Whether you are an aficionado of Italian, French, Chinese, Indonesian, or Turkish cuisine, there is a good chance that your favourite dishes all have one thing in common: meat. And as any gourmand knows, quality meat can make or break a meal.
This is also, unfortunately, why it can be such a challenge to move toward a healthier diet. Tender, prime cuts of beef and marbled slices of pork belly are essential ingredients in a lot of wonderful meals, so when the doctor says it’s time to make the switch to chicken and fish, it can be heartbreaking. There are lots of ways to make salmon tasty, but it will never replace a premium Stroganoff.
Fortunately, it’s not a zero-sum game: if you care about quality food but also want to embrace a better lifestyle, here are two tips for how you can source great cuts that will also be good for your body.
Order Local
We all know that fatty red meats have a negative impact on overall health, and most of us have been warned at one point or another about the dangers of red meat. But there are ways to source these luxury cuts without placing an undue strain on your health by ordering local meat.
In almost every case, local meat:
- Is free of antibiotics and artificial hormones
- Contains less fat (especially when grass-fed)
- Is richer in healthy omega-3 fatty acids
- Comes from animals not subjected to feedlot conditions
Furthermore, local meat also tends to be raised in more environmentally sustainable ways, so if you’re looking for flavour, quality, and a cut of beef that you can eat in good conscience, local is the way to go.
Try a Delivery Service
This might seem like a strange suggestion —isn’t delivery primarily about convenience over quality, after all? But the truth is that when you order your meat online you increasingly have the widest possible range of healthy gourmet meat options.
When shopping at a butcher or supermarket, most shoppers face a choice: butchers usually have healthier meats from local farmers, but for this very reason they are often constrained in the selection they can offer. Supermarkets offer a greater range, but you don’t always know where what you’re buying comes from.
Using a fresh meat delivery service that sources local meat is the best way to get the best of both worlds: a full range of meat products that have been raised, butchered, and prepared using artisanal methods.
In a society that is increasingly conscious of the role diet can play in sustaining — and undermining — our overall wellbeing, many foodies find themselves facing a difficult question: is it possible to achieve greater health by cutting back on meat dramatically, or is it necessary to give up on meat-rich dishes and cuisines entirely?
The truth is that while moderation is always a good idea in the case of potentially risky cuts like red meat and pork belly, switching to high quality, local, grass-fed meat that has been raised in environmentally sustainable ways is a great way to make healthy choices without skipping the steak and bacon altogether.