Food Talk And Fabulous Finds - Purchasing Meat/Poultry/Seafood

I bought some chicken breasts this weekend at the supermarket, and when I got home and opened-up a pack of them, they kind of smelled funny. I was on the phone with my Mom, and I am NOT a cook, so I didn't know if maybe I was just being a little sensitive and they smelled normal, or if they smelled really odd. She said "they're probably ok," but without her being right there to smell, I didn't trust her! I finally decided they had gone bad, so I tossed them. They had an egg-ish smell to them. I opened-up another pack for comparison, and they just smelled like uncooked chicken (which is a weird smell, to me, anyway).

So, questions:

1. Do you think the pack of meat I tossed had really gone bad? It did LOOK fine.

2. Is there a better place to purchase meats/seafoods/poultry at, than the supermarket?

3. How can I tell if something (meat, poultry, seafood) is fresh when I purchase it?

I'm kind of sad because since that incident, I've been a little grossed-out about eating ANY of the meat I purchased that day. I don't think I'll be able to stomach it.

A meat market often has better meats, but not always. The freshest meat will usually be the meat market or supermarkets with the briskest business, because it doesn't sit around. Asking people where they buy their meats, or where they believe you can get the best meat, will often help (you'll notice some businesses coming up in conversation most often, both as the best and worst place to buy meat).

When we lived in Illinois, a meat market had the best meat in town. It was on a very busy street, and had a lot of business. The meat was a little more expensive, but not by much, and always was much better than anywhere else in town. It smelled cleaner raw, and tasted much better cooked than from anywhere else in town.

Now in Northcentral Wisconsin, we buy our meats from either a high quality meat shop, and ironically Walmart. The Walmart meets have been excellent, I believe because of the high turnover. People buy it super quick, and Walmart marks their meat down for quick sale if it doesn't sell faster than any smaller market I have ever seen (for long cooking methods like stewing, we even buy the markdown meats and have never had a problem with quality).

I also freeze all meats I'm not going to use the day of purchase (or once in a while the next day if it's a big piece of meat like a whole chicken or a large roast).

Meat should smell fresh, any smell that you find odd or wrong, probably is. I think chicken is probably the hardest to learn the right smell, because it seems like there is so much variance in how raw chicken smells. At least I have found it so - raw beef and raw pork, always smell pretty much the same to me, while chicken seems to be more different from brand to brand. I don't know if it has to do with what the chickens are eating or how old they are.

Seafood is easy, if it smells "fishy" it isn't fresh. If it has eyes they should be clear not milky, and it should smell more like the ocean itself.

Meats should be bright red, not gray, and if there's alot of liquid in the bottom of the styrofoam tray, it's been there for a while (harder to tell now that they put in that absorbent padding, so it's easier to tell by color). If there's a bone, it should be nice and clean looking. If the bone is grayish, or looks dry, it may not be fresh.

Always buy the latest sell by date. This is your biggest clue. Frozen is usually a good option (like NoName Steaks, etc), because they're usually frozen right away, and many foodborn bacteria are killed or drastically reduced by freezing. Which is another good reason to freeze meats before using.

You can also find a lot of information on meat and meat safety by doing internet searches of meat safety. Websites that are sponsored by agriculture departments of universitie and the US Dept of Agriculture are going to have the most reliable information.

Are you buying already-packed meat? If your grocery store has a butchery and a fresh fish market inside it, like most places do, it's generally fresher if you get what you want at the meat counter rather than from inside the cellophane and styrofoam packets.

If not, then frozen is actually pretty good. You just have to remember to defrost, which I'm terrible at!

I agree that Wal-Mart usually has good fresh meats. Also, they'll match the price of other stores, so I take our local store ads, where the meat isn't always the freshest, and buy it at Wal-Mart.

Also, I would have taken my receipt and the meat back to the store and gotten my money back. When I buy meat, I expect it to be good when I bring it home and at least into the next day before I freeze it.

Thank you for all your feedback and tips on spotting bad meat. I do sometimes buy meat at Wal-Mart, but I didn't this time. I am going to check out some local butcher shops, hopefully, this week.

I actually called the grocery store the night I bought the meat, and they just said bring in the receipt next time and they'll either refund my money or replace the meat. I'm just going to get my money back.

Only real problem about telling if meat is good by its color is that often butchers add red coloring to red meat to make it appear fresh.

I have found that frozen meat and meat from Costco is good. I've bought frozen steak, frozen chicken and frozen fish before. I look at the sell by dates on the meat to get an idea if I'm buying something that isn't frozen.