Indeed - and tastier with higher quality.

Cargill, ADM, and Monsanto have primitive financial capabilities?

For the last several years, we've been getting most of our proteins direct from farmers and ranchers - initially, by buying large amounts at a time (e.g., a quarter or half of a cow, a half a pig), and more recently, joining a protein CSA in our area (where we get a share of the bounty over a year, including animals like chickens and lamb, and nuts as well).

The advantages are many, including price, knowing where your food is coming from, and supporting the local economy. Also, at least with the beef, you can decide how it gets butchered (specific cuts vs ground beef, etc). The downsides are quantities (we have a chest freezer, and it's definitely necessary), and that although you know what the animals are going to be, you don't always know how much and when.

Now, I'm in the Portland area, so this is certainly like an episode of Portlandia, but I'd bet it's an option in other places, too.

I'll edit my original response to be nice here. The companies you mentioned run cattle farms or are they agricultural companies? Which was I referencing in my post. In my post, did I say that all farming companies, not that the ones you mentioned are farming companies, or did I say some? Did you have any information that disagrees with my point or are you just nitpicking?

Shhhhhhhhh........ My Char Siu. Nothing cheaper. That piece of meat was less than �3 and could have fed three or four ...

Nothing Better.

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...99752CB745.jpg

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...512D7BDCA3.jpg

What type of meat and where you buy them made a big difference too. I just got a new BBQ and had been grilling steaks for the last 3 to 4 weeks. Places like Whole Food or Sprouts sell the most expansive meats. Ribeye steak could go from $7.99/lb to $12.99/lb (grass fed). When Stater Bros have Ribeye on sales, they would go down to $4.99 or even $3.99/lb. I get them for the freezer when they are on sales.

There is definitely no shortage of deer. In fact, I would guess that their numbers are at a record high. Every morning I play russian roulette, between the monster potholes this year, and the freaking deer darting out in the road. In packs...

We try to do our part to reduce the deer population.

At least yours are still in a hurry, around here they know the cars will stop so they leisurely stroll across the street often waiting for the whole group to be in the road before any of them step onto the other side.

Our country is overrun with deer, turkeys and wild hogs... I know the FDA isn't fond of people selling game meat, but could a nonprofit process it in bulk and donate it to food banks and soup kitchens?

I feel like someplace I lived in the past harvested fresh roadkill for use in feeding county prisoners. By roadkill, I mean deer, but I suppose the right cook would use whatever he was presented.

Locally, there is discussion of a bear season. The damn things are a bigger nuisance than the deer and have gotten out of hand in 3 or 4 counties. Is bear considered red meat?

The problem is that there are those who don't like the idea of culling herds, so they usually protest any attempt made by municipalities to have sanctioned hunts.

There are nonprofits that work with deer processors so that if a hunter wants to donate their harvest, the hunter doesn't have to pay a fee, and the processor doesn't have to eat their normal labor costs.

In PA, at least, one of the issues is that many of the deer can be found in areas where hunting is prohibited (safety zones, private property that is posted no hunting, neighborhoods that have restrictions on hunting). The lack of deer in areas accessible for hunting reduces the number of hunters, which means that less deer are harvested each year. Deer harvests dropped by 14% in last year's season, although the game commission will claim that harvest numbers had been increasing in prior years (hunters doubt those claims), so this was in part "by design."

I think it is. I don't know--I'll probably know at the end of May.

Funny that you should ask....I was just reading an article the other day on bear meat. It had to do with harvesting bear and matching the location of the bear to the taste of the meat.
So...if your bear is from the mountains, it has been dining on berries. If your bear is from the coast...its diet has been mostly fish. The author favors mountain bear, as coastal bear tends to have more of a pungent quality. He then went on to discuss the making of bear burgers with the meat (claiming that it is good eating).
So, there you have it. Bear is truly the other red meat....

Funny you mention this.

I did notice the high cost of meat after doing grocery shopping as a vegan.

I'm trying this out just to see what will happen and so far, I saved $80CAD on two week groceries. Let's see how sane I'll stay without having grilled meat.

Ours are coastal for sure, no mountains anywhere close to Florida. Maybe this makes bear meat seafood. Actually, the pesky ones seem to live off garbage. That might not taste so nice.

I thought I saw this in the news within the last week or so, but in any event:

"Why becoming a vegetarian really IS just a phase: 84% go back to eating meat again - many within just three months"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...ee-months.html

Is the country overrun with deer, or overrun with people who have invaded the deers' original habitat? (And what is the proper possessive there since the plural of deer is deer???)

We now return you to the original topic of discussion...