Cost of ethical meat in your area - Page 2

[freestylemama]

It depends. I live in the upper Midwest and it's significantly cheaper if you contact farmers directly. If I buy meat through our food co-op or farmers markets, it's about $6.50/lb for grass fed organic ground beef. When we go through a small farm that delivers monthly to our area it's $4.50/lb. When we buy 1/4 through a local farmer it's $3.50. We're currently waiting on a 1/4. We buy whole pastured chickens for about $10/each. I have no idea what that costs. Our ethical bacon (from the delivery farm) is about $6/lb.

With the exception of the occasional lunch meat, all of our meat at home is ethical. It's $$$ so we eat vegetarian regularly and almost never eat meat as the main dish.

[klemomma]

Wow - prices vary a lot it looks like!

Grass-fed, local ground beef is $5.50 here (Ohio). For 1/8 cow, it was a mix of cuts, ground, sausages, etc., and I believe it averages $6.50 lb, but that included some filets, NY Strips, etc.

We only eat ethical, grass-fed meat, and it is so pricey, that I'm trying to start moving us to more vegetarian, less focus on meat - though we won't give it up entirely, but just try to reduce the percentage. It's so hard to balance things!

[laohaire]

Grass fed beef is $5.50 a pound for ground. Other cuts are various prices from $6-12 a pound. (Cuts sold individually, not a half or quarter cow/steer).

Same with pork, it's about $6-12 a pound for various cuts.

I paid $2 a pound for pastured STEW chicken (that is, a 2 or 3 year old hen who lowered or stopped her egg production, not a bird primarily meant for meat). I think it's $5/pound for the fryers.

Lamb starts around $8/pound here.

Last Thanksgiving our organic CSA hooked us up with $3/pound turkey from another farm about 80 miles away. I don't know the details on that turkey - I guess it couldn't have been a heritage breed or anything. I looked into it more and the CHEAPEST local turkey started at $6/pound, and went all the way up to a whopping $15/pound for someone to shoot you an honest-to-goodness wild turkey.

That covers the meat front around here.

[GuildJenn]

Originally Posted by sanguine_speed

Haha, obviously not in Ottawa.

I'm in Toronto but when I lived in Ottawa ALL the food was way more expensive. It was seriously a shock.

[JudiAU]

....wait for it...

In Los Angeles, pastured goat leg and lamb leg (not rack or chops mind you) a farm about two hours the city is $18.00 / pd. BONE IN Grass Fed Bison is no less than $10/pd for ground, organ meats are more like $12 and higher end cuts are $20 + pork chops from a local farm are at least $15/pd Costs in the Bay Area are actually much lower, perhaps because they have larger farms or demand is higher?

Our local Whole Foods has much less expensive pricing, around $6 ground beef (organic or grass fed but not grass finished) a local natural butcher store is between those prices.

We buy a fair amount of here and ship it to California http://www.eightoclockranch.com/ which is ridiculous but much cheaper.

We are committed to eating pastured animals and thus eat less meat than we would otherwise and pay a lot when we do. I find it really galling to buy meat from 2000 miles away and ship it my house and still have it be half the cost of local meat.

[dealic]

Originally Posted by sanguine_speed

Haha, obviously not in Ottawa.

Nope! I went to university there and the food prices were terrible! My mom took me shopping the first day I arrived and she was horrified. I love Ottawa, but that is one thing I don't miss.