵鸟协会副主席、俄勒冈州鸵鸟养殖户迈克尔·莱曼说道。

莱曼说，农场试图采用对鸡群有效的高密度养殖方式，但鸵鸟需要自由放养的空间。他说，农场未能达到预期产量，导致供应无法满足需求，最终在价格飙升的冲击下，整个行业崩溃了。

莱曼估计，目前只有大约 10 到 15 个农场饲养着大量的鸵鸟，这些农场主对鸵鸟的行为和自由放养的需求有更深入的了解。

威廉姆斯七年前被诊断出患有α-半乳糖不耐受症。他的第一次过敏反应发生在2017年，当时他在出差途中吃了一个牛排三明治，而此前他已经吃过数百次这样的三明治了。

他去看了一位过敏专科医生，希望他能帮助诊断这种令人费解又痛苦的过敏反应。

“他第一次来的时候就问我，‘你被蜱虫咬过吗？’我笑着说，‘当然，被咬过几百次了，’”威廉姆斯说道，他一生的大部分时间都在蜱虫滋生的农场里养牲畜。

叮咬他的蜱虫携带了α-半乳糖，这种糖存在于大多数哺乳动物的肉中，但人类体内并不存在。直接食用这种糖无害，但通过蜱虫的唾液接触到它则不然。当它进入威廉姆斯的血液后，引发了免疫系统的反应。这种反应产生的抗体学会了识别并攻击α-半乳糖分子，使得哺乳动物的肉对他的身体产生了毒性。

α-半乳糖综合征是一种相对较新的疾病，2011年的一篇研究论文将其与蜱虫叮咬联系起来。2023年的一份政府报告称，美国约有10万人患有这种过敏症，但专家表示，许多人并不知道自己患有此病，实际患者人数可能接近50万。去年，研究人员表示，他们记录了首例已知的与α-半乳糖综合征相关的死亡病例，一名47岁的新泽西州男子于2024年去世。

威廉姆斯确诊后，所有哺乳动物的肉，甚至烤肉产生的烟雾或药片上的明胶，都被他禁止食用。

“虽然已经过去八年了，但我仍然清楚地记得当时我病得有多重，”威廉姆斯说。

所以当他第一次尝试鸵鸟肉时，他说这是他多年来吃过的最接近牛肉的食物。他妻子在网上买了一些鸵鸟肉，然后他做了一块鸵鸟牛排。

“口感、味道、质地，都让我想起了美好的回忆……因为鸡肉的烹饪方法就那么几种，”威廉姆斯说。