To think meat is getting more and more rubbish

[Daisyxxchainxx]

I have always eaten meat. I also feed my kids meat. On an average week they have meat based tea 3-4 times.

Usually a chicken dinner
Sausage and mash
Bolognese/lasagne or cottage pie
Sometimes pork loins or a pork roast

The rest of the week we have things like pasta, fish, chicken burgers pizza or wraps

I've started to notice I can't eat sausages anymore. They make me feel so sick. Weird as I've in always had them. But I appreciate they are not good for you but it's useful with veg and mash. We also love spaghetti Bolognese but the mince is hit and miss. I often find grey patches in it. It often has a swollen packet and heaps and heaps of fat come out of it. I try and get the 5% fat one but often it's not available.

I've started cooking turkey balls as I figure they are healthier than beef mince?

I've tried musclefood chicken and wow it tasted so much nicer. I definitely noticed a difference in its quality. But they don't sell much else in terms of joints etc.

Is the best from butcher's loads better? Or is meat just rubbish in general?

I'm not wanting to go veggie but I don't want to feed my kids crap. If it's affecting me after thirty years of eating it I worry how rubbish it is.

Sorry for the waffle. Any suggestions?

Free range is much better than mass produced meat.
Mass produced is softer and less flavoured because animals don't move as much. And meat is either fatter or injected with water.
I can notice the difference in burgers on a grill. The best don't shrink as much and let out much less fat.
Sometimes there's less variety of free range, or it's not available, but in the end I think it ends up being cheaper than it looks because there's more actual meat.

We don't need a lot of meat, so we can have a bit less but better meat, no doubt.
No need to go for the worst options.

Unfortunately most people purchasing meat buy the cheapest they can get, so of course the quality is low.

The meat I buy is very expensive, so we buy very little and have to make it stretch, but the quality is superb. I'm fortunate enough to live close to a high quality independent butcher's shop though, that brings in produce from local farms.

I wouldn't buy supermarket chicken ever due to farming methods. We really would rather never eat chicken again.

We made the decision not to buy supermarket meat and instead only buy from local farm shop. To offset the increase in price we simply eat meat less than we did before. The difference in taste and quality is insane.

Sausages, I now use cauldron vegetarian much nicer as rubbish normally goes into meat sausages ( although we have some lovely local farm shop ones) mince, always 5% lean, even the coop sells it and it’s great

Other meat, chicken best I can get normally from a supermarket, beef and lamb from a local farm shop

Buy locally reared meat from your local butcher and buy less of it .
I live on a beef farm , red meat eaten in small quantities is the best choice . They are mostly free range except in winter so do have a good life . I don’t like how chickens are raised and we keep our own for eggs so we don’t eat it very often . Any processed food like sausages will always be a bit bleurgg

If I get meat from the supermarket I go for organic - not because the lack of pesticides makes any difference but it's slow-growing breeds which have taste. Lidl do organic chickens which are nearly as good as the butcher.
Expensive meat tastes more so you need less of it,so it balances out a bit. I tend to add a tin of beans to my pasta sauces and use less mince, for example.

A classic British sausage should be about 1/3 or more filler, and some of the brands in supermarkets are very good. I try to avoid really cheap meat - if it doesn't taste of anything, why bother? The cheap veggie 'chicken' nuggets actually taste better than chicken!

Waitrose do lovely sausages, the gourmet ones are as nice as the ones I used to get from the butchers, and often on offer (3 packs of 6 for £10). That's a fair bit cheaper than the bucher's sausages.

Since lockdown has made shopping a pain in the arse, I've been buying most of our meat from Waitrose or Tesco, but I found Lidl's corn-fed free range chicken to be rather good. It actually tastes like chicken used to. The last of the one we cooked on Weds is going into risotto tonight.

The price of meat has shot up lately imo. The 5% fat mince I buy in Waitrose is almost £11 a kilo! I'm going to buy a load from the butcher, along with some braising steak, if I ever I find a time when he hasn't got a queue going halfway down the street.

Re cutting down on meat, as pp has said meat substitutes are not everyones bag. But they can be very useful for anyone making the transition to cut down on meat. The Linda McCartney range is good. The lovely Paul McCartney is still involved and committed to good quality standards. Give it a try, if you're cooking for family they may not even notice it's not meat if you don't tell them!

We like Morrison's meat (and fish), I am picky with sausages though and only get really good ones, sometimes I get the very high percentage meat ones on a monday night reduced to silly money and chuck them in the freezer.
I can't say I have ever had anything bad in Aldi or Lidl, I have found lidl fish to be good, and Aldi's better range of individually packed steaks have been better than anywhere else. Their aberdeen angus steak mince is also one of the nicest.

High quality meat from a butcher or direct from farm is worth the extra money - the meat is better and goes further, so even if it is more expensive (and it usually isn't) you can buy less of it.

We're exactly the type of family who need meat substitutes to transition to eating less meat, due to having an assortment of picky eaters. The thing I have absolutely not been able to find though is a decent veggie mince. We basically don't eat mince at the moment because we'd rather have a joint for our treat red meat meals, Dh won't eat chicken or turkey mince and I think qourn/soya mince is pappy, tasteless and grim. I love mince dishes though so if anyone can recomend a good firm textured veggie mince I'd be grateful.
Hope you don't mind me borrowing your thread, OP!

Thanks all. I will look into butcher's. I've got some Linda McCartney sausages to try!

To the women who has written on my other post that I need to feed my kids better. You are rude and judgemental. If you see this first I have wrote on my other post my kids have had Weetabix for breakfast

Ham sandwiches, grapes, blueberry and yoghurt for dinner. A banana for a snack. They are having fish fingers, mash and veg for tea. I'm not sure why you think them having meat makes me a bad mother.

When I moved to Ireland, I was staggered at just how much better the local meat produce is, over here, even from the local supermarket. The local speciality bacon is really good and not pumped full of preservatives and water.

I buy most of my meat from a local butchers as he also gives us lots of free bones for the dog and sells a dog food meat mix for €1, that we cook in the pressure cooker with veg for the dog.

OP, if you can find them locally, try Clonakilty Ispini pork sausages. I know Tesco used to sell them and they’re tasty. As an occasional treat we buy sausages from one of the the butchers in the English Market in Cork. They’re really excellent!

Low fat meat is the shit stuff!

Mince is supposed to have some fat on it. You dont know what they do to the bloody cows to get 5% fat mince. Bleurgh.

If you are buying the cheapest available meat, it will be the "race to the bottom" stuff, quality wise.

To the women who has written on my other post that I need to feed my kids better. You are rude and judgemental. If you see this first I have wrote on my other post my kids have had Weetabix for breakfast

Take no notice op

Honestly at the moment we could all relate to not eating so great now anyway ( not seen your other thread so no idea what's supposed to be "wrong" ) i just mean that between reduced activity, stress of attempting homeschooling and boredom has all reduced appetite anyway and with the added burden of being faced with utter shit food wise to cook with that offers no inspiration whatsoever, as whatever you do will come.out tasting mediocre anyway no.matter how.much effort or love you put onto it, just makes it really hard to motivate yourself to bother.

Well that's kinda how I feel anyway and you sound kinda similar

Pay more, get better quality, have less of it if necessary

I ordered from an online meat specialist a couple of months ago, got a bunch of different things for the freezer. And do you know - the pork chops tasted amazing. The flavour took me right back 30 years to when I was a kid and we ate our own pigs. You don't realise how used you get to lower quality.

The guinea fowl was incredible too - I'm partial to a guinea fowl!

Cheap = tasteless. I think it's better to cut down on the amount of meat you eat, and increase the quality/price.

Our local butcher's meat is mostly local, not pumped full of water, and really tasty.

@glumygloomer re Vege mince. Avoid Quorn as it is low protein. Soya is better. Dried as good as frozen. The key is to add seasoning and usually tins of tomatoes and puree, depending on the dish. In bolognaise, lasagne, chilli I have served it up this way to meat eaters and they can't tell the difference.

I know you dont want to swap out all meat, but mince is pretty bad for you anyway so why not try quorn mince?

Also make a bean chilli (just use kidney beans, butter beans, what have you) and canned lentils can go in anything like shepherds pie. Healthier, cheaper, better for the environment (give yourself a tick) and.. not disgusting

Mince is such little meat why bother with a 'meat' one

Agree about have meat way less often and pay more for you when you have it.

A women said my kids would be better off if I fed them better. I was commenting on being worried for the future on a separate post. She had obviously read this and presumed I don't feed them anything substantial. I have kids who like raw pepper and carrot etc. They have fruit everyday and veg. So I refuse to agree I feed them rubbish. That said they do have treats too.

Yeah I must admit veggie ideas are a struggle. I have got into veggie burgers but the kids don't like them much. I usually give them fish fingers instead. I have tried the Quorn mince in bolognese and we didn't like it.

This week on Sunday we had a roast chicken dinner.

Monday we had turkey meatballs.

Tuesday we had pasta with garlic bread and vegetable sauce.

Wednesday was pork loins with veg and potatoes.

Yesterday we had jacket potato with salad and tuna.

Tonight is veg, mash and breaded fish.

Any suggestions for veggie meals would be appreciated

My fave vege meals are- sweet potato and chick pea curry.

Lentil Dahl

nigella has a lovely vege chilli recipe

I like.soups alot too.

It is with everything,good quality has its price and I think meat shows it extremely well.

I buy only organic if I buy meat from a supermarket. At least I know there is not just rubbish inside. Even with Waitrose there is a dip in quality when I compare their Duchy organic to my butcher’s free range chicken.

Saying that , some butchers aren’t a lot better, you need to try and test them and stick with the one you like and sell your soul for a decent roast.

We eat quite a lot of meat but I found i buy smaller portions and eat more vegetables. Maybe meat needs to go back to be a treat but that will only work if people know how to cook other meals from scratch like two - three generations ago.

Veggie recipes:
Mac and cheese
Veggie bean chilli, PP suggested - I add diced carrots, mushrooms, peppers, quorn mince but you can use soy or lentils and beans.
Omelette - easy but most kids like it
Lentil Bolognaise (Nigel Slater has a brilliant recipe)
Dal, flatbreads or rice
Veggie stirfry, we have tofu with ours (I crisp the tofu first and add back in at the end)
Veggie soup and crusty bread, my 8 year old loves it. Carrots, parsnip, sweet potato, butternut squash, leeks, decent stock and red split lentils for protein. You can pre chop veg and freeze some for a quick meal. I don’t like frozen soup.
Ratatouille and rice or (garlic fried potatoes)
Lentil and aubergine moussaka
Veggie lasagne