Home › Forums › West Seattle Rants & Raves › RAVE: Meat the Live Butcher – Best Beef Jerky!
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April 4, 2013 at 2:49 am #607024
Green GuyParticipantDiscovered this place a month or two ago over in White Center next to the Wal-Green’s. I don’t know about you guys, but I love me some beef jerky! They make the best jerky I’ve ever had. That and the owner Tom’s great customer service keep me coming back for more. Same butcher from the old Bernie & Boys store in Top Hat. Here is the website to check it out and what else they offer.
April 4, 2013 at 3:11 am #787495
clark5080ParticipantB&E Meats also has very good Jerky several varieties to boot
April 4, 2013 at 3:38 am #787496
miwsParticipantLive Butcher is great!
I was so happy to see them back in business, and even happier when I ended up just a couple blocks away from them, when I moved back to West Seattle a few months ago.
I’ve become a regular customer!
Mike
April 4, 2013 at 3:54 am #787497
The Velvet BulldogParticipantI don’t even eat beef and I’m completely in love with the teriyaki beef sticks.
April 4, 2013 at 4:35 am #787498
christopherboffoliParticipantI’d have a hard time patronizing these guys as I feel like we already have more than enough places sourcing beef from industrial feedlots in the Midwest. There are plenty of Washington ranchers doing grass-fed beef within 300 miles of Seattle. Personally, I prefer to support them.
April 4, 2013 at 6:18 am #787499
elikapekaParticipantChristopher, other than The Swinery, where do you recommend for Washington grass-fed beef?
April 4, 2013 at 3:20 pm #787500
christopherboffoliParticipantPCC sells it.
Amazon Fresh will deliver it to your door.
Whole Foods will have grass fed beef when they open.
Thriftway sells Painted Hills “natural” beef. It’s not necessarily grass-fed but at least it is from the Pacific Northwest and free of the injected antibiotics and hormones that are necessary when you raise cows on a diet of corn.
April 4, 2013 at 4:17 pm #787501
funkietooParticipantYou are spot on Chris!
April 4, 2013 at 5:41 pm #787502
JanSParticipantand can you state the source of the meat that Live Butcher sells? Curious minds want to know?
April 4, 2013 at 9:41 pm #787503
SueParticipantJan, their website says “The beef is from Washington state, the mid-west of the U.S. and also from Canada. It is grain fed and possibly grass-fed.” Not very specific, although I bet they’d tell you more if you asked them.
April 4, 2013 at 11:55 pm #787504
mike0323ParticipantSo does that mean Meat the live butcher doesn’t do grass fed? That’s a shame because I’m near by. I try to avoid Corn Fed as much as my budget can handle.
Re: Recommended local grass fed options: Blue Valley Meats. I’ve been dealing with them for about 5 years. They used to be known as Thundering Hooves. I think they are more of a distributor for Walla Walla area grass fed farms now. They have meetups regularly where you can pick up what you buy online.
April 5, 2013 at 12:23 am #787505
LiveButcherMemberIn response to Chris, about not supporting my business that carries grain fed beef, I wish to thank you for your comments and opinions. Here is a little more info for you and the public. I, Thomas Salle, am a proud, third generation meat cutter, born and raised in Seattle, WA, LOCAL. My family and business, LOCAL, was established in 1937. I continue my family’s LOCAL meat business with pride and do my best to provide the best quality service and also be competitive in pricing. I do carry Washington beef and have for years. Yes, it is grain fed. I also carry Mid West grain fed beef which is not local, but it is cut, sold, and consumed locally. I carry only choice and prime grade. I have sold Painted Hills beef and I do carry some from time to time. Also, I have been in contact with a cattle rancher in Pullman, WA to see about bringing in some local grass fed. I have tried grass fed beef in the past and it wasn’t to the quality that I would STEAK my reputation on. I’m building my inventory and I am now carrying natural elk from Minnesota, buffalo from South Dakota, alligator from the south, free range whole body chicken, grown locally in Washington, lamb, which is local as well as from New Zealand, and organic rabbit from Oregon. I also buy from and support my local vendors for my stock and supplies. I support my local community, WHITE CENTER WHERE THE PEOPLE MEAT! Any questions, comments, or concerns, call me, 206-762-MEAT(6328) Don’t miss a RARE opportunity!
April 5, 2013 at 12:52 am #787506
JayDeeParticipantClassy response LiveButcher.
I’d encourage you to let everyone know if that Pullman rancher comes through, and if you like the quality. Otherwise, let the customer know and let ’em choose. I avoid Southern grown chicken even if it is cheaper, and appreciate places, even TJs that sells local birds like Draper Valley Farms. Carry on.
April 5, 2013 at 1:57 am #787507
DBPMemberThings people should be asking themselves:
Are your cows eating more grass or grain?
And what about you? Are you eating more grass, but enjoying it less?
Try smoking it instead.
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Velveteena (#4) tells us that she doesn’t eat beef, and yet she is completely in love with the teriyaki “beef” sticks.
Which makes us ponder just what could it be, this not-beef beef of hers.
Whatever it is, I hope it was chopped, sliced, diced, squished, mashed and extruded humanely.
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Last thing for the know-it-alls (and yes, we are legion):
I believe that, technically, you can call beef* “grass-fed,” as long as it spends a certain amount of time out on the range.
I went on a tour of the Oregon Country Beef operation several years ago, and their “grass-fed” moo-cows spent the last several weeks of their otherwise pleasant lives on a feedlot being fattened for market. Eating . . .
Guess what?
The OCB people told me that the beef would not have been marketworthy had the fattening-up part not occurred. Marketworthy in this case meaning: “Worth the bother.”
There might also have been a taste-and-appearance issue there, and I believe this might be what Live Butcher refers to when he speaks of the quality issue.
My point: There is a lot of fudging going in the food labeling business. A LOT of fudging.
If you read the PCC newsletter, you’ll see that every other letter to the editor has a nit to pick about some labeling issue or other. It’s a veritable nightmare.
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*BTW, for you English grammar buffs: The word “beef” used in this sense is what’s known as a synecdoche.
You don’t literally feed “beef” grain or grass or anything else, because beef is not alive.
You feed cattle.
You eat beef.
April 5, 2013 at 5:21 am #787508
christopherboffoliParticipantMr. Salle, thanks for weighing in. I’m always glad to hear about longstanding local businesses and also about craftsmen who take up the profession of the generations before them. I just wish your meat was all as LOCAL as you are. I expect the neighborhood McDonalds restaurant franchise owners were born and raised around here. Maybe their parents and grandparents were franchisees too. And like your inventory, it could be said that their products are tasty and represent a good value for some people. But at the end of the day a local business owner and a local product are unfortunately not the same thing.
When your family business began in the 1930’s my guess is that the beef being sold was sourced from local ranchers whose cows dined on a diet of green grass and winter silage. Those grasses and clovers imparted to the beef heart-healthy Omega-3 fatty acids. The meat our grandparents ate was healthier for them. But because beef was more expensive then, they ate less of it and also were more resourceful about using cuts that today are completely unfamiliar and undesirable to most.
I expect you know that with the introduction of the Interstate Highway System in the late 1950’s it finally became practical to centralize the production of beef in large feedlots in the Midwest. And in the past 60 years the industry has gone from strength to strength in terms of the efficiency and speed with which they can produce beef. Cows grow a lot faster eating corn then they do grass. And in a country where the government subsidizes corn production it was a no-brainer to put that corn to good use.
But this ignores thousands of years of evolution that designed cows to do nothing but turn grasses into high-quality protein. Feeding cows a diet of corn eventually makes them sick and requires the use of bovine antibiotics and hormones to successfully bring this low cost meat to market. And consumers unwittingly get to play Russian roulette by eating a lifetime’s worth of (inexpensive but) hormone and antibiotic-laden beef that may or may not have negative consequences on human health. And if they dodge one bullet, they might fall prey to the next, like the cases of children dying at Jack in the Box restaurants because of E.Coli poisoning, or BSE “mad cow” outbreaks, or the recent issues of beef adulterated with horse meat in Europe, or any of the other situations that arise from mass-produced, poorly-tracked high-volume, industrial production of beef.
Of course the whole corn to cow ecosystem is also hugely dependent on petrochemicals, in the form of fertilizers and lot of fuel expended growing and harvesting crops, processing the grain (15 pounds of which goes into every pound of finished beef), feeding, slaughtering and processing the cows into primals, and transporting that meat thousands of miles (via refrigerated trains and trucks) to your shop. Feedlots alone currently generate about 15-25% of the USA’s annual greenhouse emissions and use massive amounts of water, about 2,000 gallons for every pound of finished beef that comes to market.
My point in all this is that we innovative Americans conceived a system that was designed to be profitable and to make beef more accessible to more Americans than it ever was 60 years ago. And while those are good things, over time it has become obvious that there are significant hidden costs that too often aren’t considered. I’ve only touched on beef here but the industrialized production of pork and chicken also have long legacies of not only abhorrent treatment of livestock but of calamitous effects on agricultural land and watersheds. And with advancing middle class populations in India and China who are also increasing their consumption of proteins as incomes rise, it only throws into sharp relief the extent to which our current system is consuming a much bigger percentage of resources (and creating corresponding overages of pollution) than cannot be reasonably sustained.
It is easier than ever for local butchers and meat sellers to include grass-fed beef not only as a small volume, specialty item but as a regular product over meat sourced vaguely from “somewhere in the Midwest.” And local meats are becoming ever more price-competitive. Not only are these products – sourced from a huge constellation of Pacific Northwest farmers and ranchers – usually created in a more sustainable manner with less impact on the environment but they’re more humane for the animals and healthier for the people eating them.
April 5, 2013 at 2:48 pm #787509
JoBParticipantLiveButcher…
can i assume that when i enter your shop..
i have been meaning to since miws raved about your pork chops..
that you will be able to tell me the source of whatever meat i wish to purchase?
April 5, 2013 at 5:13 pm #787510
DBPMemberI’ll save you the trouble, Jo.
When you buy a pork chop, the source is a pig.
When you buy a T-bone, the source is a cow.
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I’m big on labeling myself. I like grass-fed beef over corn-fed. I buy free-range chicken when I can. But I am not kidding myself. This stuff costs. And I’m not gonna guilt-trip some poor schmuck in White Center because he wants a steak now and then. Or wants to put a little hamburger in with the Helper.
But prices are already obscene, and to make it worse there is rampant food snobbery going on here. Oh yeah. West Seattle has a lot of food snobs. Almost as many food snobs as music snobs.
Met Market, Swinery, PCC . . . They are driving EVERYONE’s prices up.
Hellzyah, they have a good product. A great product.
But if po’ folks had to shop there, I shudder to think.
And don’t even get me started on farmers markets.
West Seattle people are classist in the extreme. Even when they’re trying their hardest not to be. They are.
(Go Meanders! Thanks for the good food AND good prices. Welcome to White Center, baby. So long California!)
April 5, 2013 at 6:02 pm #787511
JanSParticipantDBP…agree. Would I like to consistently shop at those places? Of course ! Does my wallet allow that? Of course not. So, I work with what I have. And shop sales. And clip coupons. And eat grain fed cow meat at times when I want a steak.
This is not a “bash the Live Butcher” thread…and sorry it’s happened.
April 5, 2013 at 6:33 pm #787512
DBPMemberLuv ya, Jan!
Yah, I know people here are not trying to Bash the Butcher. They are trying to do the right thing, and I ♥ them for that.
I’m with them: I’m for humane treatment and the absolute best possible quality of food. But in the meantime, the working class has to eat.
I say, if you wanna tweak someone for grain-fed meat, tweak Safeway. Yeah, the working class shops there, too. But Safeway can take the hit. This little butcher guy can’t.
Ach! The right thing sure is hard to do sometimes, isn’t it? Danged if it ain’t.
April 5, 2013 at 6:36 pm #787513
FlyonthewallMemberI am really pissed off that this thread has turned to bashing. People on this forum constantly preach about supporting local businesses but then tear them down. Especially when it appears that Boffoli hasn’t even patronized them to find out for himself!
My partner and I are THRILLED to have the butcher down the street from us. So far we have eaten the jerky, pork chops, NY strips, No. Dakota sausage, ground bison and kielbasa. Every bite of every item has been top-notch, even better than fancy items we bought at Met Market or most restaurants. In fact the NY strips were not only cheaper than Met Market and others, but they were thick and twice the size! We actually had to split one! They were so good that we had to go back in the next morning and tell him – something we rarely do!
Some dinners we’ve designed: bison spaghetti sauce, kielbasa sauerkraut soup, sausage & egg omelets, pork chops with bourbon glaze…..
If you haven’t been in to see for yourself, then you are TRULY missing out!Jan S – this guy will actually save you money in the long run and your taste buds will love you! Our freezer is stocked up now, and currently I am in Vegas for the weekend but now I want to go home and cook some more of those steaks!
RAVE, RAVE, RAVE!!!
April 5, 2013 at 6:55 pm #787514
RarelyEverParticipantLivebutcher – just mapped your location. I’ll be by before the week is out to try the alligator… and everything else! :)
April 5, 2013 at 7:08 pm #787515
FlyonthewallMemberRarely – I’m from Florida where we eat gator tail nuggets and sandwiches all the time. Depending on how it’s cooked, to me it tastes a little like pork.
April 5, 2013 at 8:46 pm #787516
RarelyEverParticipantFlyonthewall – just got back from NOLA, but didn’t manage to have the gator… too many other things I wanted to try, and, well, there’s only so much one can eat in any given day. :)
April 5, 2013 at 11:40 pm #787517
christopherboffoliParticipantIt is not bashing to articulate a personal choice and to back up that choice with research. There will always be boorish people who don’t want to know how the sausage is made…who think the absolute lowest cost is the only metric worth considering, regardless of the true cost for all of us. I’m thankful that I’m in a position to not have to be one of those people.
In 2013 there is nothing wrong with encouraging people to be responsible for their choices, and encouraging local businesses to support local farmers and ranchers over massive industrial Midwest feedlots.
April 6, 2013 at 12:24 am #787518
DBPMemberYeah, christopher. All true. You’re obviously not bashing and no one should have said that.
But at the same time, you have to consider the context of the discussion. If a struggling small business is the subject of the thread, and you know their bottom line could be directly affected by what you say, you have to be a little extra careful, that’s all.
This is not Oprah v. the Beef Council. Those two are both whales. (No pun on Oprah)
Let’s get Safeway to change first, then bring Live Butcher along later, when he can afford to take the risk.
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