10 Things Your Butcher Won't Tell You

The upshot: Many butchers don't know a whole lot about the meat they're hawking — where it comes from or basic information about varying cuts, preparation or cooking time.

So where do you go if you want to know how to butterfly a leg of lamb? Look for an old-fashioned, owner-operated butcher shop, or visit an upscale market, such as Whole Foods. Theo Weening, the chain's mid-Atlantic regional meat coordinator, encourages untrained staff to enter a two-year apprenticeship program, and each year meat department personnel are taken on educational outings to organic ranches.

2. "No special orders."
Many meat departments don't even have butchers anymore. Thanks to an innovation known as "case-ready" meat, staff are often little more than glorified stock handlers. Case-ready meat is prepackaged in plants and delivered to vendors ready for sale. The industry contends pre-preparation helps prevent contamination, enhance quality control and lower prices. And while that may be true, it also means less choice for consumers. Staff at chains that rely on case-ready product are not trained to alter cuts. What you see is what you get — you can't ask for a boneless rack of lamb, for example, or an extra-large sirloin — and what's in stock is probably going to be cut and sized based on what moves.

Among the monster chains, Wal-Mart has led the way — its supercenters have carried only case-ready meat since 2001. Fortunately, not all stores are on the case-ready bandwagon. High-end and specialty grocers are the exception. At New York-based Dean & Deluca, for example, breaking down a carcass is part of the job interview. "We have highly skilled people because that's what our clients expect," says Bill Lettier, vice president of retail operations. The bad news is, you can expect to pay a premium for the privilege of choice.

3. "The real money's in prepared foods — marinades, kabobs... ka-ching."
"Don't take a butcher's advice on how to cook meat," Andy Rooney once quipped. "If he knew, he'd be a chef." Perhaps. But more and more butchers now spend as much time preparing meat as cutting it — often at a premium. Wegmans, for example, offers marinated pork tenderloins and chicken cutlets. On Aug. 28, the chain's Dulles, Va., store offered straight pork tenderloin for $5.29 a pound, while a honey-mustard-marinated version of the same went for $6.99 a pound. That's too much even for people who hate to cook, like Bonnie Cohen, an international business consultant in Washington, D.C. "Even I, who am both lazy and nondiscriminating, find the prepared kabobs and other meats are a waste of money," she says.

But markups aren't always so obvious. At Whole Foods, for example, oven-ready chicken and beef kabobs in various marinades or a New York strip steak in a smoked chipotle sauce cost the same as nonmarinated cuts, but a preshaped, seasoned ground meat patty can run 20 to 75% more than the regular stuff. Prices vary widely by region and depending on the cost of beef, so compare carefully.

4. "You thought fat was bad; wait'll you get a load of the salt content."
Americans' obsession with leaner meats has had an unwelcome consequence: Cut out the fat and you cut out the flavor. "Choice" beef, the grade most commonly found in supermarkets, has less marbling than it did 30 years ago — a result of breeding initiated in the 1970s to respond to health concerns over fatty meats. To counteract the lack of flavor, most processors get around the problem by injecting beef, pork, chicken and turkey with saline, which often reaches 15% or more of the purchasing weight.

Meat processors argue customers want preseasoned foods, which taste better and save cooking time. (These additives also add shelf life.) Critics counter that so-called enhanced meats and poultry are mushy and salty. And most customers are outraged when they realize what they're getting: "I paid for one-quarter of a pound of salt water when I bought a 2-pound pack of chicken breasts," seethed New Yorker Amanda Bernard. But for many people, money is the least of it: Enhanced meat can be risky for those who need to watch their salt intake. The good news is, it's relatively easy to spot enhanced products, which are required to carry an ingredients-and-nutrition label.

5. "You are what the animal eats."
Americans are consuming more meat than ever. In 2004 we ate over 221 pounds of meat and poultry per person, up from 199 pounds in 1990. In order for the industry to turn a profit on the low prices Americans have come to expect, most livestock are kept and slaughtered on factory farms, where animals eat corn- and soybean-based feed — 10 to 30% of which is often radically different from what the animal would consume naturally. For example, feathers, poultry manure and bedding are all acceptable in cattle feed, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Poultry may also be fed meat and bone meal ground down to an inexpensive, protein-rich powder that encourages fast growth.

This practice can be dangerous to humans. According to Consumers Union, between August 1997 and March 2004, 52 companies recalled products for violating federal rules protecting feed from infectious "prions," the proteins believed to cause mad-cow disease. Despite the recalls, the FDA has failed to institute stricter rules.

How can you avoid contaminated meat? For starters, buy organic, which prohibits feed containing animal byproducts. And for information on food safety, visit www.notinmyfood.org.