move over Tescos... [is it a kind of dream?]

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I've found something leaner! Hee :)

I've gone local for butcher and greengrocer, and will never look back.

Tescos, your meat and veg suck. Nyah!

I'll still buy other stuff there because the prices are unbeatable on clothes and laundry soap and cereals and tea and all sorts, but not the main part of our meals, not any more. Not now that i understand what free range and grass fed REALLY means...

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There are 23 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

I keep thinking about going to the butchers for meat but I never do. Is it really a lot better? (We go to Tesco and Sainsbury's) Chris (the husband) says it is but you know, coming from the US, I just automatically buy my meat at the grocery store. I may just try it some time.

I did too, for the same reason. Coming from the states it was a kneejerk thing to do.

Now i can walk 6 minutes down the road and stop in and grab whatsoever i want to cook for supper that night.

And i swear th meat is better. Nice sliced ham instead of that shit in packets, proper ham without fillers and water injected... mince that cooks up and leaves a bit of grease behind, whereas tescos turns into water and grease and gristle with no MEAT left behind... etc.

Yeah, its better meat, and though it may work out more expensive, it is worth doing.

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My local butcher sells meat which comes from local farms and has a little blackboard telling you which farm the meat was raised on that he's selling that day. And you /can/ taste the difference, absolutely.

@Leonie: my little local whole food and herbalist shop sells ecover and such washing powder and washing up liquid, and if you take the bottles back when they are empty, they refill them for you for less than a new one costs. Also, herbs and spices and such are about a tenth the price in there than they are in the supermarkets.

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Woot! I've been using Tescos naturally laundry stuff but ecover is just as nice. I didnt know they'd do that. We have a non-H&B health food shop round the corner as well, i will pop along today and ask. Refills = teh ♥.

Thanks, SB! :D

I ♥ our local butchers. There are 3 local, one is a chain, and I haven't tried the second, but the one right by us i think has the biggest selection and free range eggs and everything. And they're really nice bloke too.

I won't look back, no.

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I'm mostly veggie now, because Mat is, but I still love the wild boar and chestnut sausages...

* drool *

My local herbalist is run by this little old dude who is a steam train geek. Shrubby loves him. He stocks lots of herbs and spices and essential oils, but also herbal tea and organic fruit and veg and milk, and environmentallly friendly cleaning products, and organic chocolate (for Mat and Shrubby). All of it is either the same price as, or much cheaper than sainsbury's.

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Steam train, eh? Groovy! I love little local shops like that anyway, but its so nice to have them within walking distance. And honestly the prices aren't that bad, esp compared to Sainsbury's. Tescos beats them all, but it depends how much you want to give to the giants, kwim?

Our new house rocks! Even if its a little old ex councilly maisonette. it gets us through, oh yeah.

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Good for you! Support your local small traders!

We have a very good butcher just round the corner from where we live. He's won prizes for his haggis and sausages! :)

Well NOW i know what i've been missing, i'll never go back.

And yeah, its a local trader, not a chain butcher. There is a Walter Smith on the high street too, but they;re a chain, so we avoid.

This small shop has better meat and their mince works out cheaper than Tescos, the rest really doesnt matter. I dont mind paying a bit more to know where it came from and to know it will cook up nicely.

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El still buys most of our foods from the Co-op or wherever though, for convenience. But she is very choosy about her meat (snerk) so she goes to the butcher quite often. And the local fishmongers too.

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Be choosy, yes.

Fishmongers - that reminds me. I need to go to the fish market in the centre of Brum to get fish. The one in Erdington closed up, bummer, and we need some fish. I'll go stock up on pay day next week, and keep a chest freezer full of stuff. Mmmmm :)

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I like a bit of fishy! :)

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I ♥ white fish, with herbs on top. I like parsley and butter sauces on it too. Yum.

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El does these lovely things with fish in foil parcels, with bits of ginger and stuff. They're very nice. She does another thing involving smoked fish and spinach that I like too. Yum!

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Living in San Francisco, shopping at small grocers is what I use almost exclusively for my staple meats (mainly fish), and shop about every other day. Easier than huge grocery runs and I can get what I want. :)

Its so much nicer isnt it? And the grocery bills don't seem so huge either. And so much better than boxed and preprocessed shit, yes. I'm glad you can do that in SF, too. :)

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There's a deli where I get freshly-made chicken noodle soup (with lots of chicken), a Japanese market where I pick up eel and sticki rice to make unagi donburi, a market called Whole Foods where I pick up fully organic produce (It's EXPENSIVE but hideously healthy), and a butcher where I occasionally pick up small cuts of red meat. There's also a free trade coffee & tea place where I get my supply of tea as I only drink decaf coffee now.

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Wow! Sounds like you're sorted out :) I'm just discovering these things locally, seeing as we just moved, and i'm loving it.

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It's not exactly the same thing, but one of my uncles raises hogs, and every so often he'll let us buy half a pig and we can get ground pork or porkchops, even bacon, whatever we want and all we have to do is pay processing :) Sometimes it's good to be a farm kid :D

I really wish i didnt hate shoulder joints, chops sausage and bacon :( There's something wrong with British pork. I can just about tolerate ham sometimes, and the odd bit of bacon if it is well cooked like til its crispy, but the rest, i cannot eat.

Sometimes even the beef is wrong, and I couldn't eat a liver if i wanted to, even though before i got pregnant i had liver and onions regularly.

I can't even articulate it, its almost a taste that tastes like the stockyards smelled when i was a kid going past them in the schoolbus. Which isnt very specific, but its just wrong.

That said, free range meat = teh lub. :) I am glad you have an opportunity to get your hands on some.

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I watched Lake Placid last night and thought of you. :) That's my most fond movie of Pullman. Mostly cuz I remember watching it in theaters and having such a hella crush on him after! It lasted about 2 years me thinks if not less. Oh man, I got such hell @ school for liking him, but he's so adorable! Hehe.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Alligator frightened Bill. *salivates*

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Hehe. I <3 him in that movie!

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I ♥ him in everything he's ever done. Yum.

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