Raw meat sources...

Question
Hi-
Was hoping you could help me out with the following- Ive been eating a
primal diet now for approx 3 years. At times the quality of the food I have
eaten has been a little dodgy to say the least!! For the most part nowadays its
not too bad though.
I was alarmed to see somewhere on the net that waitrose supermarket; where
I have mostly purchased my meat and fish from have been using pre-frozen
meats along with other general silliness!
I was wondering if you knew of any good sources of meat (and fish) and also
raw dairy; as it looks like we might be losing our source of raw dairy quite
soon- we live near Broadway in Worcestershire (close also to evesham)-
although it looks like we may be moving toward stroud/painswick area in
gloucestershire fairly soon..
So really; sources near either would be great!
Many thanks; great web resource by the way! Really helpful..
Wishing you health and happiness-
Toby

Answer
I'm afraid that the last time I lived  in Worcestershire was over 2 decades ago, when I was still in prep-school, so I have no idea re up-to-date raw-food sources, over there. I previously sent a list of sources/organic directories for the UK etc. to another poster, so I'll reprint part of it here for you, and add some relevant extra local sources that you asked for:-


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Here's another link I forgot to mention:-

http://www.bigbarn.co.uk/

(the above website also covers non-organic meat sources so you'll have to check with the producer by phone etc.)

Follow-up to:-
---------------------------

Here's a standard UK website which gives contact details of various farms which sell grass-fed meat - some will feed their animals grain during the winter, but most will just feed them hay during that time, which is fine(I presume you are aware already of the fact that grain-fed meat is unhealthy?):-

http://seedsofhealth.co.uk/resources/meat/index.shtml

Contact each of these farms by phone to ask about how they feed their animals etc.- DO NOT use e-mail or letters - phoning is  the best  way to get their attention - otherwise there's a good chance they'll just ignore you. You'll find that many farms which sell online don't sell organ-meats, which is bizarre, but can't be helped - ignore the info on the websites which rarely, if ever,  give details re organ-meats, just ask re availability by phone. I've also  had occasional problems with long-distance delivery - for example, on some occasions, although I always order solely raw meat or offal, I've sometimes had smoked tongue sent to me which had had the various preservatives mostly leached out, in order to give the false impression that it was 100% raw - unfortunately, for the farm , I found it easy to detect the after-taste of chemicals in the meat. Also, long-distance delivery can be very unreliable with sudden changes being made so that deliveries come several days late or are incomplete. Shipping prices can be very cheap if you're prepared to  order in bulk(usually ? pounds per delivery , regardless of weight/size of order).

Another good idea is to check every single farmer's market within easy driving distance. Many farmer's markets can be  pretty dodgy as regards standards/quality, but there are quite a number of exceptions. The best example is the London Farmers' Market Association(www.lfm.org.uk) which insists on every stall having the actual farmer or a member of his family present at the stall, and which ensures that most stalls sell either organic or, at the very least, naturally-reared meat(this happens to be  my main, preferred source of organic, grass-fed meats, but is not useful to you, given your location). Other farmer's markets don't have such stringent rules so you may find stalls in those  selling nonorganic, intensively-farmed meat, at times.

Here's a website which gives details on where farmer's markets are located across the UK (just click on the relevant county and you'll get a list):-

http://www.farmersmarkets.net/

Getting in direct contact with farmers via farmer's markets or direct from the farm itself is absolutely essential if you want to cut down on costs. The farmers like the idea of selling their meats to people at higher prices than they would get from the unscrupulous supermarkets, while the customer gets meat at a cheaper rate than the standard retail-prices because no store has to be constantly maintained for the purpose(that's especially if you order organ-meats - I, for example, am usually able to get raw bone-marrow at ?.50 a kilo(with weight of bone included), at times - whereas a kilo of organic, grass-fed beef fillet steak can fetch up to ?8 a kilo. Organic butchers and organic supermarkets like Planet Organic are an option but, IMO, are far too expensive, by contrast.

Here's a couple of other useful websites/directories for  organic meat sources:-

http://www.alotoforganics.co.uk/cats/organic-meat.php

http://www.whyorganic.org/involved_organicdirectory.asp

(these directories usually have an advanced search-function where you can be more specific, such as listing all organic farms or shops within 20 miles of a specific post-code, or whatever).

Some farms sell game-meat  such as venison, wild hare or even bison. I highly recommend wild meats as being the healthiest source of meats there is. Wild game-meat isn't too expensive as long as you avoid the  game-butchers and buy direct from the farm, instead. For example, I usually pay anywhere from 7 pounds to 12.50 pounds  for a wild-hare at my local farmer's market(an www.lfm.org.uk -affiliated farmers' market), depending on the stall and the availability. (I should add that most hunters are farmers as no one else has the free time in which to hunt regularly, so they're the best source for wild meats).

Obviously, the various websites I've cited only cover a tiny proportion of the actual number of grass-fed meat-producers in the UK. The best resource for finding out details is the Soil Association as it's the only reliable organic certification body in the UK. Here's a couple of links suggested by that site, which might be helpful:-

http://www.farmshopping.net/

http://www.soilassociation.org/farmvisits

You could try contacting the Soil Association with a general enquiry about organic-meat-selling farms in the East-Midlands area. The SA website also suggests checking with your local county-council for lists of organic producers, as well.
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(contd.)

Obviously, try Googling with search-terms such as "grassfed meat Stroud". Just by doing that, I found one particular farm:-


http://tinyurl.com/2d5zjl

Here's another farm I found via Googling, in a relevant area:-

http://www.happymeats.co.uk/shop/

Here's a website detailing farmers' markets, by county:-

http://tinyurl.com/yw9rds

Here's a reference to one farmer's market  in Stroud:-

"4 Stroud, Gloucester

Cornhill Market Place, held on first and third Saturday of each month. Tel: 01453 758060 "

Here's a website detailing sources for raw dairy in the UK:-

http://tinyurl.com/2gxuux

(be a  bit careful re raw-dairy:- It's been pointed out on some websites  that some of the raw-dairy sold in the UK isn't genuinely raw, but lightly pasteurised, since there are no specific UK regulations covering this sector. Fortunately, I don't consume dairy any more so this is not an issue for me).

Re Fish:- Here's a list of fishmongers in the Stroud area:-

http://tinyurl.com/25a4wp

Here's a list of fishmongers in Worcestershire, some being in the Evesham area, along with directions to those shops:-

http://tinyurl.com/yrvtqs


Seafood can be a bit expensive, unless you're living right next to the UK coast, or happen to be near a decent farmers' market or a really big market like the famous Billingsgate Fish market in London.

I would strongly advise you to stay away from supermarkets as much as possible. Not only is their food invariably inferior to that from small farms(unsuprising as they're more interested in low-cost and quantity rather than quality, re economies of scale) - but also, they are notorious for severely reducing consumer-choice as they drive away the smaller specialist shops such as local fishmongers etc., which have a wider variety, within their speciality, than the average supermarket does. Plus, supermarkets, to make things easier for themselves, prefer to deal only with the largest suppliers, if at all possible, which limits choices still further.

When I go to my local farmers' markets in London, by contrast, I can get hold  of things like raw water-buffalo meat/wild-hare carcasses/venison/grassfed ox tongue,live lobsters,  wild-boar liver/wild mallard duck/wild mushrooms  etc. etc. And these can often be surprisingly cheap(eg:- 1 wild mallard duck for ?  pounds. I should add that one additional reason why I like raw (grassfed/organic)organ-meats is that no one else wants them, so that they're offered at as little as a third or a quarter the price of raw fillet-steak for example.

Re delivery:- If you want delivery of grassfed/organic meats/organ-meats by post/courier, then it's relatively cheap per package, but you'll more or less have to accept the fact that it'll be prefrozen, even if only at not too low a temperature. This is, however, a lot better than the prefrozen meat from Waitrose - when I last shopped there, years ago, their  "grassfed lamb" actually came 1000s of miles away from New Zealand in a prefrozen state, rather than from the UK - and I read somewhere that, in fact,  New Zealand's grass-fed animals are mostly fed on grain(ie "feedlot") in the 3 months before slaughter, presumably in order to fatten them up.

There are some farms in the North of England and particularly in Scotland which deliver 100% heather-fed lamb to your door, and you should find several such farms online. It's very good. Here's just one example of a farm which sells the stuff:-

http://www.northumbrian-organic-meat.co.uk/products.asp

My own preference is to depend on most of my food from local farmers' markets and local fishmonger's, though I do have to  get my  (grassfed/organic) marrow and raw suet delivered (prefrozen) from a farm up North(Lower Hurst Farm). In unusual, extreme situations, such as when all my suppliers at my local farmers' market can't deliver an order for whatever reason, I'll buy organic fruit from a local supermarket, but I would never dream of buying any meat or fish from a supermarket, these days - I had a bad  experience, years back,  where I detected a rather vomit-inducing chemical aftertaste when eating some of Sainsbury's supposedly-wild-caught "fresh" fish, (which I've never experienced with fish from local fishmongers), so I've come to realise that what with dangerous new processes such as irradiation etc being introduced, that modern supermarkets cannot be relied upon.

The key with farmers' markets is to find the two or three  nearby ones which have the largest number of stalls offering different kinds of organic/grassfed meats/wild-caught seafood etc. You should then build up a rapport with the people there, and they'll usually provide you with a business-card with their phone-number/e-mail-address etc. - a good farmers' market will have the farmers' own family selling the food on the spot. You will then be able to make regular orders, outside market-times,  for unusual items, which are not always displayed on the table at the market-stall, such as raw organ-meats etc. If the farmer, for whatever reason, tells you that he couldn't deliver your order, then you will always have other market-stalls to fall back on - do make sure to enquire about making a food-order at least a week in advance, as farmers only have specific times each month when they slaughter their animals etc.

Well, that pretty much covers it, for now.

RPG  

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