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Not a farmer - but the wife does a fair bit of reading on animal welfare and organic produce. We've quite often thought of sourcing our meat & poultry from the

Not a farmer - but the wife does a fair bit of reading on animal welfare and organic produce. We've quite often thought of sourcing our meat & poultry from the neighborhood farm as opposed to the stock "organic" that you get at the supermarkets. This article and several I read probably just helps me make that decision faster. I generally use whole foods today - level 4 rating on the chicken & 100% grass fed on my meat. The farm, while being more expensive, invites you to see how they treat and feed the animals. This is as opposed to hidden practices in the organic & dairy industry where they are so tied to not giving the animals antibiotics that they will rather kill the animals as opposed to treating them for fear of losing their "organic" status. To your point, my neighborhood farm does not have "organic" certification. They don't want to go through the paperwork. They treat their animals humanely and invite you to view their operation if you so wish. I believe eatwild.com has a list of farms as well. One major drawback of (if you wish to call it that) is the meat is typically seasonal (as it should be). In the sense - there are specific harvest times when you need to order. You can't just walk in and get a steak or chicken for the evening. That means you need to plan 6 months to an year ahead and invest in a freezer with battery backup.

leroy_masochist 10y ago
Eatwild is a great resource, we know them well. You absolutely need a deep freezer if you want to buy local meat. Most producers, us included, sell frozen cuts only -- managing inventory of non-frozen meat would be way too hectic. Deep freezers are only like 200 bucks at Costco. Assuming you have space for one in your home, they're also great for making sauces and whatnot in bulk. Also highly recommend a cryovac kit. Cryovac'ed frozen veggies keep more or less forever, and you can also prepare foods (eg, meatballs) at scale on a Sunday afternoon and then just defrost stuff for the rest of the week.
- bane 10y ago
  > Assuming you have space for one in your home When my wife and I were first married we lived in an impossibly small efficiency and still made room for a chest freezer because of the tremendous efficiencies in food storage it provided for - it was something like $200 on sale at Costco. We still have it, 15 years later doing good service for us and payed for itself many times over.

leroy_masochist 10y ago

Eatwild is a great resource, we know them well. You absolutely need a deep freezer if you want to buy local meat. Most producers, us included, sell frozen cuts only -- managing inventory of non-frozen meat would be way too hectic. Deep freezers are only like 200 bucks at Costco. Assuming you have space for one in your home, they're also great for making sauces and whatnot in bulk. Also highly recommend a cryovac kit. Cryovac'ed frozen veggies keep more or less forever, and you can also prepare foods (eg, meatballs) at scale on a Sunday afternoon and then just defrost stuff for the rest of the week.

bane 10y ago
> Assuming you have space for one in your home When my wife and I were first married we lived in an impossibly small efficiency and still made room for a chest freezer because of the tremendous efficiencies in food storage it provided for - it was something like $200 on sale at Costco. We still have it, 15 years later doing good service for us and payed for itself many times over.