Beef, it's what's for dinner?

I've been thinking quite a bit about food, particularly meat, and how to best approach it given my new priorities. I haven't really needed to buy meat for months because we've had a really full chest freezer. This is because last year, when I was laid off at the beginning of the year and didn't get a permanent job until Fall when we knew Jay would be laid off soon, I shopped the sales and stocked up as much as I could. We have been eating through that stock, because regardless of the impact caused by the production of said food, I can't believe that wasting it does anything but continue the problem. And with 2-3 of us here, we still have quite a bit.

But pretty soon, I'm going to run out of a couple key things. We might have 1 package of chicken breasts left, 1 whole chicken and no ham. We have plenty of ground beef, which makes me sad because that's the one thing I really want to purchase from safe(r) sources.

I recently found out there are two custom butchers in Annapolis. I'm pretty excited about this, even though I don't relish the idea of having to grill the workers about the source and methods of their products. I'm much happier to research online, but it's clear that's not always possible. I figured I'd go over there this weekend and see what I can come up with. (Even though really, I don't need to buy much if anything right now.)

But then I was reading this article and it has me questioning. Am I any better off at a local butcher than the organic (or even regular) options at the grocery store? As important as I know this is, sometimes I am tired at the work it takes to research all the foods we buy. But then I am reminded that that's exactly what the commercial growers and CAFO owners want.

The last PolyFace Farm delivery is coming up in November, and considering they've become the leader in all things sustainable farming, this had been part of my plan for months. Once it became clear that there was no. way. I would be finding a place for their bulk beef option (seriously, so. much. beef), I missed their ordering deadlines. We're coming up on their last delivery of the year, and I'm determined to get my order in this time. It's really hard trying to plan for what would likely be close to 4 months of food. I'll give it my best shot, and we'll see where we end up!