I used to buy all my food (including meat) in the supermarket, but in the recent months a butcher opened right next to my place and I started to buy my meat there and let me tell you there is a huge difference in quality. Where do you buy your meat?
I have a small independent meat shop near me and I prefer to go there. They have high quality meat that they butcher there and sell. They only get their meat from trusted small farms. I can tell the difference in taste. The price is a little higher but I think it's worth it. They also sell some cheeses and sandwiches. I love having it a block away.
There are a number of butcher shops in the area where I live. Since they get fresh meat from the farms around, you can always buy fresh meat every day unlike in the few supermarkets which hardly ever sell the meat they have. Since it's frozen for a long time, it loses its texture [and I hate that]. So any time I feel like buying meat [while I still live here] I'll get my meat from a butcher shop. It's cheaper too.
Ever since, my mom has been buying the meat that we eat from the butcher or the wet-and-dry market. We don't really buy meat from the supermarket because they are not fresh. Also, because they are frozen, the meat from supermarkets don't taste the same. If you do not know how to distinguish fresh meat, you might end up buying spoiled ones.
That's how I feel too, when I got to the supermarket and see those package with an expiration date for 5 or 10 days?! Sometimes that meat looks really bad and we never know how it's looking in the parts we can't see. So, the butcher all the way, it's worth the trouble.
There are no independent butcher shops near me, unfortunately, so we just rely on supermarkets for our meat. However, there are butcher chains nearby, and they do have a good quality to their products so whenever we're not feeling up to going to the supermarket or if for some reason we feel the need to change sources for up meats then we just go there. I honestly don't notice the quality difference at much though, but that's only because I don't really eat that many thick cuts of meat.
Butchers are cheaper for the best cuts. I think low cuts and mince are roughly the same, but It's good to keep money in the local economy anyway. A butcher will learn to know exactly what you want, give you advice and sometimes offer you special discounts, you wouldn't get that in a supermarket.
I think that depends a lot on the quality of the meat ion the supermarket. If it was just some prepackaged thing then I'd rather go to a proper butcher than buy that, but the meat section in the supermarket closest to me is basically an in-store butcher shop anyway. The always have two butchers working there, and they cut the meat however you want in the moment, just like in a butcher shop.
We have a combination outdoor farmers market and indoor meat and dairy market near us, that has a lot of different vendors. So it's not just one butcher shop, but rather several all under one roof, which is really convenient because we can shop around and compare prices without having to drive all over town. One of the things I really like about the butcher shops, is that they carry reasonably sized chicken breasts, like the 6oz - 8oz varieties that restaurants use, which cook up much better than those freakishly huge chicken breasts they sell at the grocery store. You can buy a large bag of them for about $20. I haven't done the math on a per weight basis, but generally speaking, a 2 pack of chicken breasts from my chain grocer is like $7-$8 and in the bag the butcher sells me there's like 12 breasts at least. Another favorite is this thick cut bacon they sell, which comes from the local Amish community and is smoked over various woods. It's night and day better than any Oscar Meyer stuff. I also like that I can place special orders with them, such as 8 chicken breasts, skin on, boneless, and they will make them for me. The chain stores won't even sell me a pack of separated chicken wings. They won't do any custom orders for me.
I buy very little meat. I get Smart Chicken at the local grocery store where I shop sometimes, but I am currently getting all my beef through friends who raise their own steers. That meat is all grass fed, never given any grain and boy can I tell the difference. Grass fed beef has less fat, but more significantly the consistency of the fat is much finer in quality. It isn't so heavy a grease, and it is not unhealthy for you. When cattle are fed grains like corn they are eating something they were not designed to eat and it messes up their bodies and makes the fat harmful.
Has anyone ever tried buying, killing, and the preparing their own animal meat to eat? If you haven't done this once in your life, you are missing out! I recommend starting with fishing, because it is the easiest and requires only catching a fish, scaling it, and preparing it for whatever type of dish one may want to eat e.g. deep fried fish, fish sticks, baked filet, sushi/sashimi, etc. After fishes, one should simply move onto whale next... I'm only joking. Honestly, freshly killed and cut animals flesh, is far more satisfying than refrigerated meat that is weeks to months old. I've also killed and prepared cows, pigs, chickens, quails, pheasants, squirrels, octopuses, squids, deers, and one emu once, which tasted like turkey and beef; I believe, such practices, are worth knowing and having experience with in case one ever requires of it in a life and death situation.
This is true as well, some supermarkets have a butcher that cuts the meat at the moment, so that meat has good quality as well. My issue with that is that the butcher section at supermarkets usually has big lines and it's just too much time for me.
In my area the butcher shops actually have more expensive meat, but since the shop advertises fresh meat, they usually have massive sales at the end of the week. The selection isn't as good, but I actually prefer the cuts most people don't use (shanks and riblets) because they are either too bony or too tough. I use the supermarket for Chicken, though. Frankly I can't taste the difference between good chicken and normal chicken. So I just buy the cheapest one I can find.
There is a huge difference between good chicken and normal chicken like you say. A chicken that was raised in the outdoor, in the country, tastes entirely differently and the meat is way harder, while the industrialized chicken's meat many times is as soft as bread...
Where I live, the main source to get meat is from the supermarket, however, there are a few butchers around the place that are doing well to provide quality meat and good business to remain active however, I have not tried the butcher as an option for shopping for meat. I stick with going to the supermarket, and I guess that this is so because I am just used to that, having grown up to see my parents do it, I guess I just followed suit.
I, like you, bought all my meat at the supermarket when I first started living alone. The quality wasn't the best, but since I was in a new city it was the only thing I knew at the time. Once I started to grow acquainted to the city layout I found out where there was a butcher's shop and decided to give it a try. The meat was much fresher and of much better quality than the one I bought at the supermarket, it was cheaper as well. Needless to say every time I need meat now I always buy it from the butcher.
There is a massive difference in meat from a butcher or farmer. I gag just thinking about the conditions grocery store meat comes from and how old it might be. Depends where the butcher gets it from, but I'd still bank on it being better tasting at least. The meat I used to get from a farm before I gave up meat was exceptional and clean (no hormones, grass fed, happy until they were "humanely" slaughtered etc.. such an oximoron isn't it? lol). I'm reading on here all the time that there is no difference in these foods, but grocery store foods are so subpar. I can definitely taste a huge difference from my sources and I'm so happy to be helping out local businesses/farmers in the process.
Sure, but now you're taking things to a whole new level Josie. One thing is to have the possibility to buy directly from the producer. More, a producer that has their animals hormones free and just hanging around in the free; most people don't have that possibility, of course it's way more healthy.
That's the problem with most people... they think taking care of themselves is too much work. And buying directly from a farmer isn't a whole new level.. it is for those who would rather eat things they shouldn't than make another stop somewhere else lol. It may not be a possibility for you, I wouldn't know.. but for most people in here it's not. They just don't want to. Huge difference
Yeah, I have to agree with part of that, not seeing the obvious advantages we just might get lazy, but on the other hand people living in the cities don't have the possibility to do this sort of shopping unless we need to travel long miles to do it.
