To b shocked by the price of meat a tthe butchers?

[LyraSilvertongue]

I bought:

Two sirloin steaks

Two (individual) chicken and mushroom pies

Eight thin slices of salami.

It came to more than £19.

And they wonder why people go to supermarkets for their meat. I'd love to buy good quality meat all the time but at that price we'd hardly ever eat it.

I was quite shocked by the price of the beef joint I bought for new year. It was over £10 for a joint to feed 6, which when I think about it now wasn't that much really.

We have a roast once in a blue moon, but next time I do beef I'm going to do the old fashioned thing of serving the Yorkshire pudding as a first course and then serve less meat. That way I should get at least another meal out of the joint.

i don't really bother with top quality meat as i'm a crap cook so it all comes out tasting the same in the end (chewy)

I have now decided to get all my meat from the local farm shop, it is more expensive but you know where it comes from-we just eat less of it and have more vegetarian meals and it works out cheaper over all.

Yes, YABU. You're paying for something's life - personally I think it's unreasonable for consumers to expect to pay the same price for a chicken and a packet of cornflakes.
I've raised sheep, goats and birds for meat and it's not a profitable hobby by any means. Eating meat every day is not a right and prices shouldn't be driven down to enable us all to chow on cheap, factory farmed animals. Personally I'd be ashamed to buy factory farmed supermarket meat and I'm a single parent on a very tight budget.
Buy from your local butcher (having established that what you're paying for is local, ethically farmed meat and it's not just the butcher inflating prices!), eat meat less frequently and enjoy the superior taste, clearer conscience. healthier body and reduced carbon footprint as a result.

i butcher - ify

it is ££££ but dont buy charcuterie there

My butchers is great quality and cheaper than the supermarket - its £3 for a chicken and he only sells free range ones - that will feed me and DH with some left overs for sarnies etc. I went the other day and bought a chicken, 8 rashers of bacon, two duck breasts, 10 sausages and some black pudding and had change from £20. I think thats pretty good!

Harrogatemum, chickens in this particular butchers were £20. Not many can afford that regularly.

my butcher is very good too. he sells everything from chicken feet (bleeugh) to organic stuff. bizarrely i see lots of people buying weird foreign mince at twice the price in somerfield a few doors down. i'd much rather give butcher my money than the supermarket.

lyra yours does sound v expensive though.

I second what Tippychick said. Meat isn't (or shouldn't be) cheap, and it shouldn't be seen as a cheap everyday thing. Buy decent quality meat that is ethically produced and gives the farmer a living wage. Eat less meat and enjoy having better tasting meat. Make the most of your meat - a biggish chicken gives us at least 4 meals for 5 people.

We only eat meat a couple of times a week because we refuse to buy poor-quality or unethically-produced meat. But we really enjoy the meat we do eat. When I was growing up (and I'm not that old!), meat was still something of a luxury - we didn't have a chicken every week or anything like that. Now it's seen as something cheap and cheerful, almost disposable, and there's something very wrong with that.

oh my god - £20 Lyra, that is outrageous!! It must be a very flash butchers...?

See, that's what I'm shocked at. Not that they're more expensive than supermarkets, that they're so much more. Maybe it's just this particular butcher. There is another one a short car ride away. I'll try there next time.

Trouble is that supermarkets have got us used to the really GOOD cuts of meat e.g. steaks and chicken breasts.

We aren't EDUCATED enough about meat now to know how to use CHEAP cuts.

I was in butcher's yesterday and an old man came in and asked for "4 pound of shin"

I can't even imagine what that was or what you would do with it, but I bet it was cheap.

shoulder of lamb
delishus

They did have a big pack of oxtails (don't know how much it was but I bet it was cheaper than sirloin). Maybe I should have bought that instead.

MP: shin stew is delicious - takes about 3 hours on a low heat but will be lovely and tender

we get all our meat from the butchers, yes it does cost slightly more, but is so worth it IMO.

i buy cheaper cuts of beef for stews, casseroles etc, then sausages, bacon, etc and then normally steak mince and a 'posh' bit, like a steak or FR chicken. A FR chicken at the butchers is £8 but i can do 2 days with it, easy, plus a few sarnies. well worth it. We go the greengrocers too instead of the supermarket, this is so much cheaper than the supermarket so i save there iyswim?

also chuck steak is cheap and nice for stews, etc. cook for a few hours, maybe slow cooker it.

i found that a pound of mince from the supermarket is full of fat which has to be drained.

the mince from the butcher is often minced in front of me and from a proper steak, nothing added, nothing taken away but i never have to drain it!

so i am getting more for my money cos while it may be a little more expensive it is a better cut and all of it can be eaten.

we stopped using supermarket meat after we were poisoned by a chicken breast from tesco. it was cooked properly but we were alll soooooooooo ill!!!!!! i wonder now whether it had warmed up and then re chilled.

I think this is a case of the particular butcher IYSWIM and also sirloin steak is at the top end of meat and not something I would consider buying. But that is partly because I am not that bothered about steak and also not that good at cooking it.

I buy most of my meat from the farm shop. I spend £20 ish once or twice a month and then freeze it. For £23 I got a pound of mince, 3 pork steaks, a brisket joint, a pound of stewing steak, a pound of sausages and a 5lb pack of bacon, which I split into packs of 2, 4 or 8 rashers of bacon and froze.

I used 8 rashers of bacon and made a big pot of pasta sauce which will feed the 4 of us for 4 meals - so obviously heavy on the mushrooms, peppers etc. But the meat content works out at half a rasher of bacon per person per meal.

Shin of beef is just stewing meat really. My Mum used to cook it when we were little to make either meat and potato pie or stew. It is the same price as stewing steak at the farm shop but tends to come in larger pieces rather than diced.

I recently bought a £6 free range chicken from butcher and made 3 meals out of it for me, DH and DTS (roast, chicken curry, and chicken and broccoli bake) plus made chicken stock out of carcas.

Last week I bought shoulder of lamb, 6 sausages, 4 slices of bacon, 4 slices of ham off the bone, gammon and some lamb mince. It came to just over £14.

I made a lamb curry and lamb stew from the shoulder (two meals) plus two meals out of the lamb mince (keema curry and shepherds pie which are in the freezer for next week). Tasty and excellent value for money.

I'm going to buy some beef shin on Friday and make Jamaican pea soup and a stew.

It might be expensive at the butchers, but the "cost" from the supermarket is much higher!

I think it depends on how high a priority good quality food is for you.

I never buy meat from the supermarket - my father is a beef farmer and in all his life has never more than covered his costs in its production - the supermarkets are churning out mass produced water and additive added produce and pay the farmers a pittance in the process.

I go to the butchers and get my meat for the week before I do my main grocery shop - a good mix for all the family usually costs around £20 - £30. I know it is good quality and I would rather line the butchers pockets than Tescos.

For anyone wondering about how to use cheaper cuts of meat, or indeed would like to know more about meat in general (where on the animal the various cuts come from, how animals are reared) etc., I'd recommend Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's "Meat" book. It's really informative, really interesting and has some great recipes.

His thinking on the question of meat is that it's better to eat meat - and eat good, properly hung (where appropriate) and humanely reared meat, produced locally where possible - 3 or 4 times a week ..... as opposed to spending the same amount on supermarket meat for a meat meal every day. I tend to agree with him ..... the quality and flavour of meat from a decent butcher is far above and beyond what you get in Tescos etc and I'd far rather have that less frequently than eat comparatively flavourless (and usually questionably raised)meat all the time.

As others have said as well, if you look into using the cheaper cuts of meat from a butcher more often, you could probably spend the same on meat as you always have done and still have it frequently. Oxtail is delicious .... it needs slow braising but it's no trouble to cook. Similarly, lamb shanks are another cheap thing where if cooked properly you get loads of succulent meat which drops off the bone. Pork belly, breast of lamb are other value choices. If you have internet access there's no excuse for ignoring cheaper cuts 'cos you can always find a recipe (or twenty).

A really good butcher is usually pleased to discuss cooking methods with you and that includes the more unusual (and often cheaper) cuts.

For anyone in North Herts, Allinghams in Baldock is the most fantastic butcher, where the staff will always prepare meat just as you need and will happily discuss how to cook it. I couldn't believe the flavour of their rib beef joint when I bought one a while ago ..... I think it was about £5 dearer than a similar sized one from Tesco but it tasted wonderful so it was all eaten. Shamefully, I have often thrown away leftover meat because it was so tasteless and no-one really wants that cold.

I agree Catsmother - River Cottage Meat Book is brill.
My tip is scrag end of neck - usually costs about a pound a pound (though probably £2 in Lyra's butcher). It looks really fatty and awful but in a slow cooked recipe like Lancashire hotpot or HFW's Tunisian lamb with aubergine it's melting, flavourful and gorgeous.

Have never found lamb shanks cheap though - I think they used to be but became trendy a few years ago so the price has gone up.