Meat Sources

I'm about to take the plunge and order some pasture-raised grass-fed meat. I've been gathering California-vicinity sources from the web. There seems to be nothing available within driving range of South Pasadena, though the local farmer's market in Alhambra on Sunday morning has a seller for "organic free-range chicken" and both that farmer's market and the one in South Pasadena on Thursday nights have sellers for organic free-range chicken eggs. After reading Pollan's book about what can constitute "free-range" I realize that the "organic, free-range chicken" eggs I've been buying from Trader Joes may not be quite the same as the pasture-raised free-range chicken eggs I've read about in Pollan and also Salatin. I think the eggs from the South Pasadena are the real thing, though -- I was shown pictures of the happy chickens. :)

Here are the links to the meat sources, from at least one of which I will order today. I selected these from a list I found at the Eatwild site for California.

Bison:

• Lindner Bison: ordering page. (Can't order online.) Phone is 866-247-8753, email: klindner@lindnerbison.com; they have a video tour of their ranch.

Beef:

• Hearst Beef: contact page. Hearst (in San Simeon) seems to be a member of a whole series of "eco-friendly / sustainable" farming associations: "Heritage Foods USA", "Changemakers' Day 2008", "Slow Food Nation 2008", "American Land Conservancy", "California Rangeland Trust", "Good Housekeeping Seal", "American Grassfed Association", "Certified Humane by Humane Farm Animal Care", "Food Alliance Certified for Sustainable Practices". The contact page allows you to request a flier / price-list, which they mail to you. Ordering is by phone: 866-547-2624. Ground beef is $6/lb; NY is $36-$40/lb.
• Bear River Valley Beef: order page. Located in Humboldt County. Can order online. Ground Beef is $4.5 / lb. Quarter Beef (105 lbs): $6.30/lb; half is $6.15/lb; whole is $6/lb. (420 lbs). Shipping extra.
• Albough's Frosty Acres: half beef is $7/lb, quarter beef is $8/lb, including cutting and packaging but not shipping. Can't order online. Email: sales@frostyacres.net; phone: 530 299-3261 or 530 540 0172. Located in Adin, CA.
• Lazy 69 Ranch: sells 1/10 beef (35 lbs = $250, or a bit over $7/lb). Both 1/10 beef and 1/4 beef includes free shipping. Handy freezer guide: Apparently a whole beef requires about 24 cubic feet of freezer volume. So 1/10 is 2-3 cu feet. Contact info: Dan@Lazy69Ranch.com; phone: 530-355-3451. Located in Round Mountain, CA.
• Chaffin Family Orchards: Appears to be an excellent source of a wide-range of products, but I'm having trouble deciphering whether I can actually order meat here. Need to phone them: 530.533.8239 or 530.533.1676 or email: chris_kerston@chaffinfamilyorchards.com
• Tawanda Meats: (also sells lamb). NY Steaks: $15.60/lb. (Can this be right??) Ground Beef (85%) $4.75/lb. Looks like you can order online. Lamb stew meat is $5.50/lb. Can also order "mixed packages" of beef and lamb. Located in Montague, CA.
• Open Space Meats: have ordering by "packages", which can be ordered online. Seems like a good system. For example, "Medium Package" is 20 lbs ground beef, 10 lbs steaks, 10 lbs roasts: $279; i.e., about $7/lb. Seems like a good deal. You can also "build your own package" with differing costs/lb: NY is $14/lb, ground beef is $4.79/lb.
  

Of all of these, I like the free shipping on Lazy 69 ranch and the "package ordering" on Open Space Meats. Shipping and Handling on the Open Space Medium package added $58.59 to the order, bringing the total price to $8.44/lb. (But ordering on Open Space was very convenient.)

Lamb:

• Tawanda Meats. (See under Beef, above.)
• Sorensen Farms: They invite contact, but don't actually provide an email or phone! Contact page (web-submission).
  

Going Green: Baby Steps on Food

I've been reading some books lately (I know, I'm way behind the curve on this topic!) which are radically altering my "world-view" and mind-set. The first (just a random free-sample download on my Kindle, which hooked me) was Michael Pollan's _The Omnivore's Dilemna_. Pollan really opened my eyes to what was going on in our food supply––I had *no* idea. He also introduced me to the ideas behind sustainable farming as illustrated by Polyface Farm's Joel Salatin. I next bought Salatin's book, You Can Farm, which made me want to give up my NASA Science Center Management life and move out to the countryside. Probably not realistic for me as a single parent at my age (44), but I can start doing a bit of "sustainable gardening". At the least, I'll be able to grow some of our own (good) food, and at the best, it could be practice and learning for my next career as a farmer.

Have been successively buying better eggs: starting with the cheap eggs I was buying (less than $1 / dozen), to organic eggs ($2/dozen), "free-range" (I have doubts about how 'free-range' those eggs were) ($3/dozen), and the real deal from my local farmers market: very nice lady who is dying of leukemia whose chickens graze their yards for bugs, grubs, etc. I saw pictures, and the eggs are gorgeous: $6/dozen. This seems very high, on the other hand, it's 50 cents an egg. A good breakfast is two eggs, a buck. Is that really outrageous? I understand these eggs actually *lower* your cholesterol rather than raise it.

I've decided that I'm going to pay more money for better food, and cut back my family budget elsewhere. I'm not going to be "rabid" on the subject––will still eat "industrial food" if I don't have other options in the situation. (Like a group setting.) But where I have a choice, I will always choose the better food. Organic everything, etc.

Meanwhile, I've purchased an (energy-efficient) freezer for the basement, and am comparing different California sources for pasture-raised meat: beef, bison, lamb, even goat. I haven't found chicken or pork yet. I might list some of the ones that ship in a future post -- there's nothing I've found within a reasonable drive from South Pasadena.

I've noticed that Trader Joe's carries "grass-fed angus beef" under the "Trader Joe's Butcher" label with a footnote that claims that their cows are never "on a feedlot". This sounds like a big improvement over Vons steaks, I wonder if it really is? Don't really know how to find out. I'm trying to become more "personally aware" of my food sources. There doesn't seem to be anything corresponding to that at TJ's for pork.

The kids are very excited about this. I bought a couple of compost bins after scanning the web for plans to build them. Looks like for my situation, it would have been a significant lead time, and not much less expensive, to try to make something, rather than buying the county-subsidized composters I discovered. The advantage of those was that I was able to pick up some LA Zoo compost with it, to "prime" the compost. Also picked up a worm bin there, with a flyer showing worm suppliers in LA County. The nearest is:

Chris Jung
(818) 472-2593
Fax: (818) 899-2541
Email: majjj@aol.com
Glendale, CA 91202