Contradictions in Meat

One of things that we have found ourselves thinking and talking about a lot recently is the relationship people have to meat (flesh). Because of the diverse crowd of consumers at Fleisher's we are exposed many different conceptions and receptions of meat. People want, expect, or believe strange and often contradictory things in terms of the meat products they consume.

Here are just some of the things we have seen:
-People think they want 100% grass-fed meat but they would be outraged at the idea of buying an animal that has been frozen four eight-months. 100% grass-fed animals have a three month period when those animals are ready to slaughter, right after summer, when they have been eating fresh grass all day and gaining wight. The animals eat hay, which has no real nutritional value, all winter and don't put on weight, which means the meat wont be as good. If you want to have grass-fed meat all year long that means the animals must be slaughtered Sept, Oct, and Nov, and be frozen for the year.
-People want to buy high-quality meat- full of flavor, fresh, and tender. But people are freaked out by the fleshiness of meat and cook it till there is no remnants of life, and thus no flavor. Than they are angry that they paid good money for what they think is bad quality meat.
-People want pasture-raised meat, but they expect to see heavy marbling. The kind of marbling we are used to seeing comes from inactive muscles, the result of a penned in animal in factory farming.
-People want to buy sustainably but they expect that every cut of meat should be available to them at all of times. Nose-to-tail butchering is sustainable butchering. It means no parts are wasted, what can't be sold as a cut of meat (for whatever reason) is in to sausage or dog food. It also means that every animal you breakdown that week must sold that week, meat does not ahve a long shelf life. Yet, every animal only has so much of each cut (you must choose between your tenderloins and porterhouses and there is only one skirt per steer).