Appreciation and exploration of whole animals is the sustainable way to eat meat. We owe it to our local farmers, the farmers who have a passion for what they do and how they do it, to explore their products in their entirety. We hate to break the news to anyone who thinks otherwise: A cow is not a walking loin. To see these same three cuts on every restaurant and steak house menu, and to see these steaks take up the majority of display space in virtually every grocery store and butcher shop is, frankly, appalling and boring.

Since industrialization in the meat industry kicked in-roughly fifty or so years ago-and the mass production of cheap boxed meat became commonplace, omnivores have become creatures of habit.

Let’s clear the air right off the top: We have excluded the three most expensive steaks, the bread and butter for most butcher shops, from our list for the following reasons: Product Reviews / Main Nibbles / Meat & Poultry Best Value Steak Cuts The World’s First Steak Guide To “Sustainable Steaks” Excludes Tenderloins, Strip Steaks & Rib SteaksĬAPSULE REPORT: We are automatically programmed to think of tenderloins, strip steaks and rib steaks as “the best.” But are they? Two master butchers from the gourmet butcher shop, The Healthy Butcher, explain why you get more bang-for-the-buck with other delicious cuts.Ī steak guide without the coveted New York strip steaks, rib steaks, and filet mignon? Ludicrous? Well, not from our standpoint-“our” meaning any self-respecting butcher shop that has the availability, nay, we say pleasure, of buying whole animals, not just boxed muscles. MARIO FIORUCCI and TARA LONGO own and operate Toronto’s Healthy Butcher on Queen Street West, where they are reviving the art of properly aged and butchered meat.

Other names for flat iron steak