Cheap meat and poultry: What is the real cost?

I’ve been on the slaughterhouse ‘kill floor’. I’ve actually slaughtered chickens and cattle (on my cousins’ ranch in Kansas), and cleaned my own game, so I’m hardly a whining vegetarian. Yes, I still enjoy a modest ( and I mean really small ) amount of meat in my weekly diet.

That said, I ONLY buy sustainably, humanly raised meats from independent producers such as my local butcher (Butcher Boy in Reno, Nevada ) where I ask lots of questions, small local beef producers, and such larger cooperatives like Niman Ranch. Whole Foods in Reno offers a line of regionally produced beef, from small producers along the Sierras.

Eating meat isn’t wrong. Raising meat inhumanly is wrong.

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Niman Ranch meats: Natural, humane, sustainable meats

Whenever I can, I buy Niman Ranch meats. Quite often it’s the only ‘natural’, sustainably raised and humanely processed pork that I can find. Good quality beef, grass fed and finished isn’t hard to find out here along the Eastern Sierra’s in Nevada. And, this being Basque country, high quality, locally raised lamb is a no-brainer, too.