Practice #15: BYOC… to the butcher

If you’re a vegetarian, I’m just going to tell you to stop reading at this point. It won’t help you in anyway. But before you go, I want to applaud your practice. For whatever reason it is that you have chosen to be meat free, there are less animals being inhumanely treated because of you and I think that’s awesome.

The rest of us meat eaters… I just typed and then erased a very long and controversial diatribe about the treatment of animals. I even wrote at one point “I’m not going to debate about this.” Needless to say, I had to erase it all. I’m just going to try to bullet point this post so I don’t turn into a crazy person.

1) Watch Food, Inc.
2) Do your research and try to find a local butcher who sells meat from pasture raised/humanely treated animals.
3) After finding said butcher, bring your Pyrex and ask them if they will put the meat in it for you. I can almost promise you they will say yes.
4) If that’s not an option, local groceries are making big strides in the humanely treated animal department, because people are starting to demand it! Look for Laura’s Lean Beef, or a similar product, in your local grocery meat section (It’s in a vacuum packed cube that looks weird but it tastes great!) This meat comes from pasture raised/humanely treated animals. Yes it comes in plastic but animals treated well is more important to me than getting meat in a Pyrex.
5) Worst case scenario, Whole Foods is an option. And they will do your Pyrex.
6) All the above will probably make you rework your weekly meat budget. I know we sure have to but to us, it’s worth it.
7) I have a love affair with our butcher shop,Bolyard’s Meat & Provisions. I wish that everyone in this country could have a Bolyard’s in their town. The girls and I walk there once a week and while I chat with the butchers (who I know by name while they know me as “the Pyrex lady” which I’m ok with.) and get our meat, Lucy reads and plays in the kids’ play area. I am not even joking, they have a kids’ area. We also get to say hey to the farmers as they unload the meat into the shop. I’m dead serious. The farmers themselves drop off their own meat. From their family farms. Where they’ve just humanely raised/fed/slaughtered the meat we are about to eat. It’s pretty awesome to behold. I tell you all this not because I want you to be jealous but because I want you to seek out something like this where you are living. It existed a whole year before I even accidentally stumbled across it while I was trying to find the coffee shop next door. Do your due diligence.
8) My Klean Kanteen in that picture is full of “Immune boosting broth” that I buy there to sip on the walk home.

So there you have it. A slightly “animal rights-ish” way of telling you to bring your own containers to the butcher. I hope it was helpful and not demoralizing, as that’s never my intent. Thanks for sticking with me through it! Now go grab that humanely raised ground beef and grill the heck out of those burgers! I will take mine medium rare. Call me when it’s ready!