The Meat House is the exact opposite. It's a NATIONAL CHAIN full of meat that wasn't even packaged in NC in addition to a shop full of non-meat products being sold by people who are just working a job until something better comes along.

Furthermore, I, as a matter of fact, do know where What's Your Beef gets their meat (I'm not telling, either), and can say with certainty that it is indeed both local and natural. The source of their meats not only cares about the quality of their product, but also the health, quality of life and happiness of their animals, which ultimately makes for a superior end product. They believe as I do, that we should treat animals that feed and cloth us with dignity and respect.

I also have met, and conversed with (ad nauseum), an employee for The Meat House who, after a couple of beers, became very chatty. It's no secret that they are a Boar's Head butcher, which is about as natural as Oscar Meyer, Smithfield or Johnsonville. The employee with whom I spoke confirmed to me that when you shop at The Meat House you're just paying more for the same thing you get at Harris Teeter.

So we ate "natural", which was defined as: fed on Nebraska grass until it came time to fatten them up, which was done on soymeal. Otherwise there were no antibiotics or hormones used. It tasted better. That was at Whole Foods. Sorry, that "natural" wasn't malarkey. A qualification here: what we consider good tasting might differ from others.

The following is part of an ad from whatsyourbeefbutchers.com here in Charlotte:

"Are you tired of shopping for meats at a grocery store??? At What's Your Beef Butcher, we work directly with all our suppliers to seek out products that are raised LOCALLY with NO HORMONES, NO ANTIBIOTICS, and NO STEROIDS. We provide the highest quality meat for our customers. As such, you will find our meats and poultry (except sausages) are all natural and free range with NO hormones, antibiotics, or steroids. At What's Your Beef Butcher, our mission is three-fold:

* to provide our customers with the healthiest and freshest products available.
* to charge the fairest price possible.
* to offer the best personal service for each and every customer.

If you don't see what you are looking for, please ask! We can get most everything you need within two days notice."

This is also not malarkey.

Re your comment:

"That is "my beef" for the day. BTW- to all the yuppies out there who think they are eating healthy because they pay triple at Earthfare, please educate yourself and start paying attention to labels. If an apple comes from Argentina or Mexico, you may want to re-think spending $3 on it, because you may as well get it at Walmart."

I agree on the apples from Argentina and Mexico statement, but you didn't say WHY!

We also got food poisoned from Snickers and Milky Way Halloween candy sold at Costco that was manufactured in Mexico. Two times!

I've even seen at Earthfare pasteurized milk labeled as organic. It is my opinion that we should read the labels put on food and any time spend educating oneself on food and what is being put into it is time well spent.

And I haven't found any organic meats that I found to taste, well, for me, good! If I ever find such, I'll post the details.

I agree with you 100%. Those of us who are smarter than a cow would like to know where our food comes from and WHAT THE COWS ARE FED EXACTLY. I could open a butcher shop tomorrow and get my product from Mexico and China and still say that my meat is "natural".

"NATURAL" = MALARKEY.

I want to see "GRASS-FED, FREE-RANGE, AND HORMONE/ANTIBIOTIC-FREE!!!"

Also, I do have thr right to know where my beef comes from. If What's Your Beef is too secretive to tell us, that a a HUGE red flag!

That is "my beef" for the day. BTW- to all the yuppies out there who think they are eating healthy because they pay triple at Earthfare, please educate yourself and start paying attention to labels. If an apple comes from Argentina or Mexico, you may want to re-think spending $3 on it, because you may as well get it at Walmart.

I'll be trying out What's Your Beef, as well, but several of the rumors, comments above simply have no basis. These places have been around for many years.

"Whole Foods got a lot of crap for this a few year ago- greenwashing for lack of a better word. They know what sells and what customers want to hear."

Are you saying this occurred with Whole Foods meats? Do you have a link to the article?

"It does not matter what your personal definition of "natural" or "organic" means if it does not allign with what the legal definition means. Otherwise, you might be kidding yourself everytime you walk down the grocery store aisle."

Are you saying that if say Whole Foods or Bristol Farms (I remembered the store name) say they are not allowing any chemicals or antibiotics, colorings, preservatives, pcb's mercury, etc., that they misrepresented their product? Do you have proof of this?

Of course, anyone can misrepresent a product. But I'm not going to test everything I purchase. There also is a point where one accepts the word of another as truthful.

Lying in business is murder on that business because when it is discovered that there is deception and deluding and this is disseminated broadly, that business will suffer. An example is BP (British Petroleum of Gulf infamy).

It's best to operate in honesty. I believe What's your Beef is an honest business.

What is your definition of local?

As to organic, it pays to know what the various organic labeling levels actually mean — because most of them don't mean what we might think they mean when we see the organic label.

I'm aware of some of the issues with Whole Foods, particularly that some of the vegetables they sold under their 365 Organic brand were brought over from China; and, in fact, I was called a Whole Foods "hater" when I posted about it despite the fact that we shopped at Whole Foods for decades.

At any rate, quite right that one has to be vigilant about food sources. Some stores do advertise their sources (or post them on little signs around the store), and hopefully it's all true, but beyond that, what do we know?

We can educate ourselves, and we can ask questions, but unfortunately, beyond that, it's rather cost prohibitive to follow merchants around to verify their sources — or to run tests on the food at those sources. Am I going to do it? I highly doubt it.

Ralph, your comment is interesting. I took the liberty of formatting it (with indented blockquotes) so as to make the quotes more distinguishable from your replies.

So good to hear your reply. It has much more specific data that a reader can get one's wits around.

My definition of "natural" has to do with obtaining food, such as meats, that are not loaded up with chemicals, preservatives, antibiotics, coloring dyes etc., so that my body does not have to process those as well as the actual food.

If a butcher advertises that that is what this butcher sells, then I'm interested. And it would be a good idea to trace it all the way back to the origin of the food, in this case the farmer, to verify that this is so.

I've also seen in California, Los Angeles, the butchers tell me that the meat is "natural" per the above definition and that it was locally raised; this was in both Whole Foods and another store that I forget the name of. Both stores posted this data on their walls in the butcher area: what was NOT in the meat and that it was local. This is what I've been used to. Local was, well, in the general area of Los Angeles. It was nothing for me to drive an hour to get somewhere. And the farm (or ranch) was located in a valley seventy or more miles north.

What would you define local to mean?

Ralph, I'm very glad you are not representing another rival store and you are not involved in any, shall we say, distastefully bad business tactics.

And I thank you for your imput. It is educational to me.