This post is a sponsored collaboration with my friends at Moink, which allows me to support my blogging activities and keep this website running! All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own *snape voice: obviously*.
If you’re like me you probably tried a few of the super popular and trendy subscription-based boxes over the past few years. With everything from makeup and beauty products, to coffee, to books, to food…and in particular, subscription boxes that allow you to upgrade The quality of the protein you’re consuming.
I tried out a few of these boxes, all with the same intention of allowing you to consume more ethical, grass fed, grass finished, pasture raised, wild caught (titles, titles, titles…any game of thrones fans out there??) fish and meat. These boxes are a great option if you can’t find ethical, high quality meat near you, or it’s extremely expensive (which it totally can be!). However, some of them actually ended up being more expensive than what I could find in the store and in general unaffordable in my overall budget. For some, the quality wasn’t there, or I wasn’t able to customize the box to get enough things that I actually wanted each month or substitute out the things that I didn’t want.
Enter: Moink. They reached out to me a couple of months ago to send me a box to try out. I was a little skeptical at first, thinking it would just be another one of the same issues that I’ve already mentioned, but once I tried it out, I changed my tune.
But first, let’s back up and talk about why it’s so important to pay attention to the quality of your meat and where it’s coming from.
You may have seen or heard of a few of these scare tactic documentaries, or the China Study, cited by so many vegan and vegetarian proponents that state that eating meat is the worst thing we could ever do for our health, that it’s linked to cancer, heart disease, and every lifestyle disease plaguing the world right now.
They’re not all right, but they’re not necessarily all wrong either. The problem with the studies used in those documentaries and books proclaiming how awful meat is, is that the subjects they used in those studies were consuming meat from CAFO’s (concentrated animal feeding operation), where animals are packed into extremely tight spaces, cages, fed a diet that is completely unnatural to them (usually corn, soy, and other pesticide-treated grain) to fatten them up as much as possible, and then given antibiotics when they inevitably get sick from living in these completely unethical and unnatural conditions. Here’s the problem. When animals eat pesticide-treated or GMO-produced feed, and then are given antibiotics to keep them alive even when they are extremely sick, those toxins get stored in the fat of the animals. When we eat those animal products, we are the consuming those same toxins, which can then make US sick. These are the animals and animal products the subjects of those studies were consuming, so of course it seems like eating more animal products can lead to these diseases. Because if you’re consuming sick animals, you’re going to get sick too.
If you’re wondering why organic, grass-fed and finished meat or wild-caught fish is so much more expensive, this is why. It’s because the alternative, of getting meat from these CAFO’s, is much less expensive, than getting meat from local farmers who feed the animals their natural diet, give them free range, and overall lead much more natural lives than just fattening them up in any way possible and raising them for slaughter (which also produces extremely unhealthy animals, which leads to unhealthy humans ridden with disease as well). If the subjects of those studies had been consuming organic, grass-fed and finished, wild-caught animal products for those studies, we may have a totally different conversation on our hands about the healthiness of eating animal products in the human diet.
So you may think the logical option is, why don’t we just stop eating meat? Well, if the whole world did that, it would definitely make a difference because supply and demand would go down. But, first off, that’s not going to happen any time soon. And from a physiological standpoint, humans were never omnivores – we were designed to eat meat at some point. From a nutrient standpoint, there are certain nutrients that you can only get *in their most bioavailable form* (most easily absorbed and assimilated by the body) from animal products. Sure, you can definitely design a complete, nutrient-dense vegetarian or vegan diet, but they have to use supplements in order to prevent nutrient deficiency.
The good news is, you don’t have to eat a ton of animal protein in order to get all the vitamins and nutrients you can from animal products. And the even better news is, if you choose to upgrade the animal proteins you do consume, like grass-fed and finished meat, pasture-raised poultry or wild-caught fish, they are actually higher in nutrients like CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), vitamin K, vitamin A, and aren’t ridden with antibiotics given to sick animals to keep them alive and fat under unnatural and unethical living conditions. Bonus points if you can support local or small farmers along the way.
And THIS is where Moink, a farmer-owned subscription meat box company, comes in.
So you realize you want to start paying more attention to where your animal protein comes from. But maybe it’s really expensive by you, or you don’t even know where to start, or you don’t want to commit to an every month meat delivery to your door (I was all of the above). Maybe you don’t want to get a pre-selected box of meat, chicken, and pork, and you want to choose your own (like me!) – I get you!
This is why I like Moink so much. Not only are they ethically-focused and check all the boxes of getting grass-fed and finished, beef and lamb, pastured pork and chicken, and wild caught seafood to your door – but they are also supporting local farmers, and send you a pamphlet each month which tells you the story of the farm where your meat is coming from that month!
The founders Lucinda and Adam grew up on family farms in the Midwest, and made it their mission to build partnerships with like-minded farmers (ethically-conscious carnivores, as they call themselves) to connect consumers to ethically-raised, high quality animal products – which is how Moink was born.
Big win: you also get to completely customize your box. They let you know what’s coming 10 days before they ship, so you can mix and match any of their beef, chicken, pork, lamb, and fish options in pretty much every cut you could ever want. You get about 35-40 servings (13-16lbs) in each box, which works out to about $4.50 per serving, Plus, if you’re like me and are only having meat for 1-2 people, you might not need a box every month. You can customize your delivery to every 3, 4, or 6 weeks.
They’re always running deals to get free bacon, free salmon, free steak, etc. with your first order (or sometimes, in every order going forward!) The boxes start around $159, and you can use the code “REALFOODDANA” to get $20 off your first order (for the WIN). And don’t forget to check out more about Moink’s founders and story here!
And DUH, I’m obviously going to give you guys a tasty recipe to get you started on your journey to consume more ethically-raised, high quality meat and fish! This Sheet Pan Everything Bagel Salmon comes at a reader request for more sheet pan recipes, since they’re so easy to throw together, easy on the cleanup, and major on the taste. Enjoy!
- 1 - 1.5 lbs wild-caught salmon
- 1 lb mixed baby potatoes
- 1 head broccoli
- 1 lemon, sliced into rings
- ¼ cup everything bagel seasoning
- 3 Tbsp olive oil, divided
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- ¼ tsp fresh ground black pepper pepper
- Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Cut the broccoli into large florets and the potatoes into quarters.
- Toss the potatoes and broccoli a large bowl in 2 Tbsp olive oil, and season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
- Add the potatoes and broccoli to the baking sheet and pop it in the oven for 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile, prepare the salmon. Cut it into four equal pieces (about 4-6oz each) and drizzle 1 Tbsp of olive oil over all the pieces. Coat the pieces with everything bagel seasoning on all sides except the skin.
- When the timer goes off, nestle the salmon in with the potatoes and broccoli on the baking sheet. Place the lemon slices evenly around the sheet.
- Pop it in the oven and bake for an additional 15 until the salmon is cooked through. With bigger pieces it may need a little bit longer, but pull the sheet out after 15 minutes to test if it's done. No one wants overcooked salmon!
Don’t forget to use the code “REALFOODDANA” to get $20 off your first order (for the WIN). And don’t forget to check out more about Moink’s founders and story here!
This post is a sponsored collaboration with my friends at Moink, which allows me to support my blogging activities and keep this website running! All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own *snape voice: obviously*.
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It looks very yummy.
Thanks for sharing such a delicious recipe with us.
I’m so excited to add this recipe to our meal rotation! I love sheet pan meals and this one is awesome!
Thanks, Kathryn! Excited for you to try it!!