The Carnivore's Solution
by Cait Johnson

If you're going to eat beef, grass-fed is the ideal: it has very little saturated fat (much less than grain-fed) a healthy ratio of omega-3 fats—high in conjugated linoleic acid—and it's loaded with beta-carotene as well as vitamins A and E. Not to mention that it's impossible to get mad cow disease from exclusively grass-fed cows. If you detest the cruel practices of factory farms, you'll want to be sure your dinner was raised in a humane way. And if you care about your health, you will want to get meat from critters that were fed an organic diet, without antibiotics, hormones, or the ground-up remains of other animals.

So where to get humanely-raised, organic, grass-fed meats? The answer is Fleisher's, and Rhinebeck residents who are consciously and ethically carnivorous were thrilled when Fleisher's opened a branch in our village: many of us had been making a trek across the river to visit them at their Wall Street location in Kingston.

But you don't have to be a red-meat eater to love Fleisher's. Besides their humanely-raised organic beef, pork, and lamb (which they will butcher to your specifications), they offer toothsome organic free-range rotisserie chickens, regional artisanal cheeses and other dairy products, a wide range of gourmet sauces and condiments, fun kitschy toys, great books (like Nina Planck's Real Food and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, which are both must-reads, especially if you're not already convinced of paragraph one of this article), delicious pre-made takeout dishes, and lots, lots more. They also generously dispense samples, recipes, and cooking advice (which can be very helpful if you're dating a carnivore and it's been years since you cooked anything that mooed). And for folks that know how to hack off a cow leg with a big sharp knife, the employees at Fleisher's are just about the nicest people you'd ever want to meet. It's a real pleasure to chat with them, get a little of their incredible expertise, and generally bask in their love for what they do.

Fleisher's Rhinebeck shop, located at 47 Market Street, is open Tuesday through Friday from 11 to 7, and Saturday from 10 to 6. On Sundays they have a booth at the Farmers' Market. Call them at 845-876-6688 or visit them online at www.grassfedmeat.net.