I’m currently reading the book Fast Food Nation by Erick Schlosser. The chapter regarding the practices of meatpacking companies like ConAgra and IBP are making me really sick. Not so much from the cruelty to animals / unsanitary meat angle (although that is gross too) but more from the perspective of how they treat their workers. The working environment seems really unsafe and their labor practices seem pretty shady.
Now I realize that I haven’t yet done much research on this and am currently basing my reaction on one source (and I’m open to suggestions about other sources of information on the subject) but I am beginning to feel like I don’t want to contribute to this industry. I realize that the effect of one person boycotting products from one of these mega companies is akin to the effect of removing an eyedropper full of water from the ocean. Nevertheless, it is a decision I am leaning towards.
The problem is, I still like meat and I don’t really want to stop eating it all together. I’m wondering where I could buy meat that is not processed at these mega corps? How can I find out where the meat I am purchasing is processed? I do know that I can go to specialty stores like Wild Oats to get free range chicken and beef but that tells me more about how the livestock was raised and not how it was processed. Also, I’d like to buy the most reasonably priced meat that I can without buying meat processed by the mega corps (I do realize that I will have to pay somewhat more, I just don’t wish to be gouged.)
Independent butcher shops should be a good alternative; they usually get whole (or nearly whole) animals, which receive minimal processing at the slaughterhouse.
Either that, or get your animals directly from a farmer you trust, and do the butchering yourself.
A know some people who went in with several other families to buy a cow from an organic farmer, have it butchered and split the meat. I think someone at our local grocery coop can arrange it.
I believe its pretty economical to do it this way, but you do have to have a deep freeze to make it work. 1/6 or even 1/8 of a cow is a LOT of meat.
First of all Great Book. Second, depending upon where you live you should be able to find butcher shops or farm markets that sell free range meats. Wild Oats and Whole Foods type stores do not always carry ORGANIC things. They may advertize that they do but you have to read the frine print to truly get what you want. I have kept a garden in my back yard with Mrs.Phlosphr for many years, it is pretty big and provides most of the veggies we need all summer. I would highly recommend farmers markets and organic food stores. It will be more expensive but to me health is worth the price… Again great book…
Phlosphr, I agree that it is a good book. Good advice, but I don’t want to get too far off on the organic / heatlh food tangent. I do try to buy produce from local farmer’s markets but the crux of this thread is my aversion from buying from a company that uses extremely unfair and dangerous labor practices. I’m thinking of the way the employees of meat packing industries are treated and how many injuries they sustain. The questions in this thread are more from this perspective than a health conscious perspective (not that being healthy isn’t also important to me, it’s just not the direction I was going in for this thread).
As far as the free range meat, how do I know how that is processed? Does free range also refer to the type of processing or just to how the livestock is raised?
Hello Again, good advice, but I don’t own a deep freeze at this time and I think I’d have a hard time finding enough people to go in on a whole cow.
3waygeek, I’ll check out the local butcher angle. I’m afraid I have neither the skill nor the desire to acquire the skill of butchering an animal myself. If it ever becomes a necessity (fall of civilization and all that) you can bet I’d learn toot sweet!
Although increasingly rare, there are still small grocery stores in rural areas wherein the grocer still cuts his own meat. Generally, these people have arrangements with smaller farmers or local ‘lockers’ for their supply of meat. In this way, the grocer knows exactly where his meat comes from (often, he will visit the farmer and choose his animals ‘on the hoof’) and how it is processed. In my experience (midwest, small-town) the locker, if the grocer doesn’t butcher the meat himself, delivers ‘sides’ (half an animal) and the grocer does the rest, right down to grinding his own hamburger.
At one time i lived in a very small town in central Iowa and purchased all my meat from the local grocer. If i asked for a couple of rib-eyes, he would plop a rib roast on the chopping block, ask me how thick i wanted it and cut & trim it while i watched. He also made the best breakfast sausage and jerky i’ve ever tasted.
I hope you can find something similar in your area.
p.s. If you’ve the stomach for it, pick up a copy of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Published at the turn of the century, this book had much to do with the passing of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.
Look in your phonebook yellow pages under meat processing. You are looking for a custom slaughterer. They can put you in touch with a grower or someone else looking to split an animal.
The problem with what you are looking for, you have already identified. You will probably have to purchase a whole, half or perhaps even a quarter of whatever critter you want.
The reason for this is that it is considered custom meat cutting, in a sense, you are purchasing your meat directly from the grower and bypassing federal inspection.
If you find a store that sells locally grown beef by the pound, they have had to go through a federally inspected kill floor as well as a federally inspected cutting shop to be sold to the public. It’s going to cost a lot more than you may want to pay.
Many custom meatcutters also rent lockers to keep your frozen meat in.
Here are a couple of places to order meat online. Both places are seemingly politically correct in many ways; however, I have no way to vouch for their labor practices. Perhaps some other dopers may know. I’m about to start ordering beef and pork from these places myself, and I confess I hadn’t thought of the labor practice angle – you have a good point, tevya .
tevya, you say that you get produce from the farmer’s market . . . several vendors at our local farmer’s market have meat and meat products as well, and are happy to discuss the way their livestock is raised and processed.
Even if the folks at your farmer’s market don’t sell meat (I imagine that there are varying laws about where you can sell meat and what products can be sold at farmer’s markets) they might be able to hook you up with the right people.
Thanks again for all of the ideas everyone! I have 2 places in mind that I’m going to try to check out this weekend. One is a small meat store / butcher shop kind of place that I’ve driven past before but never stopped at. The other is the larger farmer’s market in the downtown area which does indeed have meat shops ass Podkayne suggested.
I appreciate the links pugluvr but those prices are a little out of my range. If it came down to ordering from those sites or no meat at all, well, that would be a tough call.