Healthier meat at the supermarket?

[Conan The Librarian]

I've always taken for granted that supermarket meats are wholesome until recently. Now I think we've got a problem. I'm trying to figure out what the healthy meats are without spending huge money.
 
The problems we encountered were
1) Bought a deli roasted chicken and it was really salty, all the way through, not just the skin.
2) Local big box foods sells Hormel pork products only, which have some dang brine that makes them salty.
3) Big box also sells their brand of chicken which I bought some of and it reeks of chlorine and the butchering is clearly haphazard.
 
Bottom line, I don't buy meat there anymore. This is from a very popular big chain here in Minnesota.
 
I have been buying Golden Plump chicken, which seems pretty good.
 
I was reading up on hormone and anti-biotic use. Link is below. It looks like it's prepared by the poultry industry.
 
I trust my local family owned meat market. The meat manager there is a real old school professional that takes his work seriously.
 
 
http://www.foodreference.com/html/a-chicken-safe-920.html
 

[BUGEYE]

Better living through chemicals, salt and fat.
People who exercise and watch their diet, don't live that much longer.

most health nuts look cadavers.

[FourBee]

We still have a couple of custom slaughter houses that have survived the big brothers heavy handedness, and I take a calf or two in every year for processing.  We eat very little commercial meats.  Although most hog farmers in this area have complied to rules and regulations as of late, I still remember when poultry plants took their tanker trucks to the hog farms and dumped the refuse on the ground, and seeing the hogs dive into that raw putred smelling flesh.   I don't know if that caused the hogs to turn into canables , but I've seen them gang up on a large hog, and rip him right up the middle, and eat his guts out while he lay their squealing to high heaven.  Turned me off of pork for several years.

[jhm]

     Hogs may be canibals but throw anything in a chicken pen and it will also be gone in short order.  Jim

[mcbammer]

I  think  has  to  be  a  connection  between  the  growth  hormone s  &  anti-biotics  to  the  high  cancer  rates  we  are  having  today.