The Healthy Butcher
Success is a beautiful thing. Such is the case with the new location of The Healthy Butcher in Eglinton West (Avenue and Eglinton).
The second installment of the franchise more than complements the highly successful Queen St. location. In fact, although it's more than twice as big (it's more of a small grocery store than a butcher), it is all about quality not quantity here. On offer at this location is also organic produce (all organic, lots of local), cheeses, oils, bread, and more. Basically everything you find in your average grocery store, minus all the aisles in the middle. If you're the type that does most of your shopping at the perimeter of the big chains, avoiding boxes and bags, you'll be right at home.
Items that caught my attention included fresh Lake Erie pickerel (walleye), duck and other animal lards (where else can you find this stuff?), and artisanal cheeses from Ontario and Quebec (samples of Toscano cheese anyone?).
While there are all sorts of interesting items for sale here, let's not forget the focal reason you'd want to shop here: meat. It's still the focus of the store, offered up through a fully enclosed square meat counter. The manager claims the store's philosophy is about "whole animals", not boxed meat or just traditional cuts you can find at any butcher. That means making an effort to showcase all cuts of meats and educate customers through their displays, website, and newsletter. It's one of the reasons they wanted a store with more space, to "showcase the whole animal".
Meats here comes mostly from Field Gate Organics, a co-operative of small Ontario organic farms, and a few other small local farms. For all the emphasis on healthy meats I was a bit disappointed in their selection of grass-fed cuts, which was limited to only four beef items. The "pasture raised" label is used quite a bit which can be misleading as those animals are usually still grain fed or finished. Not very natural for our herbivore friends. I was also pretty excited to see their hamburger patties on sale for 50% off. Just about to put some in my cart, I asked if there was anything added and was disappointed to hear they contained breadcrumbs. To their credit I was told they sometimes carry gluten-free hamburgers and label them as such. Some might say I'm splitting hairs, but if you are going to pony up for expensive meat then what the heck.
I have to give them credit for a variety of choices rarely seen, including rare cuts of beef like "clodhammer" (rotator cuff) and game meats like elk and venison. And kudos for the to-the-point label on their hot dogs which reads "No garbage added all-beef hot dogs." Imagine that.
When it comes to pricing, it's no surprise that you pay premium, but it's not outrageously expensive. Lean ground beef goes for $1.05 per 100g (or about $4.76 per pound) which is pretty good for premium meat. It goes up from there but they do have specials and can answer questions that would elsewhere get you nothing but strange looks.
At the back, in plain view, is an area dedicated to slicing up and processing all the meat products in the store. It's not much to look at but it's nice to be able to actually see where your meat is being handled. It looks clean and lets you know that they can do up your meat any way you'd like.
If coffee is your thing you don't have make a separate stop or settle for a mediocre brew as the store has its own little cafe in the front corner called Ambrosia Cafe which uses Fresh Coffee Network beans (which are also for sale in bulk). It's nice to see that the beans used and for sale are labeled with a roast date so you know it has been less than a week since they've been replaced.
I left the store feeling pretty satisfied. It's definitely one of my new favorite butchers in the city. I glanced at their mission statement on my way out, "To ensure your food is produced the way nature intended." Pretty close for a store in this city.
Discussion
19 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
meat is murder
Tasty, tasty murder.
Providing consumers with locally and ethically sourced meats hardly warrants the designation of murder. Calling it murder cheapens the word and the brutal severity of human cruelty. This is especially true given the atrocities committed in the name of rampant consumerism, which most of us -- vegetarian or otherwise -- are inevitably complicit in through our reliance on conflict-ridden products.
moo...
HA ethically sourced meats. You're complicit in animal cruelty when you eat animals. Fullstop.
Good god people.
Is it possible for this website to have a single review of a butcher or meat focused restaurant and not have it turn into a debate on vegetarianism vs. not vegetarianism (or murder vs. not murder if you will)?!
People eat meat and people don't. Posting a review of this shop is not a sinister method of forcing one to eat meat, nor is a review of a vegan restaurant or grocery store a sly way of illustrating how 'barbaric' those that eat meat are. This is a public website trying to provide a democratic view of the food options in this city. Enough said.
Leave the debates and picketing to something more worth while, like the mayors latest idiotic idea to get rid of the gardiner or the TTC's lack of service.
Eh, I'm comfortable with my lifestyle.
Mmm, burgers! I feel like Hitler for cows!
I'm more concerned with The Healthy Butcher's use of the deceptive 'pasture raised' phrase since all beef is initially pasture raised. Look and ask for '100% grass-fed' which means the animal ate fresh pasture grass in the summer and only hay, not grain, during the winter.
BTW I have as much ethical and emotional trouble when I pick a young healthy lettuce plant out of my garden and eat it alive, as to when I hunt and kill grouse and deer for my own food needs.
I had a discussion about grassfed meat at The Healthy Butcher this past weekend at there grand opening on Eglinton... I think I was talking to the owner. Anyway, he pushes 100% grassfed as much as possible for several reasons - because that's what the animals were meant to eat, and the health benefits - low in fat, high in Omega 3s and EFA. They carry Elk, Beef, Bison, Pork and even cornish hen that are 100% pasture raised. At this time of the year though (spring), there's a lot less grass fed meat in the shop because he says that eating dead hay during the winter is not the same as eating fresh pasture, so they choose to let the majority of those animals graze during spring and part of summer before they start to carry a lot more grass fed meat - healthier and tastier.
Great to see a local business with amazing product grow.
I eat vegitarians
Neat pastries.
I stopped being a vegetarian because it became ridiculous and bad for my health. Now I eat wild fish, elk (and caribou, when it's available and I have enough cash) and, as much as possible, locally grown, organic fruits and veggies and when not possible, free-trade. I have been to the Healthy Butcher on Eglinton though. It's pretty expensive to get decent product there. I strongly reccomend St. Lawrence Market. There's a man there who has his own elk farm (grass-fed) and has a much better selection of game for a much better price. The fish across the way is also fantastic.
Not impressed with the fact that the wedge of cheese I bought had an expiry date several weeks past due. I didn't discover this till I got home, I wouldn't expect that a store with this type of image and price range would have expired products in their dairy section. The other stuff I bought was okay, ham was way too salty, meatballs so-so. Not worth the money.
There is lots of room for all of God's creatures on this wonderful earth..........................Right beside the peas and the mashed potatoes.
where,s the beef. I like vegetables but,I like them better with a BIG JUICY STEAK. If your a vegetarian then good for you. But please mind your own business and leave my steaks alone.
You enjoy your veggies ,steamed or with lots of butter,and I will enjoy my steak medium rare. In my house its beef 24/7
m m m m m m good.
So BON APETIT
While I like the idea of the Healthy Butcher, its execution leaves a lot to be desired. Its organic produce, at least the stuff I've looked at, comes from thousands of miles away -- not exactly "healthy" in the good-for-the-planet sense of the word. Its meat, despite the jaw-dropping price, is indifferent -- especially the cold cuts, which have been stale and dry every time I've tried them. And, most damningly for me, its staff has the unfortunate tendency to ignore its customers. Add to that the pushy and obnoxious clientele, and you've got very little to enter the place, as far as I'm concerned. I don't see it lasting much longer at its present location.
Vegetarianism is the most unhealthy diet one can possibly eat. The human body is designed to eat a variety of meats and veggies, however trying to survive on veggies alone will get you sick, and or kill you eventually. Curious? Just study the way our ancestors lived hundreds and thousands of years ago, the evidence speaks for itself. Dont get fooled into, red meat is bad for you, this is cruelty, this is that and blah blah blah... Look at all the primitive peoples throughout history, they were the HEALTHIEST people that ever lived on this planet when they were studied, and guess what? NONE of them were vegetarians! OPEN YOUR EYES!
Nick S,
First let me say that I'm all for eating meat. Your argument for human health by way of eating meat is, however, quite flawed.
If you look at the archaeological record of the "primitive people" you so vaguely refer, they're bones do not generally show much disease or other stress indicators. That means they were healthier, right? Not necessarily; it may be that the diseases that killed them (assuming that they died not from human conflict) moved so quickly that they did not have time to cause bone infections, abscesses, etc., i.e. the kinds of things that are evident in a bone record. These early peoples may not have been healthy enough to fight off such diseases for any length of time.
Along comes increased agricultural practices (read: domestication of both plants and animals) and the formation of highly complex civilizations, and the archaeological record becomes filled with bones that show the effects of all sorts of diseases. This is because agricultural practices made them more more unhealthy, right? It is not likely. These individuals were healthy enough to fight off of the diseases for an extended period of time such that these diseases had time to affect their bones. Put another way, they were healthy enough to live with diseases that may have killed off earlier peoples much more quickly. The preceding is a paraphrase of something called the osteological paradox; go check it out for more info.
Off course there are many factors when determining human health; diet is just one. Genetic make-up and environmental factors are two other significant factors that come quickly to mind. This point also serves to undermine your position that eating meat is large determining factor for health. Since you have not not shown cause and effect, the correlation between meat consumption and over all health may only be a spurious one.
The large point here is that using the human record, as way to make the claim that eating meat equals health, in that way that you have, shows a real lack of understanding of the complexities and nuances of said record.
My own opinion on the matter is that vegetarians can be just a healthy as any one else. It just takes a balanced and well thought out diet; much in the same manner that any meat eater can maintain his or her health through diet.
What ^^^^^ said