Our meat supply

[demasoni]

need your help guys.
I got some big questions.
My fear is it will become increasingly difficult to pursue a natural flavorful diet as the availability of truly natural foods decreases at the present rate, especially in certain regions of the country (in my region they are almost entirely unavailable now).

My overall question is what the hell is going on with our meats lately and WHY?
Poultry, red meats, even seafood (inland supermarket seafood, not coastal/fresh off the docks)

When talking about meats (commercial especially) and their recent "changes", I'm looking at; texture, appearance, smell while raw, behavior while cooking, and ultimately flavor, finished texture, and how it feels during digestion.

Starting early/mid 2011 more and more meats at my common grocery stores/super markets (South East region US) began to change dramatically. So I sought natural/non commercial meats at the farmers markets and had access for a few months to pristine, natural, non chemically treated meats. but they changed for the worse as well. While they were good though it resulted inthe best tasting food I'd ever had. Best I ever felt from diet too, so there is no going back to the commercial SHIT after that. The commercial meat is to a point its truly depressing trying to chew the stuff much less look at it.

Unfortunately by the beginning of this year all the farmers markets poultry and meat turned to shit.
The trend I noticed with the change in farmers market chicken is the farmers got large contracts and began outsourcing (some having always outsourced) their processing to a facility instead of processing day before market on their family farm. Outsourced processing equaled Hello USDA inspected label, hello shitty chicken. (I've noticed the same trend with beef, will broach the details separately.)
POULTRY, the changes:
Starting with the big supermarkets, the changes were evident just by examination through the packaging in store. All chicken began to appear "pumped", bloated grossly beyond a natural weight and size, the muscle striations dramatically enlarged (naturally they're almost invisible to naked eye vs now they're lines the size a sharpie makes). The meat became comparatively translucent vs opaque, squiggles of fatty looking substance resembling stretch marks on a humans except all over this chicken breast meat.
Unpackaged there is a prominent "off" odor, unnatural, unlike natural fresh poultry which is basically odorless (about as much smell as a fresh unbroken egg shell).
As for cooking, the chicken no longer tastes or smells like chicken. Almost flavorless. I cannot make a flavorful broth.
The breasts cooked any other way (grilled, baked, fried etc) behave one of two ways:
Type #1:
no matter how overcooked, even exxxxtra well, it continues to ooz "juice", enlarged stringy & slimy striations. (naturally it shouldve dried out and toughened up like sinew)

Type #2:
No matter how undercooked the striations still separate and your left with "stringy" chicken as it becomes tough before properly done. (You must overcook natural chicken to achieve this, though even then the "strings" or striations are exponentially smaller.

Any knowledge as to who is responsible for this trend in processing the poultry beyond what is truly necessary?

My questions to you guys in ALL other US regions (West,SW, Midwest, NW, N, NE) are:
1) are you able to find normal, natural chicken at the super market or local farmers market)?

2)For those of you who can tell, have you seen the "shit" chicken I'm talking about?
If so where are you finding good?

3) are you seeing the above trend spread in/to your region?

4) Think fed regulation driving this trend in treatment?

My guess is it traces back to recent and upcoming USDA regulations that reach even the smallest farmer.
SO I'm wondering if your a small time farmer bringing a hundred or so chickens to farmers market that you processed yourself on farm, if you are now required to be USDA inspected. Further more if USDA/FDA has regulation even for those little guys that says "you must fuck up your meat by rinsing it with x chem, bathing it in x chemical bath, and packing it in x manner with x chem/preservative" in order to "pass" inspection... That has me deeply concerned.

I'm hoping it hasnt come to having to raise live birds in your own back yard just to get natural chicken. I don't mind so I WILL once I have the acreage. Hopefully I can get away with it even on a rental, allowing it sooner. got to buy in the meantime though.
However my fear is by the time I can raise/process my own, USDA and its umbrella regulators will have 20 different regulations making it illegal for me to do so as a small time farmer.
Given that, everyone who gives a shit about the future of farmers and ultimately your food, please check up on current and upcoming usda/fda/ (even d. h. s.) regulations, and figure out what we can do to keep healthy flavorful meat on our dinner tables

I would be much more at peace and actually sleep at night if I at least found out there's still unadulterated, chemical/preservative free, freshly slaughtered meats available in other regions of this country for people like me who actually taste and feel the difference. Plus I'm moving very soon and regional food situation is a primary factor in deciding location.

 

[Builtaforest]

if you think the natural meats tasted great, wait til you go vegan and eat natural...

much cleaner fuel for your body, meat is like dirty petrol

 

[PhenoMenal]

Cook some french fries, lightly salt them, then use a round slice of ham like a taco shell to hold half a dozen or so fries, and eat like a taco.... mmmmm, so good

 

[D. B. Doober]

yeah man some of those chicken wings are fucking JACKED dude...on the juice for sure. Never saw a chicken with legs like that. Never want to. When I order wings from the local place I can't help but be reminded of the scene in Rocky with the roided Soviet on the treadmill.

Found out my local market now sells ground bison!

 

[gingerale]

if you think the natural meats tasted great, wait til you go vegan

Stop pushing your religion please.....NOT interested.

 

[gingerale]

I don't know about the chicken meat cause I prefer beef mostly, but I bought some eggs from the local farmer's market which were from a free ranged chicken, and they were fantastic.

The United States is slowly turning into a third world country. It's funny how we continue to think we're the best country on Earth, yet it's getting where to even maintain the most minimum of decent living standards (like eating quality food) requires one to either be rich, or a reclusive hippie. Meanwhile if you want to do ANYTHING legally in this country or participate in the economy it comes with all sorts of strings attached, fines and fees and regulations and paperwork and taxes galore. Everybody and their mom has their hand out wanting a piece of your pie. It's not a free country anymore.

 

[BudToaster]

Meanwhile if you want to do ANYTHING legally in this country or participate in the economy it comes with all sorts of strings attached, fines and fees and regulations and paperwork and taxes galore.

oh man, i could do a rant about this. try to be a solo act with an ecommerce website.

also, i feel like a serf to the Lords of Vig. it seems the ideal business model these days is to get everyone to pay a monthly fee, forever.

 

[pearlemae]

Todays meats, and most food you get at the store, are a direct reflection of commercial, make em grow, mass industrial food production.

 

[diggdugg]

I totally hear you on this one OP. My family and a friends have been raising our own beef, chickens, eggs for a couple of years now. One of the most shocking things we found was in pork. Normally I would buy sausage, chops, loins etc from the store. No real complaints untill we bought a couple of show hogs that didn't make the cut. We had them butchered with all the cuts, bacon, ribs, breakfast sausage etc. This cost about $2:00 a pound of processed and wrapped meat. NEVER again will I eat the shit from the store! You know how storebought breakfast sausage shrinks up by about 50% when you cook it? That is because of the massive amounts of WATER that is injected into the meat. Same with chickens. You are paying for water by the pound. Our butchered pork doesn't shrivel up like that. I'd encourage you to try venison as well. My wife and I eat about four whitetail deer a year. Super healthy and yummy. It really is cheaper to raise your own food, even with the cost of butchering. BUT, you need some space for animals and freezers. When you butcher a 1200lb steer you'll get about 600 pounds of packaged meat. Even if you split that with the butcher for his labor, 300lbs is alot of meat. We eat like royalty around here, but we cook every night and it does take a little work. Can't wait to buy some wagyu cattle. Then it's KOBE ribeye, T-bones, burgers, spagetti, brishet, ribs OH YEAHHH!! They are just a little pricey though! Good luck man, real meat is what we are made to eat..

 

[ronbo51]

I had a buddy in Maine who was a certified organic meat farmer. I was in the food business and we did farmers markets together. His technique was that he had large greenhouses on wooden skids that he would drag around a large field. As the birds scratched and shit eventually all the green grass and insects were gone and he would latch on to it and drag it forward. Then he planted vegetables over the fertilized scratched over dirt. Sunshine, grass, good water. That's what makes a healthy animal. Chicken farming on a commercial scale is so fucking gross anyone who saw it firsthand would never, ever eat chicken again. It was a very large pain in the ass to be certified organic for animals. From hay to grain it all has to be certified, whereas with organic veggies its way easier to be organic. I had laying hens myself, along with goats and sheep. I think we will all need to get reaquainted with small scale farming as the system atrophies. But eventually if you grow your own you will be taxed on what you DON'T buy at the store. That is the beauty of Obamacare. That is why the mandate was so important: To be taxed on what you DON"T BUY. It's not just for healthcare.

 

[weeddaddy50]

I have recently found the same problem....here is what we did....find a 4H project that some family is doing.....we offered to buy their back up pig....you see they most always raise 2...then choose the best to bring to the fair....we purchased the pig and the food..they raised it....that way you know you are getting the best food for the pig and in turn the best tasting pork.......I can tell you our pork..which was cut and wrapped by the local butcher shop...and cured hams, bacon, sausage....etc....is by far the best tasting pork you can get.

I am working on a aquaponics system as we speak...and will grow my own fish..talipa....this uses the waste of the fish water to provide all the nutrients to my garden.....and we are considering raising some quail for the poltry part of our diet....

just purchased a greenhouse..and will raise all our own veggies year round......

funny thing....you are not the only one scraching your head about this.....I have been to all the supermarkets in my area the past 3 months on a weekly basis...and read the labels of where the produce comes from.....and its not the US....

 

[187020]

 

[OrganicOzarks]

If you don't eat it then you don't have to worry about it.

I ain't preaching, but when you come down with some major disease, or ailment when you are older the first thing your doctor will tell you is to go vegetarian(if not vegan).

Seems to me you can just do this to begin with, and skip the doctors visits.

 

[gingerale]

^ Good luck with that.

P.S. Steve Jobs was a lifelong vegan

 

[Iron_Lion]

I try to eat as clean as possible.

Unfortunately in today's world unless the package says "organic" it is most likely loaded with garbage like food coloring, nitrates, msg, high fructose corn syrup or other artificial sweeteners.

Like ketchup for example, most ketchup is like 95% high fructose corn syrup with a splash of tomato flavoring, yum yum. The organic alternative is actually 95% tomato's, what a novel concept.

Meat is the hardest and most expensive thing to try to buy clean. I can get organic chicken, and natural preservative, nitrate and hormone free lunch meat but it is very expensive at almost $12/lb.

I cannot get organic or even natural beef from the grocery store, to get that you pretty much have to seek out a farmer in your area and buy it direct. But it doesn't come cheap.

The beef I get at my grocery store is pretty shitty for the price, even the good cuts are very red, bloody, full of fat, trimmed like shit, and chewy even when cooked properly.

The best quality steaks come from a good quality cow, and have been aged for a bit, this is usually why they cost so much more.

Fish; I dont eat much of that, our oceans are so polluted why bother.

I think that our food is purposely made shitty to weaken our bodies and make us more reliant on Dr's. and prescription drugs to save us. I also feel that GMO food is going to become harder and harder to escape, it is a train that needs to be stopped. It is garbage, it goes against nature and it could give you ailments we cannot even fathom at this moment.

 

[supermanlives]

if you think the natural meats tasted great, wait til you go vegan and eat natural...

much cleaner fuel for your body, meat is like dirty petrol

death before vegan. now gimme a fat steak

 

[VerdantGreen]

ive been veggie for 25 years, i think it's important to have an occupation

it seems to put you on a head start to a healthy diet... you would really have to eat a LOT of veggie food to get fat, and i seem to be ageing a bit better than most of my carnivore friends... even with the drinking beer and smoking every night.

VG

 

[gingerale]

Yeah, you have to eat a lot of veggies to get fat, and you also have to eat a shit ton to get the amount of protein a person like me needs. The worst part of it is no matter how much soy or quinoa you eat it still doesn't taste like steak, or eggs, or cheese, or bacon, or milk, and it sure as hell doesn't satisfy the stomach the same way.

My body is built for eating meat. If you personally like veganism and all that then more power to you, but we don't wanna hear about that bullshit in a thread about meat. You can pry my steak out of my cold, dead fingers.

Only people living unhealthy lifestyles obsess over fat and sugar intake. I can eat whatever I like thanks to my muscle mass and high activity level. I pity those who are unable to eat the foods they really like without turning into fatasses, because their lack of muscle mass gives them no metabolism to speak of.

 

[BudToaster]

P.S. Steve Jobs was a lifelong vegan

fruitarian, according to the biography ... short life.

 

[VerdantGreen]

Yeah, you have to eat a lot of veggies to get fat, and you also have to eat a shit ton to get the amount of protein a person like me needs. The worst part of it is no matter how much soy or quinoa you eat it still doesn't taste like steak, or eggs, or cheese, or bacon, or milk, and it sure as hell doesn't satisfy the stomach the same way.

My body is built for eating meat. If you personally like veganism and all that then more power to you, but we don't wanna hear about that bullshit in a thread about meat. You can pry my steak out of my cold, dead fingers.

Only people living unhealthy lifestyles obsess over fat and sugar intake. I can eat whatever I like thanks to my muscle mass and high activity level. I pity those who are unable to eat the foods they really like without turning into fatasses, because their lack of muscle mass gives them no metabolism to speak of.

i should ease off on the meat and 'roids there mate, you're coming across as a bit aggressive.

VG