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Let's talk about meat... (a bit long - sorry)
After watching Food, Inc., I find myself unable to buy "regular" meat at the grocery store. We do have some grocery stores with organic options, and then we have some I am not sure about. Wondering if you can help me out...
The first is The Fresh Market...anyone know where they stand in regard to humanely-raised beef and pork? They say their chicken is raised humanely in a low-stress environment, and they say their lamb graze in fertile pastures. They don't say much about the beef or pork, outside of calling it high-quality.
Also, Wegmans has chicken that is not considered organic but is called "Food You Feel Good About." There is a sign in the store than indicates this is free-range chicken, but the feed is not necessarily organic. It is quite a bit cheaper than organic chicken but not as cheap is regular chicken. Any thoughts on this?
I am sort of more willing to compromise on the organic status if I can feel secure that the meat was humanely raised. I can't get the picture of the crippled cow being prodded along out of my mind, and I can't support that kind of farming, but my budget doesn't allow me to pay huge amounts for my meat either. I feel like I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. And I can make some of our days meatless days, but I am not interested in giving up meat entirely.
TIA for any help or thoughts you can offer!
Re: Let's talk about meat... (a bit long - sorry)
ETA: Congrats on deciding to stop supporting factory farming, it's a great way to prevent animal cruelty and protect the environment. My hat is off to you.
Ditto PP, buy your meat from the Farmer's Market, if you're in PA you should have one nearby. Try www.localharvest.org and www.eatwild.org or just google "Farmer's Market in yourhometown"
Below is the long response I gave awhile back about how to eat organic/humanely raised meats on a budget. I hope this helps!
1- What do you always buy organic---everything, including canned and dry goods? Only produce and dairy? I buy organic dairy and organic produce if necessary from the grocery store, but the vast majority of our produce and all of our meat comes from the Farmer's Market. I would rather have local food that may have been sprayed (I know which farmers spray and which don't) than organic food from halfway around the world. That's just not sustainable.
2- What is your weekly/monthly grocery budgets? We are a family of 3 (and one on the way) We're lucky enough that the lowest price doesn't have to be our highest food shopping priority. Our highest priority is that the animals lived a real life and were slaughtered humanely, and the produce was raised by a real person and harvested just before we bought it. I've talked with the farmers at length and their meat is pasture-raised, no hormones or antibiotics. They're not certified organic as the certification is expensive and a lenghty process, and they sell directly to consumers like me who know how they treat their animals. Their tomatoes weren't harvested green by migrant labor then riped on a truck from California or even farther away.
Our food budget is my #1 priority, and we worked very hard to move several things around in our monthly budget to spend $560 a month ($140 a week) on food. A good portion of that is buying excess food that we can or freeze, so we can eat locally year-round. We live in a VHCOL area and I'm sure you could do it on less. We buy everything we can local, down to locally made liquour and pantry staples like pasta, and we're eating the best I ever have in my life.
You can buy responsibly priced food or irresponsibly priced food. If asparagus is $2 a pound at the grocery store in December, think of all the human rights, environmental protections, and dedication the grower must have broken in order to produce food that cheaply, and STILL make money after shipping it halfway around the world. It's even worse for meat because those animals can and do suffer.
3- Do you go to special markets/stores/farms? I really only have time to go to one or two grocery stores on the weekend. I go to the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning and buy what I think looks good. We have meat 1-2 times a week which helps keeps costs down. I then meal plan using those ingredients, and fill in the holes with a trip to the regular grocery store. I go to Whole Foods almost every Sunday for speciality things like faux sausage.
If you want more chicken for your buck buy a whole chicken and roast it. That's one dinner for us, then I pick the carcass clean and that makes several lunches worth of chicken casserole or chicken salad sandwiches, and the carcass gets made into chicken stock. It's like 6-7 meals for $15.
Beans and whole grains like quinoa are excellent sources of protein. So are eggs, we get free-range eggs from the Farmer's Market too. You can buy less meat but make more meals if you don't do the standard dinner of a large meat portion, starch, and veggie. Try stir-fries or meat on top of a salad. That stretches your meat meals further.
4- Are there organic products you consider "overkill"? Organic processed foods are a waste of money. Great, it's made with organic HFCS, how wonderful and costs 2x as much.
I personally do not buy meat at any supermarket, with the exception of organic chicken at WF or TJ's once in a great while. And that is only because I failed to plan accordingly last summer while local chickens were "in season". This year I will be getting a dozen chickens to freeze, and that will last us through the winter (here the last batch of chickens are processed in October and then not again until late June). I digress.
I recommend checking out eatwild.com for local farmers. Unless you know your farmer, you don't know how that animal was treated. This, is much more important to me than an organic certification. Our beef comes from the farm pictured in my siggy. Those animals have a lot of room, tons of grass and are not treated with antibiotics, hormones or fed GMO corn etc.
It is a financial sacrifice, there is practically no way around that. We have elimated a lot of wasteful spending to accomodate our diet/food choices.