Lots of good ideas in this thread... Here's a few more to chew on
Some of the stuff they feed cows in "commercial" beef (ie, anything from a supermarket) would absolutely make you wretch... they grind up entire cow carcasses (yes the bones too) if it didnt make it to the store shelf they and stuff it right back into the calves. We all know about the gross amounts of steroids and hormones they pump into them. Don't even get me started on why eating veal is about the most repulsive thing you could ask me to do.
So where do you start? I say go to your local farmers market (rather than the organic food store)and ask the beef guys about their business. How many head they have, what they feed them in the winter, if they have a pasture to graze or are confined, if you can go out to his farm/ranch/land and make purchases there.... just try to get a feel for him and his operation, a good producer will be able to back up all of his claims.
Then once you have an "in" with a producer is where you can start to save a bunch of money on ALL your protein. Ask about buying a side of beef or the whole damn cow. Ask him where he gets his eggs from (more than likely he knows several.) Go to the egg lady and see if you can haggle her down a few cents a carton if you buy 3 dozen at a time. Ask her if she sells any produce (and so on and so on...)
I challenge you all to make 2 small comparisons for me: buy a pound of (lean) ground beef at the supermarket, crack it open, and take a whiff - probably not very much aroma. Go get a pound of beef from your farmers market and *WHEW* when you open it the whole kitchen smells like silage!! Then my favorite one to show people is comparing the egg yolks of a grain fed free range hen to a commercial egg... you think your eggs-over-easy tasted good before wait till you dip into one of these guys and that ORANGE yolk pours out add a little salt mmmm best bedtime snack.
If you cant afford to eat ALL organic i'd start with brocolli(large surface area), organic lettuce is fairly plentiful which means usually fairly cheap, sweet potatoes/yams same deal, bananas usually get heavily marked down near the end of their life-cycle (brown bananas taste better in your protein shake anyway).
Seriously guys, if you take the time to do the footwork(it can be as little as 1 saturday morning) it pays huge dividends. Consider investing in a small freezer (assuming you only have a small one on top of ya fridge) so you can store more raw food/mass-produced(by you)meals. On top of this you are supporting a hard-working family business while getting top-notch nutrition as well!
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