4 Whole Foods Meats To Buy And 3 To Avoid

If you have some extra cash to spend on groceries and you care about prioritizing organic foods in your diet, then Whole Foods might be one of your favorite places to shop. Sure, it may not be particularly cheap, and criticism has been lodged against the brand since Jeff Bezos acquired the company. But if you are going to shop at Whole Foods, you need to know which products are worth seeking out and which may not be a very good value.

To help you make more sense of the meat department at Whole Foods, I've purchased, cooked, and tasted my way through seven different meat offerings from the store. From ground chicken to various cuts of steak, I've evaluated each of these offerings to give you the 411 on which items I think you should try for yourself and which you're probably safe skipping. I took a close look at the flavor, texture, and affordability of each type of meat to determine how each item should be categorized.

Of course, your Whole Foods meat section might be a bit different from mine, so you might not agree on every point. Hopefully, your next Whole Foods can run a bit more efficiently by having more information about these types of meat, without having to buy them yourself.

I might be a bit biased here, since pork is my favorite kind of meat. However, because I like pork so much, I'm really disappointed when I get a pack that doesn't taste very good. Unfortunately, this happens more than you might think — all too often, the ground pork ends up being exceptionally fatty. And if you're not mixing that pork with, say, lean beef or another type of meat, that overt fattiness can create an unpleasant aroma and flavor that turns me off of eating it entirely.

Therefore, I was happy to discover that Whole Foods' 365 ground pork is actually quite delicious. Yes, it's fatty (it is pork, after all), but the fattiness wasn't overpowering, and it didn't leave me with that uncomfortable, filmy feeling in my mouth that often happens when I consume extra fatty meat. The flavor is solid too — there's an umami richness, but it's still neutral enough that you can play around with the overall flavor of the dish by adding additional ingredients or seasonings.

I regularly keep ground beef on hand in my fridge or freezer just because it's such a versatile ingredient, and I can use it for a wide range of dishes when I'm trying to whip up a quick dinner. I generally buy my ground beef at Trader Joe's, where I can find 96% lean ground beef. Therefore, I might be used to a lot less fat in my ground beef. But 365's ground beef didn't taste particularly good to me. It was fattier than I wanted, but I expected that since this package of ground beef is only 80% lean.

The real problem was the intense aroma of iron in the raw meat. As soon as I opened the package, I was met with that overpowering scent, and it turned me off of the meat immediately. I figured it would be better once I cooked the beef, and I wasn't wrong, but I could still taste that strong iron-y note after taking a bite. Thankfully, it was less pronounced than the aroma I smelled when the beef was raw. Maybe the batch of ground beef you'll get at Whole Foods is different, but I probably won't buy this particular package again.

There are lots of chicken breast recipes to make. If you're trying to focus on lean protein or you're looking for a flavor profile that's really mild, then chicken breast should be your go-to. But I've always been more of a dark meat kind of person. I love cooking with chicken thighs, which tend to be richer and fattier than their leaner counterparts; it has that extra bit of lusciousness, offering a more delicious bite in most culinary contexts.

Luckily, Whole Foods delivers when it comes to the brand's 365 organic chicken thighs. These thighs were quite small, so you're not necessarily getting the most bang for your buck, but the quality of the meat was quite high. I baked these chicken thighs in the oven with a simple seasoning of salt, pepper, and olive oil, and they came out nice, juicy, and flavorful (even after I left them in for five minutes too long). If you love dark chicken meat just as much as I do, you may want to make them a staple on your Whole Foods grocery shopping list.

Do I think that Whole Foods' beef top sirloin steak is bad? Not really. For what it is, this steak is flavorful and relatively juicy. But it doesn't really matter where you're buying the meat — a beef top sirloin is never going to taste as good as pricier, fattier cuts of meat. That's why I suggest skipping this steak at Whole Foods. It's not because I think that other grocery stores have better sirloin steaks, but simply because this cut of meat in particular isn't ideal.

Of course, you can use this kind of steak in some contexts. It may be worth seeking out when you're craving a big hunk of beef but don't want to pay for a ribeye or a New York strip. If cooked correctly, it can also make a delicious topper for bowls and salads. But personally, I wouldn't spend as much money as I did for this one for a steak that tastes lackluster.

Like ground beef, ground chicken is an excellent fridge and freezer staple to keep on hand. You can use ground chicken in burgers, stir-fry, soup, and beyond. It also tends to be lighter than ground beef, so it's ideal if you're looking for ground meat that contains a bit less fat. And if you're already shopping at Whole Foods, you can feel good about the fact that you're getting high-quality ground chicken. It's flavorful, and it retained its juiciness after coming off the heat.

One thing to keep in mind, though: you might notice a vinegary smell when you take this meat out of the package and start cooking it. The package discloses that the meat is treated with a vinegar solution, but I'd never experienced that with any other package of ground chicken before, so it was a bit off-putting to me. However, I didn't notice a vinegar flavor once I actually tasted the chicken, so I still think you can feel good about buying this meat product from Whole Foods.

I think Italian sausage tends to taste best when it's grilled, but unfortunately, I didn't have access to a grill when I was doing my taste-testing for this piece. Therefore, I decided to cook the sausage in my air fryer. The cooking method I chose may have impacted my overall impression of this sausage, but ultimately, I feel like it's not particularly worth buying. There's nothing wrong with this meat — it's just not that flavorful. It's also lacking the intense juiciness and delicious snap that I expect from a good-quality sausage. This textural issue might be from the air fryer, but I don't think a grill will particularly help this sausage's lack of flavor.

That's not to say that other sausages from Whole Foods won't be good. In fact, I expect that some of the more spiced ones taste a lot better than this variety. But unless you're looking for bland sausage, you can skip this Whole Foods butcher option.

I don't buy a ton of steak, but when I am craving a steak, I prefer ribeye. I love the fat marbling that makes it taste so rich and decadent, and I love that this cut of steak tends to be quite thick and juicy. And since I'm not an expert at cooking steak, I prefer a bone-in ribeye because the bone acts as a sort of insulator that can help prevent overcooking (which I've done far too many times with an expensive steak). Although the bone-in ribeye steak I got at Whole Foods isn't as good as the steak I've gotten from other popular grocery chains, like Costco, it's still pretty solid, so it earns its spot in the "buy" category on this list.

When I unwrapped this steak, I noticed that same, iron-y aroma that I got from the ground beef. I didn't love that, but it fortunately went away once I cooked my steak to medium rare. I appreciate the steak's thickness — Whole Foods definitely doesn't skimp on size. Just make sure not to make these common ribeye mistakes when you're cooking it.

I selected a wide variety of different types of meat that were available at my local Whole Foods. I decided whether these meats should fall into the "buy" or "skip" categories according to texture, flavor, and relative value. The best-tasting meats earned their spot in the "buy" section, especially if they remained nice and moist after cooking. The "skip" meats were either flavorless or had a strange texture, taste, or aroma, or they simply weren't worth the cost.