Meals With Meat in a Supporting Role Francesco Tonelli for The New York Times Cubes of raw veal shoulder meat for an Asian-style stew. I probably eat a third as much meat as I used to and, on the not-rare (three times a week?) occasions that I do indulge, I eat less of it. I'm reminded of a really good plate of slow-roasted lamb shoulder I had in Seattle two weeks ago; there were about six ounces on the plate, and I ate half. It was delicious, and it was enough. This is no longer a conscious thing but a new habit. The new habits, I suppose, come from new attitudes. The vast majority of Americans still eat meat at least some of the time. Statistically, most of us eat it in unwise, unsustainable and unhealthful quantities. I'm betting that you eat meat more consciously (and less of it) than you once did. The health, environmental and ethical concerns affect the attitudes of almost everyone I encounter, and although our priorities differ, few people I know indiscriminately fill their supermarket carts with shrink-wrapped meat and leave. Not long ago, almost all of us did that. It was never easy to judge meat quality, and that remains the case. The Agriculture Department grades meat by fat content, "select" being the leanest and "prime" the fattiest. This is not an adequate system for those of us who consider other things when we buy meat, including at least some assurance that the animal was treated humanely. There are also the issues of aging - with beef at least - and the animal's breed, but I'm not getting into that here. "Humanely" means different things to different people. Veal consumption plummeted in the "80s when confinement turned people off, and as a result crates are set to be phased out by 2017, producers say. But veal can be as natural a part of legitimate agriculture as any other animal. If you consume dairy, you support veal production. When it comes to beef, pork and lamb, some people insist that meat come from animals raised on small farms, individually tended; others are interested only that the animals are not raised in confinement or routinely fed antibiotics. Feed is also an issue, because cows evolved to eat grass, not grain. Many of us consider all of those factors when shopping. Sadly, claims like these are not ironclad and difficult to vet. But they're still better than buying commodity or branded meat from the country's biggest producers, which is almost assuredly from animals that have been subjected to confinement, prophylactic drug therapy and assembly-line processing. I feel best when buying from a farmer or farmer's representative I know, or think I know. But even assuming this is possible, it has what at first appears to be a decided drawback: cost. It's difficult to nail down averages, but if commodity meat - I'm talking about red meat here, but most of what follows could be argued about almost any product - costs something under $10 a pound in most cases, and national brands from humanely treated animals like that from Niman Ranch or Coleman Natural cost maybe twice as much, meat from local farmers costs considerably more. It's not uncommon to spend $25 or more a pound on beef from a trustworthy source. The immediate response that we as consumers have to this is "ouch." Counterintuitive as it may seem, this is good for everyone. Relatively large-scale sustainable and "natural" or "organic" or "humane" farmers might raise 500 pigs in a year - they are not getting rich. We want these farmers to earn a living; they are stewarding the land in a manner we appreciate and they are providing us with the kind of food we want to eat; they are not using antibiotics routinely or torturing animals. Nor are they likely to be receiving, directly or indirectly, federal subsidies. And they are providing us with meat that tastes better. All of which may not make up for spending $30 instead of $15. But there are other reasons you can live with these higher prices. It's widely accepted that large quantities of red meat may be problematic, health-wise, and we know that many people have made it a goal to eat less meat because large-scale industrial production is damaging to the environment. This is to a great extent what flexitarianism is about, after all.