stories:
The Ten
Your Meat Is Green
Tips for responsible carnivores
By Roxanne Webber
Love it, cook it well, eat it responsibly.
Get to Know Bison
Your questions answered.
Meat at Your Door
Bypass the supermarket and buy it direct.
How to Buy, Freeze,
and Prepare Meat
Smart tips from a butcher.
Your Meat Is Green
Ten ways to be a responsible carnivore.
Innard Workings
Chris Cosentino wants you to eat the nasty bits.
Beyond the Porterhouse
Ten underappreciated cuts of meat.
1. Learn to Cook. You’ll be able to efficiently use the meat you do buy, and avoid processed food and takeout. You can get a good start with The Silver Palate Cookbook, Cook with Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook, and The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook.
2. Buy Humanely Raised Meat. The recent investigation by the Humane Society of the United States showed the brutal conditions still in place at some factory slaughterhouses. A report published by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that raising animals on a pasture instead of a feedlot decreased soil erosion and water pollution, reduced the use of antibiotics, and improved animal health and welfare.
3. Purchase Meat with Less Packaging. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that for most of the developed world, “packaging constitutes as much as one-third” of nonindustrial solid waste. Meat packaging contributes Styrofoam trays, plastic wrap, and paper products. Choose to purchase from places—like a farmers’ market or a butcher—that wrap meat just in paper.
4. Use Your Leftovers. Save bones to make flavorful stock, keep necks and giblets for gravy, and set aside decent pieces of trim in the freezer to grind later. Use pork belly to make pancetta or fatback to render your own lard.
5. Buy Meat Direct. Farmers’ markets, CSAs, meat buying clubs, and whole animal sharing are responsible, humane alternatives to factory-farmed meat. By connecting local farmers directly to consumers, these forms of distribution lighten meat’s carbon footprint, eliminating extra transportation between farm and store and store and consumer.
6. Eat Less Meat. Scale back portion size and fill your plate with nonmeat options. Thomas Jefferson even embraced this approach, claiming he ate meat as a condiment for vegetables. And if a restaurant doesn’t make the source of its meat clear, go meatless.
7. Spend More. Pasture-raised, organic, and local meat will empty your wallet faster, but cheap meat costs a lot when you factor in its long-term effect on the environment and human health.
8. Support Your Local Butcher. Skilled butchers know their product. They can steer you toward what’s from your area, give you tips on cooking grass-fed beef, and perhaps even help butcher an animal if you get a whole-animal share going with some friends. You can’t ask a 10-pound family pack of ground beef anything at Wal-Mart.
9. If You’re Going to Grab Fast Food, Choose Wisely. Some chains are more responsible than others when it comes to sourcing their meat. Chipotle Mexican Grill only uses pork raised without hormones or antibiotics, and O’Naturals offers grass-fed roast beef and bison.
10. Buy Meat from Animals Raised on Organic Feed. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says that the synthetic fertilizer used to grow conventional feed for livestock produces more than 3 million tons of nitrogen emissions annually.
CHOW’s The Ten column appears every Tuesday.
Roxanne Webber is an associate editor at CHOW.
My question is about rule 7: Spend more. If meat uses fewer costly fertilizers and travels fewer miles, why SHOULD it cost more? Doesn't all that money just go back to Whole Foods?
I wish organic were priced more realistically. If it actually cost what it takes to grow, then more people would buy it and it would naturally be the preferred choice over non-organic. I know high costs incentivize farmers to grow more organic, but another way to incentivize more organic is to let consumer choice dictate demand -- if organic were priced at the same price as non-organic, more people would buy it. In turn, more organic foods will be grown as farmers try to meet that demand.
You're right, chubbybunny--the pricing at Whole Foods is artificially high. And at least at my local WF (western MA), the beef in the main meat case may be MORE humanely raised than the stuff at the grocery store, but it's almost all from Coleman, a big corporation that ships meat all over the country--no difference at all in the number of miles.
For me, "spend more" refers to spending $6 per pound on grass-fed ground beef purchased from a woman who raises the cattle 5 miles from my house. It's grass fed and nearly fat free (meaning that it's a fantastic value--I'm not paying for fat that renders out when I cook it--although it does pose a problem when I want some fat in my meat, but I digress). When I compare all the benefits--the freshness of the meat, my health, the relatively low environmental impact, supporting local agriculture that keeps my money in the local economy--with Whole Foods ground beef at $5 per pound, spending the extra money makes sense.
I encourage people to visit eatwild.com for information on pasture-raised meat, milk and eggs, as well as a directory of farms across the U.S. that sell these products.
With all respect, smittys--Whole Foods isn't artificially high, Wallmart has warped our sense of how much things should cost with artificially low prices. Add to that the fact that wages haven't kept pace with the cost of living since 1968 and it's no wonder we've become dependent on cheap factory farmed animal protein.
As to the fat in your ground meat, may I suggest cooking it in a bit of bacon fat. mmmmm.
The way I like to think about meat prices is this: instead of saying "regular" meat is the regular price and organic/free range is so much more expensive, think of organic/free range as the proper way of producing meat (ie. without additives and without cramming animals into ridiculously small spaces) and then think of what must go on for producers to be able to offer the ridiculously low prices of non-organic/factory farm meat.
Regarding rule #2: Buy Humanely Raised Meat. I agree wholeheartedly. However, meat eaters should also be aware that the USDA requires that all animal slaughter must take place in a USDA certified/regulated facility. That means that whether or not the animal was raised humanely (which is very important!) or commercially raised in a filthy feedlot or a cage not wide enough to turn around in, they all meet the same grisly, violent death by the same underpaid, immigrant laborers in the same slaughter facilities.
RI--I totally agree that when you compare WF & Wal-mart, it is Walmart's prices that are the more artificial and extreme. But I do think that WF does jack its prices up because they know their shoppers will spend more on foods that are oftentimes comparable to those in regular grocery stores--because if it's at WF, it must be better, healthier, more gourmet. Case in point: conventionally grown imported bell peppers at $7 per pound. I do think they use the same marketing angle on their meat. Because they are so huge, they get most of their meat from gigantic distributors. I suspect that the gigantic distributors don't incur the high costs that small farmers do when raising livestock.
What about kosher meat? Is that any more humane in the rendering?
Swampy Yankee... you are smoking... if Whole Food's prices aren't artificially high than why have they been able to go on such an acquisition & build out spree while remaining one of the lowest leveraged publicly traded grocers? Only one answer... they cater to suckers & have built up one fat cash cow.... pun intended.
I agree with # 8, support your local butcher, I do, and get the best meat around, it my cost more, but it can't be beat..
I disagree with # 6, eat less meat. No way.
Hey SW,
The great thing about #6 is that its kind of like cardiology's way of self regulating against too many indulgent, "people" who don't give a crap that it takes 600 calories of grains to produce 100 calories of beef.
To chubbybunny:
100%-pasture-raised beef is more expensive because it takes longer for the cow to reach slaughter weight on their natural diet (grass) than on the factory farm diet of corn/grains. Generally, a conventionally-raised cow will go to the slaughterhouse at around 12-14 months, whereas a pasture-raised cow could take 2-4 years to reach that point.
Conventionally-raised beef is less expensive because the factory farms are simply pumping out a lot more of it.
But yes, 100%-pasture-raised beef is definitely better in the long run. Grass-fed has an omega 6:3 fatty acid ratio comparable to fish (about 0.16:1, whereas feedlot cows can go up to 20:1 or more). Grass-fed cows are much healthier, so there's also no risk of Mad Cow disease and dramatically lower chances of Foot and Mouth or E. Coli infections.
Go veg! If you really care then you really care.
I am a little late to this party, but I want to add onto what WolfWood was saying...
Grass-Fed meat is also much, much higher in Conjugated Linoleic Acid. This is especially true for Grass-Fed, Grass-Finished animals.
They are also richer in antioxidants; including vitamins E, beta-carotene, and vitamin C.
"What about kosher meat? Is that any more humane in the rendering?"
Sorry, misplacedamerican, Kosher laws specify that it should be, but reality is that Kosher meat can be more cruel to the animals.
Check out the Weston A. Price Foundation and a cookbook called Nourishing Traditions: The cookbook that challenges politically correct nutrition and the diet dictocrats, by Sally Fallon with Mary G. Enig, Ph.D. Their message: Pasture-fed livestock, community-supported agriculture, nutrient-dense food, traditional fats, broth is beautiful, a campaign for real milk, non-toxic farming, soy alert, truth in labeling, prepared parenting, life-giving water, lacto-fermentation, and nurturing therapies. In addition, any recipe here can achieve these standards.
11. Raise your own.
This can be done on the smallest plots of land. I own 2.5 acres and run 12 sheep (give or take) which I take on average about 6 sheep per year to slaughter. I also raise rabbits (harvesting only about 8 a month), a number that could be raised in the smallest of backyards, and butcher them myself. Together this makes up the bulk of the meat my family consumes. We know exactly where it comes from, we know the care they receive and we know the manner of there demise. We control the process from birth to the table.
I didn't grow up in the country. I had to learn on these skills as an adult and it was only through conviction of what I thought was best for my family and for the animals I consumed that I got to this point. It has convinced me that anyone can do it at least to some degree if you really desire it.
It has provided a great education for the kids and made our meals so much better. We seem to have a waiting list of dinner guests these days. (I didn't mention the turkeys, chickens and ducks that round out our meat/eggs and the bees my wife keeps for local honey) We started all this because at the heart of things we are foodies and we couldn't get what we wanted any other way.
I realize it's not for everyone, but it works well for us.
carolinevalentine: not all USDA slaughterhouses are created equal. There are small USDA facilities that specialize in local organic meat processing and are humane certified. They process animals slowly and with great care. These slaughterhouses are rare today but are becoming more common as ethical meat gains in popularity. The ranch I am most familiar with that maintains these standards is Prather Ranch in Northern California:
http://www.pratherranch.com/chrh.php
#12 - Eat offal.
According to this statement:
"... the livestock sector is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally ..."
it sounds like greenhouse gas emissions are a problem.
Unfortunately, we are simply not intelligent enough to know what are all the causes of global warming (or the new terminology "climate change").
If the computer models are so great at predicting what is going to happen to the temperature of the planet, why can they not predict when it will snow, or tornadoes, or blizzards, or cyclones, or hurricanes, or even if it will rain tomorrow? Much less, what the temperature will be tomorrow or even the day after?
The reason is simple, if you just think about it. The people that interpret the computer models, are being paid by people who benefit from the conclusions! Heck, for that matter, so do the people who program the computer models and the people who input and collect the data!
Please question what people tell you... especially if they tell you that it is undeniable!
I am someone who believed all the hype over this global warming scare.... but one day I tried to see it from the other side... and I realized that what I thought were foregone conclusions, were simply something that I had heard repeated so many times that I just accepted them as the truth!
Needless to say, you can believe whatever you want! Just be careful you are not believing what someone else tells you to believe!!!
QE... Climate Change is undeniably whether its part of the planets natural Ice Age pattern and how much human activity contributes to it is another story. But global warming will continue... and if anything the models have woefully underestimated the rate change.
Perhaps the disbelievers are right... maybe the Earth is simply on course to change its tilt as seems to have happened every 50,000 years over the last 500,000 years... and there is nothing humanity can do about the impending catastrophe... but even we could agree that is a highly likely scenario.... should we not even try to make the changes that we can... in case it really is more human driven than the naysayers expect?
> 6. Eat Less Meat.
Less than what?
> 7. Spend More.
Hmm... Depends.
> 9. If You’re Going to Grab Fast Food, Choose Wisely.
> ... without hormones or antibiotics,
Where I live (Europe) all cattle has to be raised without hormones or antibiotics, legally.
Kosher is no more humane. The slaughterer slices the arteries in the neck and the animal bleeds to death.
well, while I understand the desire to try to be earth-friendly, the real answer is to eat no meat at all. there is really no need to consume it except for your own pleasure.
Does anyone know which animals produce the most or least methane?
Or you could just eliminate meat from your menu altogether. It totally bypasses the paying more for more humane meat. Plant foods cost less, both economically and environmentally. And if you want to wean yourself off meat, you can always indulge in the vegetarian faux meats for awhile. Even if you eat the fake meats, which are a little bit expensive, you'll be harming the environment and your body much less. Plus, no cholesterol in plant foods.
But by far the easiest solution is to simply stop eating meat.
Gawd... enough of the stupid, vegetarian holyier-than-thou diatrabe. The fact is that for the last 120,000 years our species has evolved as omnivores. We in the industrialized, white collar, fat ass, blogging & tv watching world clearly eat way too much meat, starches & sugars for our own health... that of the planet and of materially poorer societies around the world. But to suggest that we would be healthier by not eating meat is stupid & ignorant in the face of our history as a species.
However... for some individuals & cultures (Hindu etc.,) that may be the optimal solution... but not as a blanket statement for the world... and particularly here in the states where the vast majority of people descend from meat eaters.
"you can always indulge in the vegetarian faux meats" ... if ever there was an oxymoron
"Does anyone know which animals produce the most or least methane?" ... 'know'? No. However in raising various types I would speculate that per pound of meat produced rabbit would have the lowest methane production. They also have the highest food to meat conversion ratio of any domestic meat source. Add to that the exceptional meat quality, rabbit is a real winner.
By omitting animal products, the source of majority of pollutants, you generally eat healthier. Also its more environmentally friendly.
Eat_nopal,
I don't understand how my statements were in any way "holier than thou." I just stated a fact, that's been well documented and fairly obvious. If animal agriculture is the source of so much pollution and we can live perfectly healthy without them, then maybe we should. :)
This is a very good piece. Now please write one up for eating sustainable fish products.
http://www.eartheasy.com/eat_sustaina...
I've bought whole foods meats and wound evidence of worms inside, after slicing into a roast. eww. I have found that my local butcher IS cheaper for meat, organic and not organic, than Whole Foods.
Btw, Did you know that the US Beef Industry (99%) do NOT test for mad cow disease? Why do you think S. Korea is stopping US imports of Beef? duh.
To Eat_Nopal and Ganymeder: Stop fighting, and dont get so hot headed.
It is true that meat does cause many pollutants, and that eating greens is good for you. But you cannot omit meat completely, it gives a lot of nutrition too. You need a balance, being omnivorous is the best way too stay healthy, Veggies dont give everything that you need, and too much meat can cause obesity and gout.
Addition to my last statement:
People can live off just eating greens, and so can people who just eat meat. I myself am a bit of a carnivore.
And buying green meat? Yes its better but until the companies realize that and they might start paying me more, I stick to the not so healthy store meat. With fresh and green meat as a commodity. But i never buy like McDonalds crap.
switch to buffalo meat for burgers. i'm a convert. it's 1/2 the fat, tastes as good or better than beef when cooked to medium-rare.
trader joes has good buffalo burgers in the frozen section.
Kosher both in theory and practice, especially Glatt Kosher is by far more humane. The ritual slaughter isn't just some average joe who has no compassion for the animal-he has to cut the jugular in such a way that the animal experiences an instant death, as the instant the jugular is sliced the animal goes unconscious. I never heard of the animals slowly dying by bleading to death.
The most ideal of course is organic kosher meat, which can often be found at a local kosher butcher, Whole Foods, or Trader Joe's.
There is endless information about why commercial meats are cheaper than "organic" or small-farm raised meats. CAFOs are run to maximize profits. The corn feed is drastically cheaper than grass (or pasture); the animals are confined, so less space is needed; they are slaughtered at a much younger age, both because they reach market weight quicker (because of eating corn) and because they begin suffering health problems (ulcerated stomachs, usually) earlier, again due to their unnatural corn diet.
But you don't need to run out to Whole Foods in order to find non-CAFO processed beef. I live in Western New York (not a hotspot of economic activity and not a WF in sight), and I can buy local, pasture-raised beef at my local farmer's market, at an Italian butcher or a Halal butcher (both in the city of Buffalo), or at one of several meat processors in the surrounding area. And the prices are not anywhere near what's being quoted above. I pay $2.79/pound for ground beef, which is only $1 more than at Walmart and $.70 more than at the local supermarket.
I encourage anyone who is interested in still eating meats, but opting out of CAFO meats (and there are really great reasons to do this - I studied the pork industry for my dissertation, and trust me, you don't want to eat that stuff, even if it's free!!) to do a little legwork in their area to find places beyond WFs that offer meat the way it was produced 30 years ago
FYI: Whole Foods is RIDICULOUSLY high because I can buy similar cuts of meat - organically grown - from my local markets which are way lower that what Whole Foods charge. Whole Foods has to cover he cost of their crazy overhead as well as the cost it takes to truck all that product around the country. I say - try to buy local if you can, or just shop at a smaller supermarket which doesn't have insane costs. Whole Foods = Whole Paycheck
I've been doing #5 for the last year or so and highly recommend it. I've got a friend who knows a local farmer who raises beef. We've been getting grass-fed, corn-finished beef, which has the flavor of grass-fed, but a little more marbling, so it often grades prime or close to it. As a group, we can order sides, which come cut, trimmed, wrapped and frozen, and we divide them into shares that are 1/8 of a side, which about suits my freezer space. Some who have bigger freezers or who use more beef purchase more shares. The quality of the meat is good, and it comes to about $3-4 a pound irrespective of the cut, not counting bones and organ meats, which are distributed gratis to whomever wants them at the end of the split.
The downsides of this system is that you are likely to get cuts you might not normally buy, a greater proportion of ground beef than you may like, and not all the cuts you do get will be cut the way you want them, as they would be if you were butchering it yourself or ordering meat cut to order from a butcher. On the other hand, you're using more of the animal than you otherwise might, and it forces you to be more creative by trying new cuts and figuring out what to do with all that burger.