Book Review: Good Meat

It took me an embarrassing amount of time to read, but I finally finished reading Good Meat by Deborah Krasner.

I think I’ve finally burnt myself out of Russian Novel sized cookbooks about pastured meat. This is no knock on Deborah. The book was well written, informative, and had some great pictures in it. She’s a James Beard award winner, so even though I haven’t made any of her recipes I’ll go out on a sturdy limb and say that they are pretty good.

The points that she makes in the introductions to each chapter are pretty valuable and are great recommendations for how to know exactly what you are getting.

Being a meat snob is a good thing. It’s the most or one of the most expensive things that you will buys, so you should know the most about where it comes from and feel justified in being choosy. Making informed choices is always a pain, which is why it took me a few months to get my act together for the Crossfit Inception meat share.

Pretty much everything you get out of reading a book like this can be found in videos like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-rM9LYZ5oA or the DVDs that White Oaks Pastures gave us.

Honestly, if anyone is not intuitively sold on the Grass-fed Beef is better than feedlot beef thing please let me know. I could write forever on the better taste, health benefits, environmental sustainability, etc of the topic.

I’d probably jump down that rabbit hole right now, but from keeping up with Karen Pendergrass and her efforts at Paleo Approved and Meat Eaters for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sort of leaves my brain supersaturated on the topic. Not that overwhelming my modest brain power is a feat, but it happens nevertheless.

My recommendation is economize your efforts and energy on the topic. Read (or listen to podcasts and watch youtube videos) enough on the topics that you can converse about them intelligently with people who disagree and spend your time with cookbooks on the recipes by actually cooking your own meals.