Is all cooked meat in supermarkets processed rubbish?

[Marcos]

The ingredients lists on those cooked sliced ham packs is scary. Is it just impossible to find decent cooked meat?

I'd really like to pay a bit extra and get a pack of ~200g of pre-cooked beef for example that is not mixed with random chems. But I haven't found that yet.

I realise there is a preservation problem, but just wondering if anyone's cracked it.

[Ttaskmaster]

Impossible... unless it's the Delicatessen, perhaps...?
I dunno - I tend not to buy that stuff anyway.

I suggest either learning to cook it yourself (because it's cheaper, fresher, healthier, tastier etc etc) or get into cured meats like biltong and droewors.

[Domestic_Ginger]

I think you're stuck in a catch 22. The lifestyle of buying cooked meats has been made possible by adding the preservatives in order to give them a shelf life.

Most of the fresh meat will have been pumped full of water and bits to artificially inflate weight. That's before the antibiotics and gawd knows what the intensively farmed animal was fed before it was slaughtered.

[Marcos]

Yeah that's a shame.

It's a shame that no one has cracked this yet. It's possible, just the price is question.

[Saracen]

You can find a range of variants in supermarkets, and in my opinion, broadly, quality is directly reflected in price. At the higher end is a high-end supermarket (which, on a national basis, so excluding the likes of Harrods and F&M, means Waitrose) and you then have a choice of a couple of slices from a joint on the deli counter, to vacuum-packed 'premium' products, then down to more mass-market stuff. At the very bottom end (in my opinion) is "reformed".

So, two issues :-

- chemicals, preservatives, etc
- exactly what ingredienrs, and type of meat, are involved.

If you buy 'reformed', then it might all be beef, or ham, or whatever the packet says, but what part? High end cut? Or cheap cuts, 'connective' tissue, and so on. If, on the other hand, you buy premium vacuum-packed, then you can see it's slices of a proper joint. And if you buy from the deli section, or better yet and optimally, from a good, local butcher, you can see the joint it's cut from.

I use a really good local butcher (well, two actually, depending on where I am, one being a farm shop). The butcher knows the local farmers, sources (almost all) his meats from local farms, and cooks them himself, on the premises. The farm shop, for beef, IS the local farmer, and they have direct reciprocal arrangements with identified farms for other non-beef product. So the farm shop supplies beef to the Devon farm he gets pork, ham and dry-smoked bacon from. He deals with several farms for lamb, basically starting in Devon early in the season and working up the country as seasons progress. In all cases, the farm is identified and I even have the phone numbers of the farmer if I needed to contact them.

In an ideal world, I'd agree with Ttaskmaster and 'cook it yourself'. But it isn't usually practical, for many joints. To get it right, it really wants to be quite a large joint to avoid it drying out, and with just two of us most of the time, such a joint would see us having a week or two of roast, cold cuts, sandwiches, curry, etc just to use up the joint, when all we wanted was three or four slices for sandwiches for a couple of days.

Hence ... butcher or deli counter. We can check the joint, decide how much we want not just buy what's in the pack, specify how thick we want to slices, and so on, and while it isn't a cheap way to buy meat, my view is you get excellent product, always fresh (buy small and often, not in large quantity) and because you specify exactly what you need, isn't as expensive as it at first might appear.

So yeah, you pay a premium. But a little, usually zero, waste, and it's worth it for the taste.

And that, by the way, is also my policy for everything from mince, to sausages, to tinned tomatoes. The difference between cheap tinned tomatoes and premium, say Italian, isn't huge in price, but it is in flavour. We keep an eye on the premium ranges in Waitrose and they are periodically on offer, often half price. When they are, I ALWAYS buy at least a couple of four-packs, even if I have several at home. I have plenty of storage space, and nearly always, enough stored to see me from offer to offer, for a top-up.

For sausages, and I do like a good (stress, GOOD) banger, I always buy from the butcher. And, I can watch him make them, so I know precisely what goes in .... and what doesn't. I even make them myself on occasion. And yeah, I get on well with him.

Failing that, again, high quality, premium sausages are worth the extra. Budget line sausages? Hell, no. I know what goes in 'em.

Anyways, I've gone a bit off-topic, but Marcos .... yes, you can get good quality sliced meats. But other than something like Waitrose, and their higher-end products, you'll have to hunt out the gems, because my local butcher and farm shop aren't much use if you're at the other end if the country.

I used to buy generic stuff because it was easy, convenient and I was busy and pressed for time. But years ago, I took the trouble to research, track down, inspect and sample local farms, butchers, etc, and by God in Heaven, was it ever worth it. It's not necessarily cheap, byt not as expensive as you might think.

Some meats, like bacon, are actually cheaper. Not to buy, pound for pound, but once you cooked rashers of (most) supermarket bacons, strained of some fat and poured away a gallon or two of that milky liquid they pump in, you need about four rashers of the crap bacon to give the same cooked quantity as a single rasher of a decent dry-smoked bacon. And there is NO comparison in taste. There's the same relation between the two as a current Aston Martin has with a 1970s Soviet-bloc people's car.

There's no easy answer, Marcos, but to do the legwork. Check out the deli's, check out PREMIUM packaged stuff and please, please, check out local butchers and farm shops (which might take some finding). My farm shop doesn't advertise, and will NOT be found by mistake. In fact, it was hard enough even with their postcode and a SatNav. They're really tucked away. But it was worth it.

[Jowsey]

Get down to your local farmers market/ trustworthy butcher, get some cuts of the meat you want in your sarnies and grab one of these.

That's probably your best bet. But then, of course, you have the preservation problem with your now cooked and sliced meat. So, still a catch 22 situation.

[HalloweenJack]

https://www.cureandsimple.com/

bacon through the post

[HalloweenJack]

btw I work in a supermarket - and I allways get my meat from the deli, usually it costs less than pre packaged and watch them slice it

[Galant]

You can find a range of variants in supermarkets, and in my opinion, broadly, quality is directly reflected in price. At the higher end is a high-end supermarket (which, on a national basis, so excluding the likes of Harrods and F&M, means Waitrose) and you then have a choice of a couple of slices from a joint on the deli counter, to vacuum-packed 'premium' products, then down to more mass-market stuff. At the very bottom end (in my opinion) is "reformed".

So, two issues :-

- chemicals, preservatives, etc
- exactly what ingredients, and type of meat, are involved.

If you buy 'reformed', then it might all be beef, or ham, or whatever the packet says, but what part? High end cut? Or cheap cuts, 'connective' tissue, and so on. If, on the other hand, you buy premium vacuum-packed, then you can see it's slices of a proper joint. And if you buy from the deli section, or better yet and optimally, from a good, local butcher, you can see the joint it's cut from.

I use a really good local butcher (well, two actually, depending on where I am, one being a farm shop). The butcher knows the local farmers, sources (almost all) his meats from local farms, and cooks them himself, on the premises. The farm shop, for beef, IS the local farmer, and they have direct reciprocal, arrangements with identified farms for other non-beef product. So the farm shop supplies beef to the Devon farm he gets pork, ham and dry-smoked bacon from. He deals with several farms for lamb, basically starting in Devon early in the season and working up the country as seasons progress. In all cases, the farm is identified and I even have the phone numbers of the farmer if I needed to contact them.

In an ideal world, I'd agree with Ttaskmaster and 'cook it yourself'. But it isn't usually practical, for many joints. To get it right, it really wants to be quite a large joint to avoid it drying out, and with just two of us most of the time, such a joint would see us having a week or two of roast, cold cuts, sandwiches, curry, etc just to use up the joint, when all we wanted was three or four slices for sandwiches for a couple of days.

Hence ... butcher or deli counter. We can check the joint, decide how much we want not just buy what's in the pack, specify how thick we want to slices, and so on, and while it isn't a cheap way to buy meat, my view is you get excellent product, always fresh (buy small and often, not in large quantity) and because you specify exactly what you need, isn't as expensive as it at first might appear.

So yeah, you pay a premium. But a little, usually zero, waste, and it's worth it for the taste.

And that, by the way, is also my policy for everything from mince, to sausages, to tinned tomatoes. The difference between cheap tinned tomatoes and premium, say Italian, isn't huge in price, but it is in flavour. We keep an eye on the premium ranges in Waitrose and they are periodically on offer, often half price. When they are, I ALWAYS buy at least a couple of four-packs, even if I have several at home. I have plenty of storage space, and nearly always, enough stored to see me from offer to offer, for a top-up.

For sausages, and I do like a good (stress, GOOD) banger, I always buy from the butcher. And, I can watch him make them, so I know precisely what goes in .... and what doesn't. I even make them myself on occasion. And yeah, I get on well with him.

Failing that, again, high quality, premium sausages are worth the extra. Budget line sausages? Hell, no. I know what goes in 'em.

Anyways, I've gone a bit off-topic, but Marcos .... yes, you can get good quality sliced meats. But other than something like Waitrose, and their higher-end products, you'll have to hunt out the gems, because my local butcher and farm shop aren't much use if you're at the other end if the country.

I used to buy generic stuff because it was easy, convenient and I was busy and pressed for time. But years ago, I took the trouble to research, track down, inspect and sample local farms, butchers, etc, and by God in Heaven, was it ever worth it. It's not necessarily cheap, but not as expensive as you might think.

Some meats, like bacon, are actually cheaper. Not to buy, pound for pound, but once you cooked rashers of (most) supermarket bacons, strained of some fat and poured away a gallon or two of that milky liquid them pump in, you need about four rashers of the crap bacon to give the same cooked quantity as a single rasher of a decent dry-smoked bacon. And there is NO comparison in taste. There's the same relation between the two as a current Aston Martin has with a 1970s Soviet-bloc people's car.

There's no easy answer, Marcos, but to do the legwork. Check out the deli's, check out PREMIUM packaged stuff and please, please, check out local butchers and farm shops (which might take some finding). My farm shop doesn't advertise, and will NOT be found by mistake. In fact, it was hard enough even with their postcode and a SatNav. They're really tucked away. But it was worth it.

Quality. Post.

Cheers.

[Marcos]

There's no easy answer, Marcos, but to do the legwork. Check out the deli's, check out PREMIUM packaged stuff and please, please, check out local butchers and farm shops (which might take some finding). My farm shop doesn't advertise, and will NOT be found by mistake. In fact, it was hard enough even with their postcode and a SatNav. They're really tucked away. But it was worth it.

Someone needs to solve the part about finding local farm shops. There should be an app or something. I wouldn't know where to begin.

I'll ask around, but I wish there was a nice site that had this all worked out.

[Marcos]

btw I work in a supermarket - and I allways get my meat from the deli, usually it costs less than pre packaged and watch them slice it

Yep but has the meat in the deli counter also been messed with a bit? I'm not sure about the ingredients list on those either.

[peterb]

It depends what the meat is, cured meat will by definition have had preservatives added (which are 'chemicals, just as the basic constituents are 'chemicals') so ham, salami, pastrami etc will have preservatives, even if it is only salt.

Cooked meats that are preserved by heating and chilling may have less, but their use by dates will be shorter.

[Domestic_Ginger]

Google and yellow pages for butchers. You can call them up and save a trip if they're in the are end of nowhere.

We turned up at a venison farm once to be greater by some deer. Not a soul in sight. It seemed they only catered to businesses! Nice drive though :/

[Ttaskmaster]

Also be aware that not every farmer/farm shop is going to be good at making sausages...!!

[Marcos]

Also be aware that not every farmer/farm shop is going to be good at making sausages...!!

Yeah that is my other worry. Independent doesn't guarantee good.

[abaxas]

Yeah that is my other worry. Independent doesn't guarantee good.

Damn right.

Sausages are actually hard to make as the quality of the meat is important but not as important as the fat content. A high meat sausage is a horrible thing as it's dry.

My sausages tend to be made from quality shoulder and the fattiest belly pork I can find. I actually find the the supermarket's belly is best as some of it is almost all fat.

I think of this a bit like the chicken curse. Everyone seams to want breast but if you want taste your a leg/thigh man