Humane practices shopping - how do you make it affordable?

I have always been somewhat disturbed with how animals are raised and slaughtered in our factory farm system. While I would like to support the practice of humanely raising chickens, cows and pigs, the differential between traditional supermarket meat and poultry prices and small scale meat and poultry prices are rather extreme. For example:

- my local grocery store (Westbrook market) had boneless, skinless chicken breasts for 99 cents a pound. While this is really inexpensive, its not too difficult to find these at $1.69-$1.99 on sale most of the time. In contrast, Whole Foods had them for $6.99 a pound.

- Pork butts usually range from 99 cents a pound to $1.89 a pound. The pork butts that I have seen at farmers markets and Whole Foods usually go for $4.50 a pound and up.

What I'm trying to figure out is why there is such a range between family farm meat and those that have been raised in a humane manner. I would have no problem paying twice as much for humanely raised and processed meat but I don't know how families can do it. I mean, there is a big difference between paying $8.40 for a 7 lb. pork butt for smoking vs. $35.00 for one at Whole Foods or a farmer's market. How do you tell what meat and poultry has been humanely raised and what is just overhyped labeling ("all natural")? Is there a way to raise and sell humanely raised meat and poultry in a way in which the farmers don't go broke but that I don't go broke as well? Is it all economics of scale and subsidies that producers like Tyson survive and prosper? For those of you who have families, how do you do it?

I'm curious - let me know what you think.

I have friends who are part of what I guess is a poultry CSA-- they get frozen chicken directly from the farmer. One person has a freezer in her garage and receives the deliveries, and everyone comes and picks theirs up. This saves the middle man/men, so perhaps the chicken is less expensive than WF, I don't know. And you certainly know if was family-farm raised.

Splitting a whole animal with people and butchering it yourself saves a lot as well. It can get the price down on pork, beef and lamb quite a bit.

We do a mix of about 50-60% from small producers and the remainder is from places like Costco. We split a pig or cow every few months and buy some meat from the farmers market. We're actually looking into buying a freezer to keep in our garage so some of our friends in smaller apartments can get in on splitting animals. A butchered half pig can be fit in the fridge of a large refridgerator.

The price difference has to do with the space required, the feed, and the final weight of the animal. Animals that aren't treated with loads of hormones, get exercise, and don't eat feed that is basically junk food, take longer to mature and don't put on as much weight (resulting in a lower sell weight for the same amount of $ and effort).

Economy of scale. Large volume producers spread fixed costs across a lot more product and lock in the price they pay to their subcontractors so they have predictability. If you're going to a much smaller producer then increases in feed cost and other costs get passed on.

also, if your conscience is bothering you, as mine certainly does, eat humanely raised animal products but eat them less often and in smaller quantities. most americans eat way too much animal protein anyway. the way i look at it is, i'll eat meat less often, eating vegetarian or dairy meals more often, and therefore not spend anymore for meat than i would have before. it's actually a healthier way to eat. hope that helps, justjoan

I struggle with this too, especially since we feed our animals a raw food diet and need to purchase meat regularly.

I'd like to hear more about that poultry CSA... would your friends be willing to share some info on it?

A lot of good points here - I knew that economics of scale would make a difference but it seems to make a bigger difference than what I thought. It would be interesting to watch if Wal-Mart can use its influence and distribution system to lower prices on organic foods and if some of the bigger food producers such as Cargill and Tyson will get involved and develop a "boutique" line of meats and poultry products that stress sustainability, humane practices and "heirloom" lines of hogs and chickens.

Another good tip in addition to those above is to stock up when you see sales (assuming you have the freezer space for it). Whole Foods, for instance, has weekly sales on meats and rotates the offerings on sale, so it may make sense to load up when you see something you know you would use. For instance, bone-in pork shoulder is normally $3.99 per pound, which is quite a bit more expensive than the $1.00-$2.00/lb you are likely to find elsewhere. But it periodically goes on sale for $2.49/lb. When they do that, I often buy a couple of shoulders (ask for them to get a whole piece from the back if you want something more than 3-4 pounds, which tends to be the range they put in the display) to freeze, even if I have no intention of smoking one or otherwise using it that week. Still more expensive than purchases of factory farmed meat, but getting more in the ballpark. Whole Foods also has 3-day weekend sales, where some things will be deeply discounted (e.g., $7.99/lb for ribeye steaks as opposed to $14+/lb), and I tend to stock up then too. Same with the pre-packaged "family packs" Whole Foods periodically offers where you buy in quantity (say 4+ pounds of chicken breasts or thighs), but the per pound price is $1-2/lb cheaper than if you got a smaller quantity or if you got it at the butcher counter. I also do sale shopping stock-ups at the farmers' markets, as certain vendors (Dietzler, for example) will periodically have one or two items available at special prices or on bulk purchase discounts.

The one other tip I have (in addition to the recommendation to just eat less meat, which justjoan suggested), which is related to the above in terms of shopping sales, is that you will save money if you are more flexible on what you want to eat in any given week. My wife typically sketches out three or four complete dinners for the forthcoming week with corresponding shopping list, but leaves some flexibility to buy what is on sale or otherwise represents a better value, and then mix-and-match on the various meal components. If you go into a grocery shopping trip knowing you have to have cut of meat X, you may end up paying whatever price it is, regardless of whether there are lower cost alternatives if you just rethink your meal. When we are in CSA seasons (we usually do spring, summer and fall), we actually tend to think more in times of side dishes (from the CSA box) or dishes incorporating CSA produce that could be made with a variety of meat types, and then just go to the store with a list to get one dinner's worth of fish, one of pork, and/or one of beef or something like that. In short, menu/cooking flexibility can help save some money as well.