THE MEAT SHOP OF TACOMA

Earlier this week I made it out to The Meat Shop of Tacoma.  Aside from the two (not one!) flat tires I got somewhere along the journey, the rest of the trip was a success!  I was already familiar with their products from perusing their website numerous times, but until now had not had the opportunity to get out there to purchase healthy Paleo friendly meats.  I wasn’t sure what to expect upon arrival.  Would it be a huge store, or someone’s house, or a mix in between?  It turned out to be in between.  Just outside the city limits of Tacoma, down a long country road, sits a small farm that sells some of the best tasting healthy meats you will ever have!

The Meat Shop of Tacoma offers an assortment of high quality certified organic meat and poultry that combines good taste with good nutrition. Their yearling cattle are pastured on certified organic fields year round and supplemented with a small amount of certified organic seed grains; barley and oats, to make high quality meat without excessive fat.  In order to be certified organic animals cannot be fed any animal by products at anytime!

The Meat Shop is the oldest Certified Organic Meat Shop in the US, offering the largest complete selection of Certified Organic Beef, Poultry, Pork, Cheeses, Pastured Bison, Lamb, and Chemical Free Cured Meats including Sausages, Lunch Meats, Beef Jerky, and Pepperoni.  Their farm and meat shop are certified organic according to NOP standards through Washington State Department of Agriculture, and they have always been committed to sustainable agriculture as a way of life and have been proudly certified in the organic food program since its inception.

Certified Organic Beef

At the Meat Shop, yearling cattle are pastured on certified organic fields year round and supplemented with a small amount of certified organic seed grains; barley and oats, to make high quality meat without excessive fat. The beef are dry aged two to three weeks. BSE or Mad Cow Disease is not a factor in their certified organic cattle, because animal byproducts have always been prohibited. They raise their cattle without hormones, antibiotics, appetite stimulants, animal byproducts, sewage sludge, GMOs or synthetic additives and they use no coloring agents, preservatives, fillers or additives of any kind in processing the meat.

Certified Organic Chicken

The Meat Shop purchases chickens raised on certified organic feed without antibiotics, arsenicals, or other medications common in most fryer programs. To compensate for not using drugs, great attention is paid to the daily comfort of the birds. They are free ranged with plenty of room to move around, and cleanliness is extremely important. The fryers grow more slowly, reaching market weight at eight weeks, rather than the usual five to six weeks for birds in the supermarket. The fryers take a bit longer to cook, but the more mature texture of the meat and richer chicken flavor are well worth the extra time.

Certified Organic Pork

The Meat Shop purchases their locally grown certified organic pork from the Klingeman family farm located in Ephrata, Washington. Pure Country Pork is fed a vegetarian certified organic diet, raised without confinement, hormones, antibiotics, animal byproducts, and GMOs. For more information on Pure Country Pork and the Klingeman family farm, please go to http://www.purecountrypork.com. Pork is available by the whole or half, cut to your specifications, or sold by the individual cut.

Natural and Certified Organic Diestel Turkey

The Meat Shop purchases whole turkeys and turkey products from Diestel Turkey Ranch. Diestel turkeys enjoy the freedom to roam the clean Sierra Foothills in Northern California. The turkeys are given extra time to grow and develop flavor naturally – an extra two months with no growth stimulants and absolutely no animal by-products. They are fed a low fat vegetarian diet of corn and soybeans. Diestel turkeys were voted #1 Best Tasting Turkey by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Chemical Free Cured Meat

There has been so much prejudice against curing meat without sodium nitrite that “meat experts” assured the Meat Shop that it could not be done. Now, they have pioneered natural meat curing processes in the Puget Sound area. They use NO nitrates, nitrites, phosphates, sugar, MSG or other coloring agents including celery or beet juice in their cured meats. Therefore, the cured meats retain their natural color.  For those customers who are allergic to wheat or gluten, they use certified organic uncut spices and certified organic wheat free tamari.  They also use pure kosher sea salt and substitute certified organic honey for sugar or dextrose in all recipes. Their ham and bacon come from young lean pigs and their regular high quality meat is used in all cured products. In addition to ham and bacon they have a full line of lunch meats and various other cured meats as well as sausages, pepperoni, and beef jerky.

Plan Ahead!

The majority of the Meat Shop items are blast frozen, so plan ahead!  You most likely wont be able to get tonight’s dinner out there.  But after planning your menu, make a trip out there to pick up what you need for the week.  Or better yet, have it come to you!  If you live neat the Proctor Farmer’s Market, place and pay for your order online at the Meat Shop Website by Thursday, and they will send your order to the Saturday market with Cheryl, the Pig Lady, where you can pick it up at her booth.  I will write about Cheryl at a later date.  For those of you outside the Tacoma area, the Meat shop specializes in online sales, so place an order and they will carefully ship it to you packed on ice.

What did you buy?

For my first trip out, I purchased a Peking white duck for later this week, some wonderful fresh skirt steak for a quick cooking breakfast meat with eggs, a grass fed brisket and chuck roast for my next batch of Corned Beef, a boneless pork shoulder for my upcoming Posole’ recipe, and a boneless pork loin that I will roast some time down the road.  The larder is full, and I am excited about the healthy Paleo friendly meats I have acquired.

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