“Twenty five pounds of beef? Where are we going to put it?” asked my husband.

“In the freezer.” I said.

I’d wanted to try getting meat directly from a farmer for a while. I wasn’t sure how my husband would react when I told him I was going to order twenty five pounds of grass fed beef from Beef Connections, nine small farms who have a co-operative sales and delivery service. After an initial surprise at getting that much meat at once, my husband agreed that it was a good idea. I placed an order online and the next weekend found us driving to a parking lot on Bloor Street, where I was to pick up the meat and give them a hundred and thirty dollars.

The people who brought the meat were the farmers themselves. They were very friendly and quickly found my order. It comes in a big cardboard box, which they helped me carry to the car. Twenty-five pounds of beef seems like a huge quantity, but it fit in our freezer with plenty of room to spare. I could have even ordered the fifty-pound assortment.

So far, my husband and I have eaten a roast, ground beef and sirloin steaks. All of them were delicious. It tasted like the higher priced supermarket beef or the beef that I have gotten from the organic butcher. The beef is not organic. However, it has only been fed grass, hay and corn. There’s been no animal products or hormones used. Antibiotics are only used for illness and not as a preventative measure. This was much less expensive than buying meat from the supermarket, and the profit goes to the farmer. It only travels a short distance, so it uses less fuel for delivery.

Another benefit is in less packaging. They come individually wrapped in paper, in a cardboard box. I threw away no plastic wrap or Styrofoam. All the wrappings were put in my City of Toronto green compost bin. Deliveries are made every three months to several locations around the Toronto area, and a few of the farms will let you pick up meat from their premises. We will be ordering again for the next scheduled delivery.