# Lounge > Food and Dining >  Do you buy you meat/poultry from the Butchers..?

## tonytiger55

I hosted dinner and made chicken curry last night. It tasted amazing. You could taste that the chicken had a happy life. I bought the chicken from a East Indian butchers in the NE. 

My question is, do you buy from a butchers? Or do you buy from Walmart, Safeway, Superstore..?

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## killramos

No option for never?

I buy almost all my meat from Costco, will occasionally pick up from Safeway or coop if I don’t have time.

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## 2Legit2Quit

Some times, breakfast sausages and various steaks, bones, bison time to tune from red deer lake meats.

Otherwise mainly Costco because price.

Going in with a buddy on half a cow later this year, interested to see the difference in quality, Angus beef from his sister & bro in laws farm in sask.

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## zechs

I buy all my meat from a butcher. They even sell vacuum packed individual free range chicken breasts which is amazing for a bachelor.

The chicken is phenomenal, changes the way a stir fry tastes and the texture. No weird rubbery Prime chicken from the store.

I'll never go back. Their steaks are also just amazing every time. Not to mention they have smoked sliced bbq brisket for lunch meat, fresh farm eggs, bacon, etc.

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## ThePenIsMightier

I've done the "Pepsi Taste Challenge" direct comparisons more than once with butchers v grocery stores on steaks and we more than once found the grocery stores to be superior. So fully half the price and better? No brainer.

The best turkey I've ever had came from Hirsche Fraser Meats Butcher, though...

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## pheoxs

Both.

Usually order a bunch of beef once a year from the butcher in my parents town. A tad more expensive but enjoy the quality of the beef a lot more and can get specific cuts for steaks that are much better. But chicken and fish I just get at costco

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## msommers

Great Meats and Master Meats have excellent quality.

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## gwill

I picked up some kangaroo and some wagyu the other day from the butcher.... 

For the most part we are 70% wild game at home.

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## brucebanner

Beef, in-laws family farm. 

Everything else, costco most of the time.

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## vengie

Does anyone know of a butcher that sells Ostrich? 

I love me some good ostrich meat.

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## msommers

> For the most part we are 70% wild game at home.



Jelly. The only reason I want to learn to hunt, we don't know anyone to "buy" some from so considering doing it myself...

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## ThePenIsMightier

> Does anyone know of a butcher that sells Ostrich? 
> 
> I love me some good ostrich meat.



Only in Victoria... Prolly not helpful

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## gwill

> Jelly. The only reason I want to learn to hunt, we don't know anyone to "buy" some from so considering doing it myself...



I'd say jump in on getting your pal and your hunters Ed. From there try and get someone you know to take you out to see what you think about being out there.

I used friends guns early on before diving deep into hunting. It doesn't have to cost a lot early on until you know if you'll hunt more often.

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## Cagare

Deal with the butcher for buying a quarter or half a cow. We do that because it's a local farm and they break it down how we like it. It's also reasonable at around $4/lb hanging weight. Quarter lasts us probably 8 months.

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## ExtraSlow

Newbies elk hunt beyond meet?

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## phreezee

Does Garcha Bros count? Any time I forget to defrost something for dinner I go there to pick up something to throw on the BBQ/smoker.

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## thinmyster

> Deal with the butcher for buying a quarter or half a cow. We do that because it's a local farm and they break it down how we like it. It's also reasonable at around $4/lb hanging weight. Quarter lasts us probably 8 months.



We do the same. The rest from Costco.

I think we paid about $1100 for a 1/4

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## killramos

If you are going to buy any fraction of a cow you need ensure you eat a ton of ground beef.

Because that’s mostly what you get.

I would argue most people would be happier buying whole Primals.

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## ThePenIsMightier

> If you are going to buy any fraction of a cow you need ensure you eat a ton of ground beef *HAMBURGER*.
> 
> Because thats mostly what you get.
> 
> I would argue most people would be happier buying whole Primals.



Fixt

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## killramos

> Fixt



No. Just no.

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## ThePenIsMightier

> No. Just no.



What - are you sabad's alt, now?

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## killramos

> What - are you sabad's alt, now?



I’m everyone’s alt.

In all seriousness. If you want to buy a whole or half animal.

Consider a pig, me and a buddy split one a while back. Very affordable ( I think my side was 150 bucks or so?).

Manageable size and if you like cooking there are so many interesting things you can do with a pig.

As for the grind? You can make sausages with it which is infinitely better than ground beef in my books.

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## sabad66

At least you didn’t say ground hamburger

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## gwill

our house went 4 or 5 years without a beef steak due to all the wild game. We definitely appreciated the first steak a bit more than normal after so long.

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## legendboy

> Newbies elk hunt beyond meet?



I am down

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## Cagare

> If you are going to buy any fraction of a cow you need ensure you eat a ton of ground beef.
> 
> Because thats mostly what you get.
> 
> I would argue most people would be happier buying whole Primals.



It was actually mostly roasts and steaks, some stewing beef and maybe 15-20% ground beef.

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## Misterman

Grocery store is consistently more expensive than all the butchers I've used  :dunno:  Weird that a bunch of you have different experiences. Or maybe you're all buying meat when it goes on big sale at grocery store before they throw it away? 

But I tend to buy as much as I can from my butcher just for the sake of supporting local and having a better idea where the most important part of my diet comes from. 

Finally pulled the trigger and just bought a half cow direct from a local farm. $4.75/lb, can't beat that price wise anywhere. Looking forward to seeing how it tastes, I receive my order in a week or so. 





> If you are going to buy any fraction of a cow you need ensure you eat a ton of ground beef.
> 
> Because that’s mostly what you get.
> 
> I would argue most people would be happier buying whole Primals.



Generally eating about 7lbs of ground beef a week currently with my grocery store purchases. Meat price is ridiculous, and mainly GB is just easy for me when I go to work for a week. Cannot wait to have steak in the freezer that needs to get eaten now that I'll have a half cow.

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## ExtraSlow

7 lbs of beef per week for an individual is pretty wild.

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## msommers

> It was actually mostly roasts and steaks, some stewing beef and maybe 15-20% ground beef.



Asked a coworker since she buys a quarter or half twice a year (as I hear too frequently lol). Her sentiments align with yours

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## ExtraSlow

Do you guys also buy your apples from the market not the grocery store? Seems like it'd have the same benefits and drawbacks.
If you need toothpaste do you go to the pharmacy? 

Do you go to the independent bakery?

Mods please move this to the "support independent business" sub-forum. Thx.

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## killramos

That’s why I buy my gas from Petro Canada. It’s a local independent business.

Am I doing this right?

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## ThePenIsMightier

LoL that grocery meat on sale is about to be thrown out!

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## ExtraSlow

I am willing to believe one of two things. 
1) that local butchers usually have better meat quality
OR 
2) Local butchers are similar or lower prices than grocery stores

I'm not willing to believe both. 

As for me, I do a reasonable amount of my shopping after 7PM or before 8AM, so I find the 7-10 hours of my local safeway to be convenient for my normal shopping. I do live close to Master Meats, and when I've been there, I have been satisfied.

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## sexualbanana

> If you are going to buy any fraction of a cow you need ensure you eat a ton of ground beef.
> 
> Because thats mostly what you get.
> 
> I would argue most people would be happier buying whole Primals.



I've been really fascinated with the idea of getting my own primals and doing my own cutting and butchering, but I have no idea where I can find a primal. I don't have a Costco membership so that's sort of out of the question.

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## ExtraSlow

your local butcher.

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## Misterman

> LoL that grocery meat on sale is about to be thrown out!



Is there other reasons they hack the price in half every now and then? If you're going to throw it in the freezer it's all fine, I was more drawing attention to the fact that that's not regular pricing.

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## ThePenIsMightier

> Is there other reasons they hack the price in half every now and then? If you're going to throw it in the freezer it's all fine, I was more drawing attention to the fact that that's not regular pricing.



It's as fresh as any other regular priced similar meat on display. The AA striploin on sale yesterday at Safeway had a _best before_ date of October 9 which is the same BB as their Sterling Silver AAA striploin that was 2.4x more money.
It's a marketing strategy based on volume purchases and loss leaders, not a method to dump meat before it expires.

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## Cagare

> I am willing to believe one of two things. 
> 1) that local butchers usually have better meat quality
> OR 
> 2) Local butchers are similar or lower prices than grocery stores
> 
> I'm not willing to believe both. 
> 
> As for me, I do a reasonable amount of my shopping after 7PM or before 8AM, so I find the 7-10 hours of my local safeway to be convenient for my normal shopping. I do live close to Master Meats, and when I've been there, I have been satisfied.



It can be both if you are willing to buy in bulk like I suggested earlier when buying whole slabs. Aside from that you are basically almost always paying full price, with the occasional sale. The difference is in the quality of the meat and it being readily packaged exactly how you want it to be. 

If you are a value shopper, and don't buy in massive bulk, then you are far cheaper to wait for sale at the grocery store and then break it down/package it the way you like it to be at home.

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## Cagare

> 7 lbs of beef per week for an individual is pretty wild.



If it's all you eat, and you are focused on a high protein diet, then that makes sense. If you are targeting 1g of protein/1 lb of body mass then a 200lb male would be eating approximately 9 lbs of lean meat a week.

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## riander5

> If it's all you eat, and you are focused on a high protein diet, then that makes sense. If you are targeting 1g of protein/1 lb of body mass then a 200lb male would be eating approximately 9 lbs of lean meat a week.



Get some eggs and yogurt in there you maniac! Its a recession!

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## Misterman

> Get some eggs and yogurt in there you maniac! Its a recession!



Eggs, salmon, and protein powder is where the rest of my protein requirements are coming from.

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