If you get Oregon Trail foodstamps, the Wednesday farmers market on Interstate will give (match) you $5 free, and the Sunday farmer's market on 7th and Wygant (10am?-2pm) will also give you $5..so if you do that every Wed and Sun that's $40 free food per month. At the Wednesday market there's an amazing Sweet Home Farms, it's the best...a little expensive but ground beef is $5.99/lb and last I checked pastured eggs for $5. On Sunday Pine Mountain has beef, buffalo, boar, elk, all sorts of amazing stuff, and if you have foodstamps they give 10% off. Also Sudan Farms at the Saturday market has lamb. And Alberta coop has freerange bison for $8.99/lb that is phenomenal. You can tell I've been doing my homework! I hope you have foodstamps, in PDX they are easy to get.

Depending on your budget, Lonely Lane Farms out of Mt Angel is one of the cheapest that I've found.

Also at New Season's the Pacific Village beef is pastured, as well as their buffalo, but I've been told that the Country Naturals is grain-finished.

While I'd say that the small, local growers and NSM's Pacific Village line are your best bets, it should be noted that Country Natural Beef is finished on a diet of: 60% cooked potato, 32% mixed corn/distillers grain/sunflower and 8% hay and micro-nutrient supplementation. Compared to the standard 80% grain feedlot finish, this shouldn't be nearly as bad for the cows, and subsequently, for us. I'm not sure potato is any more natural for cows than corn, but it certainly beats it out for nutritional bio-availability.

Obviously grass-finished meats are best. I'm going to be exploring the nutritional impact of this style of finishing more before coming to any real conclusions about CNB, but it is substantially cheaper than grass-fed meats. If its what you can afford, go for it. I eat loads of it. Even grain-fed meat is better than grains or no meat. Eat fatty fish, supplement with EPA and DHA, consider doing sweaty, laborous activity a couple times a week. You'll be fine.

Otto's in Woodstock & farmer's markets. New Seasons is OK but not grass finished.

We're going to be ordering a package from US Wellness Meats and storing it in the freezer.

Even if you are a student, if you want the "best" quality for your money, you gotta buy in bulk. Don't piddle your money away buying a pound here and pound there of meat of questionable origin (although there are some good deals out there I suppose). Get a freezer (even a smaller one) and get some friends/acquaintances to go in with you (it is actually a fun way to bond and make health-conscious friends too) on a full or half cow (you can sometimes do a quarter too). Google Mossback Farm, Full of Life Farm and McK Ranch. We have used all of them. All are great/impeccable places. If you go whole cow, you'll end up down toward $5/pound for a wonderful mixture of things. Mossback is an impeccable small operation we have always loved. http://www.mossbackfarm.com/archive/Mossback_Farm_grassfed_beef.pdf

There is no comparing the operations I mention to the Country Natural Beef/Oregon Country beef that Travis mentions above (no disrespect to Oregon Country Beef, which is certainly superior to the atrocious conventional feedlot beef, no question). But the ones I mention are superior. Good luck.

All the lamb at New Seasons is grass fed only, but only some of the beef is. I think the "Country Natural Beef" is finished on some grain, though they claim it's not as bad as a typical feedlot. I only eat lamb so I dunno.

Grey Day Dairy in NW Portland has great meat/eggs/etc: pork, beef, rabbits, turkeys, all free-range. Very reasonable prices, too--pork and beef are $4/lb hanging weight. And they're open to bartering. You usually have to pick up on farm. greydaydairy dot com.

I prefer to buy direct from a local rancher. Going direct has the best rates for the best cuts. I use Basket Flat Ranch

Reading Terminal Market from the Amish. But I'm in Philly.

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One of the cheapest and most beautiful ways to get meat is from Heart 2 Heart farms in Sherwood. It's perfect for those who follow the hunter-gatherer lifestyle—you can almost literally "hunt" your own food there (meaning they guide you through slaughtering and killing your own meat!). Plus, most of their business is done on a trade system, and you can't get any cheaper than that! Cheers! www.heart2heartfarms.com

bluevalleymeats.com out of Walla Walla deliver to Portland once a month. They are great. I also heard that Sheridan fruit company on MLK has grassfed (Silkies) meat, but I haven't tried them yet.