From farm to factory: the unstoppable rise of American chicken

Reach out to farmers and see who actually has something available, ask any questions you have about how they raise the animal. Ask about their process for ordering and whether they'll transport to a butcher. Put a deposit down on an animal.

Once you've put your deposit down, you wait for your harvest date. In my case, they transported the animal to the butcher, where it hung for a couple weeks. During that time, you prepare a 'cut sheet'. This describes how you'd like the animal prepared -- steaks or roasts, ground meat or not, etc. The butcher can walk you through this and tell you what's common.

After a few weeks, the butcher will give you a call, your meat is ready! Drive there and load your car with hundreds of pounds of individually wrapped steaks, roasts, ground beef, stew meat, soup bones, etc. Drive home and load up your freezer, distribute to friends who went in on the purchase with you, etc.

Lastly, figure out lots of recipes. Learn to braise, sous vide, grill, make smashburgers, whatever. You are going to be eating a lot of beef, explore world cultures. There are so many different ways to prepare it, French is so different than German, Japanese is different than Korean, American is different than Mexican, etc. You have hundreds of pounds of beef to eat, variety is important.

That's as close to a process as I can think of for someone who doesn't "know the right people."

Is this actually a thing? That is, an agnostic/atheist refusing to eat pork because it's dirty? Also AFAIK "swine are filthy animals" is the justification for not eating pork in abrahamic religions.

They are filthy because they have to sleep in their own shit, because the farmer presses them together in such a small room that they literally cannot move without hitting each other.

If pigs are raised on an open field, they roll themselves in water to keep them clean multiple times per day. On the other hand cows roll themselves in their shit, even when provided with puddles of water...and are unable to clean themselves afterwards because they ain't gonna take a bath.

Source: me, my grandparents had a rather mid-large farm in Germany and tried to raise their stock as humane as possible.

They also tried to raise chicken in an open manner, but that's close to impossible because you would have to have a lot of bushes, puddles, mixed areas of grass, plants, and a lot of fences in between (so groups don't attack other groups) around the stable. Otherwise chicken won't leave the stable, even not when they get infected.

And the value of chicken stock is so low that it's a financial disaster if you would build up a healthy environment for them, even if you would own the land. They would just destroy the plants so regularly that you would have to replace the plants at least on a monthly basis to provide hideouts and shadow for them.

I know Americans slept on dark meat for a while, and perhaps many still do, but in a certain slice of the foodie subculture (recipe bloggers, YouTube foodies, etc) this idea that dark meat is ALWAYS better than white meat has become this truism that, it seems to me at least, people like to slip in to signal how cultured they are or something.

Personally, it just depends on the dish and what kind of mood I’m in.

For example, if I’m wanting to make a pan sauce I’ll almost always go with white meat (usually bone-in split breast).

Chicken parm? White meat, please

For me, because dark meat itself is fattier and more flavorful by default, I find it can take over in many dishes where the meat is more of a vehicle for something else.

Stir frys, however - I almost always opt for dark meat.

Curries? It depends.

While I can understand concerns about factory conditions for egg layers, is there anyone who believes there are ethical issues around eggs produced in the decidedly non-factory conditions of my backyard? I've been somewhat amazed by just how easy it has been to raise them so far and would advocate anyone who wants to enjoy eggs should give it a go.

Regarding milk: Yes, I'm in agreement, for most adult humans the soy / almond / oat / etc options are perfectly good, apart perhaps from baking.

Fish is the one area I don't personally see a good substitute, until the market tells me it is too expensive to continue eating.

Or rather, holds the same moral views as you hold.

I couldn't even finish the Impossible Whopper when I tried it - taste and consistent of rubber. We tried some substitute chicken recently - taste was good, consistency was good, but then we looked at the ingredients - was basically a ball of flour with some flavoring; not really what I want to serve my kids regularly.

Something I've noticed about the meat substitutes: My family likes them better when they don't try to be meat. As in - when they are flavorful and nutritious on their own rather than attempting to simulate meat, they tend to be better than the options that are trying too hard to pretend to be meat.

One was about analog cheese, f.i. on pizza. Another "meat glue" used to form shreds into a big block of ham. Not to forget surimi instead of real shrimps.

Then the vegetarian/vegan craze really took off, and nobody cared about "Eingriffstiefe"/depth of engagement of technically processed food anymore, just had to have some veggie-label on it and all was good.

Just by applying the reasoning that raising animals in mostly harm-free and organic ways is good for the quality of the meat, by giving it better texture and taste, one could come to the conclusion that this Pappfraß does the same to humans which eat it in the same ways as all that other industrial junk.

But I mostly don't see it mentioned, with the exception of Paleo. It's all about virtue signalling and bizniz.

( Sometimes I think for myself that I'd really like to signal them MY virtues, letting them feel my golden shower power... by pissing in their faces... )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion

I won't give up meat. I will however do everything in my personal power to vote to end such practices and buy local, even if it means paying more. I think we just need to show more people. The meat industries have done a great job of hiding their awful secrets, often at the legislative level.

Similar experience in the other direction. Food in LA was incredibly overseasoned and in particular drinks like lemonade were extremely sweet. After a while I got used to it/had dulled my sense of taste so that this tasted "normal" and European food "bland". Luckily after some time without American food my sense of taste returned to normal.