After enduring several months of renovations, our local grocery store (the King Soopers at Table Mesa and Broadway in Boulder, if you’re ever in the neighborhood) has finally completed the overhaul, and the store recently celebrated its Grand (Re)Opening. Happy to have the full store up and running again, I strolled up to the deli counter to order some Applegate Farms Black Forest Ham (thinly sliced, please).
Much to my dismay, I didn’t see any Applegate Farms meats…or any other meats, for that matter. With one exception: Boar’s Head. The person behind the counter must have sensed my concern at being unable to find my beloved Applegate. “We’ve switched over and now only carry Boar’s Head products,” he explained. Then he quickly added that Boar’s Head was just as high quality as Applegate, and that Boar’s Head is certified as heart-healthy by the American Heart Association.
To be honest, I’ve never really questioned the quality of Boar’s Head products (nor have I ever truly considered the heart-healthiness of my cold cuts (or deli meats, if you prefer that term)). I grew up eating Boar’s Head – my mom bought it precisely because she said it was high quality meat. Often, we’d get it from Pete’s Deli (no relation to yours truly) in Farmingdale, NY, where they made their sandwiches in true New York style…by piling the meat three inches high before getting started with any toppings. And I’ll admit, the Boar’s Head of my childhood tasted pretty good, and I wouldn’t mind reliving those days of my youth.
Thankfully, all Boar’s Head products – meats, cheeses and condiments – are gluten-free. That’s the good news (and so is the meat’s heart healthiness, I suppose). The bad news is that I buy my deli meat based on more than nostalgia for my childhood. I also buy my meat based on its environmental impact, based on the humane and ethical treatment of the animals that are ultimately killed to feed me, and based on the quality, simplicity, and all-natural character of the ingredients. Boar’s Head doesn’t say much about its meat on those points, which typically means that they don’t have much positive to say about it to someone like me, for whom those factors are important when deciding what meat to buy.
Which leaves me between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, there’s the convenience of shopping at my local store, where Kelli and I do the bulk of our food shopping (other than the farmer’s market, which closes at the end of this month). On the other hand, I’m committed to buying my meat from folks like Applegate Farms, who share my ethic and deliver on it. How the situation will resolve, I don’t know yet. But I do know that Boar’s Head is gluten-free, and so for now at least, I’m reliving the days of my youth, lunching on tall stacks of thinly sliced Black Forest ham.
– Pete