Beef Heart

[aqualung]

Does anyone out there know where we can get fresh beef heart. We have been making our own Discus food for years and now can no longer get beef heart anywhere in Ottawa. We hate to change our discus food, you know how finicky they are!

[sas]

I bet if you talk to the butcher at the store you deal with and they would be able to get it in for you.
We always have it up here in the valley.

[lucius]

Have you checked out some of the stores in Chinatown?

[exv152]

I used to make a beef heart mix for my discus, and never had an issue finding it at any butcher.

[Nyx]

You might need to check for a local abattoir because not all butchers carry all organ meats. I don't know if there are any in Ottawa but we used to buy our beef at l'Orignal Packing. They carried organ meats there as they are a slaughter house as well as a butcher. It's a good hour from Ottawa.

http://www.lorignalpacking.ca/index.html

[aqualung]

Thank you for all your responses. We have tried a lot of butchers all over town, they will only sell frozen. Now I have fired an e-mail to L'orignal butcher and if that doesn't work will try Chinatown. Will keep you posted, in the meantime if anyone has any other ideas feel free to post.

[fischkopp]

I am getting it from T&T. They carry it quite regularly.

[BSmith]

I made my first beef heart mix last week. Pete & Gus in Barrhaven get beef heart in regularly.  I would call ahead of time cause they use it to make dog food as well.

[Montrealguy]

I've always thought of beef heart as a relic from the days before seafood was flown in fresh. The old timers made all those recipes because it was the only mammal protein lean enough to be digested by Discus. I switched from beef heart recipes to ground up shrimp, haddock or other cheaper seafood and the fish did fine.

I don't keep discus anymore and don't make those recipes anymore, but the fish I had seemed to prefer the simpler, aquatic creature based versions after I switched.

Just a thought.