Primal-Diet friendly food can be difficult to get hold of in the UK, unless you know exactly where to look. It has been reported that some of the raw dairy sources within the UK do actually lightly heat their dairy products and yet still call it raw, so you have to be careful. Organic meat can be incredibly expensive (I've seen one exceptional shop sell organic meat for £4 per 100g!) unless you go to a local farmers' market. The only reliable organic farmers' markets (that I know of) at the moment are in the London area (check http://www.lfm.org.uk/ for details as to where those markets are and what produce they sell - unfortunately, they don't give contact details for individual farmers, you'll have to get them at the stall).
(Tip:- organic innards aren't as desired by the British as the muscle-meat, so they're always much. much cheaper; eg:- £8 per whole ox tongue compared to £27 for a kilo of fillet steak).
Supermarkets provide organic meat (mostly from New Zealand) and organic fruit. However, most of these supermarkets do not really check whether fruits they buy are truly organic - and some are deliberately deceptive in this regard, such as Tesco's and Marks and Spencer's (M & S). If you must buy organic meat and fruit I would suggest buying only from "Waitrose" and "Planet Organic" supermarket chains as they caters to a more wealthy clientele and they actively make sure of the origin of their organic foods - Planet Organic is the best - it has a main branch very close to Goodge Street Tube station on the (Charing Cross part of) the Northern Line. However, a word of warning:- the so-called "grassfed, organic" meat that most supermarkets import from New Zealand is always prefrozen and the animals invariably have been fed grain for the last few months before slaughter - the fish/shellfish are mostly precooked or prefrozen too. And never, ever buy unpasteurised cheeses from supermarkets ever! These so-called raw cheeses from supermarkets are ALWAYS made from pasteurised milk - you can get the authentic version from British farms in the link I've given in the main section.
Here is a list including contact details for various, (mostly organic) raw-food farmers within 300 km of London (they should also attend markets all over central England):-
Food For Thought. Winchelsea, East Sussex, TN36 4AG. Contact Tod on his Mobile No. = 07944 054946; Farm Tel.No. = 01797 226216. This farm is definitely the most RawPalaeo-friendly in the UK. He sells raw organic brain/organic sweetbreads (thymus/pancreas), (stag) testicles, bone-marrow etc., as well as the usual liver/kidney/tongue/spleen/lung/muscle-meats that others sell - the only ones I haven't got from him yet is raw adrenal gland and raw beef tallow. Every few weeks/months he gets hold of either wild boar or deer carcases on his shoots, and the innards fromthose are the best I have ever tasted - otherwise the innards are from theusual lamb/pig/ox, with the exception of brain - he can only by law get hold of organic pig's brain, ox brain etc is forbidden due to BSE hysteria. Feel free to mention my name as I'm a regular customer. Food Fore Thought turns up at Marylebone Farmers' Market every Sunday (10am-2pm) (check www.lfm.org.uk for directions to the market). Oh, and it's best to order in advance for non-muscle meat organs as he doesn't usually bring those to the market except as part of an order.
Weston and Long, Blakeney Point, North Norfolk = Contact Simon Long on 01263740910. He sells live oysters and live mussels and some raw sea-bass. Everything else is pre-cooked. He might be persuaded to sell live crab or lobster to you if given a deposit and 2 weeks' notice. He goes every week to Marylebone FarmersMarket (www.lfm.org.uk) on Sundays (10am-2pm), and visits several other markets around London (contact him for other market details).
Ranger Organics:- Holmes Oak Farm, Goring Heath, Reading, RG8 7RJ. Tel. = 01491682 568 Fax = 01491 681 694. Ranger Organics, apart from the usual muscle-meats, provides organic ox tongue, ox heart/liver, kidney, raw beef suet/tallow, lung and (a tiny bit of) ox bone-marrow (oh and goose eggs in March as well). They won't sell anything else. The meat is very high in quality and I use it often (make sure they don't salt the tongue. Also they only sell fresh meat/innards every 2 weeks, they prefreeze the meat on the other week, so don't go then). They visit Notting Hill (9am-1pm Saturdays) and Marylebone Farmers' Markets (10am-2pm Sundays) every week, and no doubt several outside London.
For those not allergic to raw dairy, check www.realmilk.com for full info on raw dairy sources within UK.
Olive Farm goes every week to Notting Hill Farmers' Market (Saturdays 9am-1pm) to sell raw cream, raw milk, and (unfortunately) pasteurised butter.
Manor Farm has a large stall at Marylebone Farmer's Market everyweek (Sundays 10am-2pm), and has regular stalls at Notting Hill (Saturdays 9am-1pm) and Islington Farmers' Markets (Sundays 10am-2pm). They also sell authentic Aylesbury Duck, free-range turkey fillets, wild hare (£12.50!)/wildrabbit(£3.50), pheasant and partridge. They are pretty expensive, though. Contact Tel.=01494 774975/Fax=01494774975. (Website=www.manorfarmgame.co.uk).
A much cheaper, though slightly more limited alternative to Manor Farm at Marylebone Farmers' Market is (Traynor and Son) Castleman's Farm, Green Common Lane, Wooburn Common, 01628523580/07900 886459. They sell wild rabbit at £2.50 each, and various wild fowl (guinea fowl/partridge/pheasant) with the usual chicken. When in season they sell really fatty and tasty wild mallard breasts, and they also regularly sell raw milkand (free-range) duck eggs. The raw milk is 80p for a pint, 30p cheaper than OliveFarm. They're very friendly and customer-oriented unlike some other stallholders. Rowan Tree Goat Farm sells raw goats' milk (but only on request, they usually sell only pasteurised dairy). They come every 3 weeks to Marylebone Farmers' Market. Rowan Tree Goat Farm, Ley Hill, Chesham, Bucks, Tel.=01494 793259.
Contact Keith Morgan on 07881528353 or 01485601350 for raw honeycomb and (sometime in the next few months, if not already) raw jarred honey. He'll be able to sell his marvellous heather honeycomb from September onwards, if the weather is kind. He's assured me that he does not feed his bees sugar, and his honey is organic in practice though not labelled as such. Indeed his concern for his bees' welfare is such that he's not keen on selling any pollen or royal jelly. At the moment he's only producing a very small amount of raw jarred honey in the next few months (as of February 2005) due to a few customer requests. He more or less told me that this raw, jarred honey is just a preliminary experiment, and he might well produce much more of it if more people requested it, so feel free to call - he should have some by now. He's based in Norfolk, incidentally. He visits Islington Farmers' Market (10am-2pm) on the 2nd Sunday of each month (3rd weekin the month of January) and Palmer's Green Farmer's Market (10am-2pm) on the 1st Sunday of each month - again check www.lfm.org.uk for directions to these organic markets (among many others). Also check out http://www.apitherapy.biz/home.html for ordering royal jelly (it's unfortunately fresh-freezed in the winter months, but at least not freeze-dried).
All of the above (except the royal jelly seller) attend numerous other markets in and outside London, so just contact them for those details if you are within 250 km outside London.
There are 2 other (pretty expensive) organic food sources in London. If you get out at Kentish Town on the Northern Line Tube station and turn left down the road, you'll soon reach an organic butcher's on the left hand side which also sells fish. They also sell innards such as liver/kidney/bone-marrow but it usually needs to be ordered. Borough Market (reached via London Bridge tube station on Northern Line), though not strictly organic, has the Ginger Pig which sells organic pork muscle-meat but only rarely innards. You can also get goose/duck eggs at other stalls and there's a great fish stall selling shark-meat and gigantic prawns from South Africa. Borough Market is basically a tourist trap and I have often gone there only to be ripped off to the tune of £120+ for just a few kilos of fish and meat. It's one of the most expensive places in London, and I only use it when I have to, such as over Christmas when the farmer's markets don't appear. I far prefer my fish shop in the Kilburn Park area. Only some of the farms/sellers mentioned will be prepared to deliver food by post or special delivery, the rest will expect you to go directly to the farm or farmers' market.
Here's also a link to a site for delivering heather-fed highland lamb to your door (http://www.finelamb.co.uk/), which might prove useful for those who don't want to travel to markets. They only provide kidney and liver with the meat, not tongue or anything else, though.
NB! Nonorganic raw meat sold in the UK is of EXTREMELY poor quality as it is almost always intensively farmed, and is to be avoided at all costs (especially given the recent BSE crises etc). It invariably contains endless additives (and water for extra bulk) and has a truly disgusting taste. The only exception is some meats that have been given the "naturally-reared" label, but not all "naturally-reared" meats come from bona-fide sources, so one has to be careful. Generally speaking, it's best whenever possible to get your raw, organic meats etc. direct from small farms (via farmers' markets etc.) as they are much less likely than larger producers to lower the quality of their foods via intensive-farming practices.
Geoff Purcell
London UK
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