Best Quality Meat / Butchers in Dublin?

Jimmy Bottlehead

Hey all.

I'm currently trying a paleo diet, it's going well so far and I do feel better for it. However it's a bit annoying trying to find good quality meat in supermarkets. Are there any butchers in Dublin that specialise in grassfed / gluten free meats?

Adelie

For grass fed meat, buy Irish beef or lamb from a butchers. Avoid chicken/pork or find pastured at a farmers shop or market. However it's really not vital that you eat 100% grassfed meat.

Gluten is only going to be a problem if you buy premade sausages or burgers, just buy plain meat instead. Making your own burgers is simple and people make homemade sausages too.

Jimmy Bottlehead

Adelie wrote: »

For grass fed meat, buy Irish beef or lamb from a butchers. Avoid chicken/pork or find pastured at a farmers shop or market. However it's really not vital that you eat 100% grassfed meat.

Gluten is only going to be a problem if you buy premade sausages or burgers, just buy plain meat instead. Making your own burgers is simple and people make homemade sausages too.

I'll try a couple butchers, and see how I get on. Hopefully they can sort out sausages... I never used to eat them, but they're a recommended meat source in the 30 day Paleo Solution meal plan, and I go for the best quality ones, usually 80% pork with no gluten.

Any good fish markets / fishmongers? Or where to buy very fresh veg?

Rovi

Irish beef (and lamb) is a world, both literally and figuratively, away from the beef produced in North American feedlots, and THAT is the beef to which most of the Paleo/Primal gurus/books/websites refer. The systemic use of growth hormones & antibiotics, industrial wastes as 'feed', GM cereals & protein sources, and who knows what else that is considered 'normal' in those industrial beef factories is illegal here under both Irish and EU law. This stuff is stringently policed by a plethora of government agencies, AND by the farming organisations.
The 'green' image of Irish farming is very precious and it is guarded zealously by all the interested parties.

The vast majority of Irish beef spends the first part of its life suckling its own mother's milk and most of the rest of it grazing grass. Even when wintered indoors, as most livestock are here in Ireland, the bulk of their diet then is still grass based, in the form of silage. Cereals ARE fed, particularly in the final period before slaughter, but those too must pass and conform to the many and various quality assurance and traceability schemes.

'Generic' Irish beef is about as close to as you'll get to 'organic' anywhere in the world without actually having some sort of fancy official certification on it.
I've been eating 80-90% Paleo/Primal for the last couple of years (with occasional bursts of 100% ), and I'd have no qualms whatsoever about eating Irish beef, whether sourced from a farm shop, butcher, or supermarket; provided I can be CERTAIN it's truly Irish beef.

I'd be more reticent about eating beef from the catering trade or in the cut-price 'unidentified' sections of the supermarkets and convenience shops. Those businesses' main objective is their own bottom-line, and they have shown no great interest in supporting Irish indigenous industry or their customers' on-going health, and they can and do source their product from the lowest-cost producers they can find on the world market.


This got much longer than I'd intended, sorry.

tl,dr:
Genuinely Irish beef IS grass-fed, and is (in my opinion) perfectly Paleo/Primal.