420208 Wed Jul 11 13:29:16 -0700 2007 21 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 2740573 Our county fair just ended and the day we happened to go was also the day of the livestock auction. I had heard that the meat from the raised animals was very good and a friend of ours is always talking about buying a side of beef, so we checked it out to see what a cow was going for. Pigs, lambs, goats, steer, and veal were going for anywhere from $4/lb (live weight) to $8/lb - not including the wacky outliers of $16 or $20/lb bids. Even at the cheapest bid, we figured it would be $2/lb for an animal, which doubles after you add in processing and disposal, etc. Now we're at $4/lb. We picked up a pamphlet that explains how much packaged meat to expect from an animal - we estimate 50% of the live weight. Now we're at $8/lb for a variety of cuts (cheap for steak, spendy for ground meat). We happened to be at our butcher's a few days later to use a gift card and I started pricing out their steaks, chicken, sausages, etc. We've been into ribeye lately, so that's where I started basing my comparisons. Butcher ribeye was $18/lb. Then I got even nerdier and made a spreadsheet using their 40 lb bulk package and picking various cuts and assigning them prices. Incidentally, if you buy all your meat from a butcher, this bulk package can save you almost 50%, depending on the cuts you choose. Later I was in Costco, pricing their meats and such. Ribeye is $8/lb (and I don't have to store 50 lbs of meat in my freezer). I don't know what people think of Costco meats, but we really enjoy their steaks (flap, filet, ribeye, tri tip, etc) and salmon and chix breats. I also noticed that their website lists the same "brand" of beef that our butcher uses (1855 Prime Cuts). Using my spreadsheet (nerd!), Costco is cheaper than the butcher but about the same as grocery sale prices (but I don't like grocery quality meat). We did a taste test, too, and I like the flavor of Costco beef better than the one from the butcher. So I concluded that we're doing okay buying our occasional purchases from Costco and not having to worry about getting the butcher before 5pm. Sausages, though, come only from the butcher - those are unmatched in taste. I want to support our local butchers, but I'm finding it hard to justify the extra expense. Where you do buy your meat? Do you buy it in bulk and have a chest freezer? Do you mail order it from an organic, free-range, whatever farm? Do you think the grocery meat is just as good? Are you fiercely loyal to your butcher and think their meats are superior? I guess I'm thinking more of beef instead of pork or chicken, since I haven't even started comparing types of pork chops! Wed Jul 11 13:29:16 -0700 2007 42944 leanneabe 1 2740587 I buy from a few local Italian and Portuguese butchers here in Toronto. When I'm in Montreal there are a plethora of Québécois/French boucheries to choose from. Wed Jul 11 13:33:27 -0700 2007 2740573 42449 mrbozo 1 2740627 A local small town butcher shop exclusively for beef, ribs, picnic shoulder, etc nowdays. Reasons: 1) to support a local business instead of a faceless corporation. 2) a much higher quality of product(prime beef, professional butcher, etc) 3) service( if I go in late on a Saturday they invite me in back to have a few beers while my order is getting completed). They know me by name, they recommend whats "good", they are proud of what they do, and do it well. All the above reasons make not shopping at a Costco, or a chain store vs my local butcher a no brainer for me. Wed Jul 11 13:43:49 -0700 2007 2740573 26725 swsidejim 1 2740826 I am in a co-op, and a few months ago we started ordering beef and chicken from a supplier whose animals are free-range, non-hormone, non-antibiotic, etc. The whole fryers are $1.69/lb. and the ground beef and most large cuts are $3.49/lb. For the quality of the meat I think that's pretty darn good--certainly less than you'd pay at, say, Whole Foods. I love the chickens; they are tender, flavorful, and are the nice little 3 to 3 1/2 lb. fryers like the ones we used to get in the good old days (meaning, I suppose, 20 years ago), not those pumped-up behemoths you see in most supermarkets now. I haven't bought any of the roasts or steaks, but I've heard people raving about them. If this supplier sold pork and lamb, I'd buy those from him, too. I admit that for other meats I still go for the specials and loss leaders at the supermarket. I admit I still love it when I can get a "family pack"of pork chops for 99 cents per pound! Wed Jul 11 14:27:09 -0700 2007 2740573 10550 zorra 1 2740844 Mainly from our small independent butcher shop we are so fortunate to have. I actually find spend less on meat and poultry than I would in the supermarket and the quality is so superior it is worth evey penny. We are also fortunate to have a couple of local producers of beef, pork and lamb. One of them comes to our Farmer's Market on Sat. AM. Her meat is from grass fed and humanely raised and slaughtered animals and she is there every step of the way. The meat is a little chewier but it is so much better than the store bought stuff too. If I am in a hurry as i was this afternoon and had to make as few stops as possible I bought supermarket boneless skinless chicken breasts and for once I could find some fairly small ones. Making Nigella's Golden Jubilee Chicken for dinner tonight. Look for a report on Home Cooking tomorrow with photos under July Cookbook of the Month. Wed Jul 11 14:32:48 -0700 2007 2740573 10285 Candy 1 2740889 Costco (and not BJ's and not Sam's) does indeed have very high quality beef. It's the high end of USDA Choice - and they have a contract with their suppliers that whenever they can't fill an order with that quality, they must provide USDA Prime. Periodically, I'll go through the large sub-prime cuts at Costco (Top Loin, Tenderloin) and find ones with the blue USDA Prime stamp - although this is not necessarily better than the USDA Choice pieces - the cows are graded as a whole, not the individual sub-prime pieces, so that the line between high-end choice and entry level prime isn't that significant. In any case, it's as good a bargain as you will find. I buy a lot of my beef there - the top loins, rib-eye's, porterhouse, and lean hamburger, as well as the other cuts that they have, like flank, and the chuck roasts, which are great for hamburger (mixed in with the lean stuff). I do buy some of the cheaper cuts that Costco doesn't have at BJ's - but I have no expectations of great beef. It's also USDA Choice, but not of the same quality. If Costco had the same cuts, I would most certainly buy it there. For roasting, I buy the various round pieces (whole bottom, top, knuckle), and I prefer the trim of the brisket - where Costco over-trims to the flat, BJ's leaves a good deal of the deckle on. I also buy the pork blade roasts at BJ's where Costco doesn't carry that piece. For skirt or hangar, I'll use the local hoity-toity butcher, but at the point that I'm paying $6.99/lb for skirt, I'm not missing it a whole lot... Wed Jul 11 14:44:52 -0700 2007 2740573 10312 applehome 2 2741032 Do you buy skirt steak from the butcher because it's better or because Costco doesn't carry it (our Costco does have it)? I was all ready to start buying all out meat from our butcher, both to support them and to get a higher quality, but when I tasted the Costco steak the night after cooking the butcher's steak (both prepared the same, too), the one from the butcher just didn't make me dance like the Costco one did. Perhaps it's a personal taste issue, but the one from the butcher just didn't have the beefy flavor. Wed Jul 11 15:25:17 -0700 2007 2740889 42944 leanneabe 3 2741095 Just because Costco here doesn't have it (in NH or MA). I know they have a better selection in other parts of the country. Periodically, they'll carry a cut for a while to test the local market - for example, they had flanken (cross-cut) short ribs for a while - but typically, they drop these cuts after a while, and they've settled on just the stuff that sells by the tons. I've actually written them an email on their site suggesting that they carry the extra "specialty" cuts in the freezer - just wrapped in butcher paper, weighed and tagged. But they haven't answered. Any cut they carry would be one I wouldn't have to buy elsewhere - with the exception of the brisket. But even with that, you could say that they only carry a first or well-trimmed flat cut, and that if they carried either an entire brisket or the point cut, I'd be filling my freezer. BTW -I have an 18 Cu ft freezer I bought when I bought a half-cow once, years ago. So I can go to Costco and BJ's twice a month, rather than twice a week. But I would never go for another 1/2 cow - what a waste that was. Wed Jul 11 15:47:13 -0700 2007 2741032 10312 applehome 4 2741118 You don't have short ribs, either? I am so sad for you... My Costco is a mile from home and is the least crowded one I've ever been to, so going every week or so is no big deal for me. The last time I went I came out with bacon and a book. I'll buy steaks when I want it for dinner, then freeze the rest. At some point I stop shopping and we just go through the freezer. When we're down to waffles and frozen veggies, it's back to the store! What didn't you like about the 1/2 cow? We always consider it at some point during the year, but I think I've decided I'd rather keep meat in the freezer for only a month and replace with "fresh" meat instead of storing 1/2 cow for a year. Wed Jul 11 15:52:56 -0700 2007 2741095 42944 leanneabe 5 2741157 <jealous>... The 1/2 cow gave out long before we did. Any good cut (either the good steaks and roasts, rib or top loin) or the good "bad" cuts (pot roasts, bbq, etc.) were gone way too soon, leaving us with a bunch of sirloin pin steaks, "stewing beef" and oodles of ground meat (chuck and round). We just decided that sticking with the cuts we liked to eat was a much better deal, overall. And once we found Costco to be such a high-quality, low-priced source, we've never even bothered to look at the butcher deals. Make sure you somehow figure that into your spreadsheets: What do you like to eat, and what will you actually get from the butcher? Wed Jul 11 16:06:57 -0700 2007 2741118 10312 applehome 4 2741224 Do you guys really buy cow meat? That's usually a lot cheaper overall, because it's from an old animal that went dry. I believe most beef is from young steers, unless things have changed recently. Cow meat used to go for around $1 a pound last I heard. Wed Jul 11 16:26:29 -0700 2007 2741095 11097 coll 1 2740909 I split a 1/2 of a cow (Angus or Hereford) with my sister every fall. I pick the animal out , make sure it is dry aged for no less than 14 days, and custom cut and wrapped to my specs. I tend to buy poultry locally (Amish/organic raised) and the same with pork and the little bit of lamb that we consume. I buy all my fish fresh from a local market. We have a small chest freezer and I don't know how I could eat the way we do W/O it. I am part of a local Co-Op, but they don't sell perishable protein. Wed Jul 11 14:50:33 -0700 2007 2740573 22220 Kelli2006 1 2741168 I am no expert on this, but my experience is that the county fair is an expensive place to buy meat. (Those 4-H kids are learning business as well as animal husbandry!) We considered buying at the fair until we were convinced that cheaper meat was to be had. We bought a pig last year with another family and it was $1 per pound "on the hoof" or live weight, including the rough butchering, ie killing, skinning, etc. Our 250 pound pig was $125 per family. Add to that butchering (into roasts, chops, and so on) for our half and smoking the ham, which was $90 total. So we paid $215 for roughly 90 pounds of useable meat. That's a bargain at $2.40 per pound. Maybe expensive for the lard, but a steal for chops, ribs, ham, etc. Especially knowing it was raised humanely and fed right. Who can say that about Costco? And it is the best pork I have ever tasted. I'll never go back. Wed Jul 11 16:09:22 -0700 2007 2740573 12823 Junie D 2 2743217 I'm not sure how much "business" is done on the selling end, since the final price is determined by the auction bidders. The kids don't set the sales price. $1/lb live weight for a pig is a good price. If we had prices like that around here, I'd be willing to look into it more. Thu Jul 12 09:52:44 -0700 2007 2741168 42944 leanneabe 1 2741314 Costco meat is excellent, and though I buy local organic at times Costco is our mainstay. We usually like their tri-tip, also sirloin, and their hamburger tastes the best of any outside of gourmet organic at half the price. I have a friend who literally has an allergic reaction to most supermarket beef because of all the additives/antibiotics, but has no problem with Costco meat. Does anybody else enjoy their spendy flank steaks that are pinwheeled and stuffed with bacon, portabellos, garlic etc? They are seasonal at our store in Oregon (only in the winter) so I stock up before they disappear. Totally decadent. Wed Jul 11 16:56:02 -0700 2007 2740573 99062 archangelcat 2 2743207 I did buy those stuffed flank steaks from Costco, and we enjoyed them, but since Costco also sells flap meat we just buy that and do out own stuffing. Thu Jul 12 09:50:54 -0700 2007 2741314 42944 leanneabe 1 2741322 This is a work in progress at this household.....my local butcher shop was starting to really disappoint & at the same time Jungle Jim's (a local/regional food landmark) started carrying Niman Ranch beef & pork. Even though it's a bit of a trip to go to JJ's, I've been stocking up the freezer with Niman Ranch & the flavor & quality is awesome. Wed Jul 11 16:58:38 -0700 2007 2740573 72863 nojunk 1 2742338 I would love to be able to pay twice as much and eat meat half as often if I could find it locally, humanely raised with no antibiotics or hormones--I am more than willing to pay extra to support these practices. I can do this with beef--here in Western MA there are a number of small farms raising their own beef. There are also a few farms raising lamb but they're harder to find. What I would really like is to find small farms raising chicken and pork. I'm really concerned about hormones and antibiotics (and the feedlots and mad cow disease and debeaking and manure lagoons) that go along with most available meat...and this includes the meat sold by local butchers, unfortunately. It's enough to make me want to become vegan...except I really like pot roast. Anyway, until I can find a small local chicken producer, I buy Bell & Evans from the local independent grocery store. I highly recommend reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma" for the section on Polyface Farm in Virginia--a farm that sustainably raises beef, chicken, and pork--it is incredibly interesting. I wish there was a similar farm where I live. Thu Jul 12 05:21:22 -0700 2007 2740573 75268 smittys 2 3220040 I live in Northern Virginia and we have wonderful farmers markets with excellent meats. I am fortunate enough to be able to buy from Bev Eggleston of Eco Friendly Farms. Eggleston is a protege of Joel Salatin (Polyface) and is a very passionate farmer. His meats are amazing. I try to buy from him and others a couple times a month to support local farmers and get a superior product (just last night we enjoyed his lamb rib chops...omg!). Not that Costco meats aren't good, they are. And, they're a terrific value. We shop in bulk and vacuum seal to store in our freezer (17cf). One of my resolutions for 2008 is to eat less meat with more emphasis on local products. Here's a post I made about how passionate Eggleston is and how eager he is to educate. http://houndstoothgourmet.com/at-the-dupont-farmers-market-chocolate-spice-and-inspiration/ Lamb chops: http://houndstoothgourmet.com/at-the-arlington-farmers-market-the-i-miss-summer-produce-edition/ Tue Dec 18 15:56:54 -0800 2007 2742338 65673 monavano 1 2743401 I buy most of my meat from the little grocery store here in town. But I also go to the supermarket in the next town over from time to time b/c they have a better selection. And I go over to the locker in Holstein--about half an hour away--now and then for their homemade sausages. I buy ribs and stuff from the Mexican butcher in downtown Storm Lake--he has the best ribs for the smoker. And we have an order in for some nice free-range, homegrown chickens, which will be ready for us to pick up on Saturday afternoon. Thu Jul 12 10:34:15 -0700 2007 2740573 32586 revsharkie 1 2744131 When we are in Mexico, I buy most of our beef and pork from the Costco in Morelia. USDA Choice and always tender. Costs more than Mexican beef but more consistant. The Mexican beef is cut differently (thin) and aged since yesterday or maybe, this morning. It is VERY lean and chewy. I have to add oil to the Mexican hamburger. There is no 80% hamburger for grilling here. The best beef at the Mexican butcher is the marinated arrechera steak. Grills up beautifully and so flavorful. In Denver, we are fortunate to have a terrific butcher about a mile from the house. They always know my name, even if I've been in Mexico for months and have the best meat I've ever had. If I order a day or two ahead, I can get any cut or meat, no matter how exotic. Organic, free-range, whatever - no problem. Fred's for the meat, Pete's for the fresh veggies, fruits and the Greek breads and The Cheese Shop for great cheeses and deli. Going to Denver in 10 days. Can't wait. Thu Jul 12 13:24:07 -0700 2007 2740573 60822 Pampatz 1 3219982 I grow my own. At first.. I thought it would be nice to grow some organic, grass fed beef... as a novility. I did some research on raising cattle & found out how horribly scary the commercial food chain is! The sweepings from poultry huse floors, including the dead birds are put into cattle feed. The waste from sheep butchering is fed to beef (which was the original source of BSE or Mad Cow, in sheep it's scrapie & it's jumped species more than once.) Even if it wasn't for the meat they are feeding to herbavoirs... grain is totally unnatural for them to be eating. Feedlot beef is fed more "grain" than anything else, how many pastures do you think are heavy in grain? Herbavors are meant to eat herbs (grass... green plants) not a diet of seed heads! Lookat teh Polyface farm model. I didnt' know that's the model I was using until I read The Omnivor's Delema. Then I had to go read the Polyface farm books. That's what I'm doing! The 'grain' sets up a very low (acid) pH in the normally neutral rumen. E.coli has always been in cattle intestines, as it is in yours. It used to be that the E.coli in cattle intestines was killed by the acidic human stomach. Now, the cow rumen is as acidic as yours & the E.coli has adapted. So, the cattle E.coli (that's toxic to you & me) survive in our stomach & kill us! Grain also layes down Omega 6 fatty acids. Grass fed meat is rich in Omega 3 fatty acids, Conjgted LInolic Acid & other anti-oxidents. Grass fed meat is GOOD for you! Even the fish that was always so good for you is now grain fed if it's farmed. So, again... its not high in anti-oxidents any more! I am now raising beef, goats, chickens, sheep for my children & grandchildren. Next year I'll be starting pork & rabbits. And... guess what kidlets.... Whole Foods doesn't have this stuff! They import most of thier meat form overseas. They ave a self certification program where the farmer signs an affidavit attesting that he does in deed produce his met according to thier protocol. Yea....right ... sure he does. He's not going to sell that animal if he doesn't lie...is he? As to pricing at Costco? I used to look at price, I used to have to. I was sole support of 4 kids w/ a very low paying job. Now, I pay about $10 a pound avg for meat to feed my family. I grow it in the Midwest in the farm I bought, I haul it to Los Angeles & give it to them. I'm NOT lucky that I can do that. I was a single mom w/ no childsupport. I scrimped & saved my entire life to have what I have now. My car is still a 13 yr old Toyota. Anybody who drives a newer one & thinks I'm lucky to be able to give my kids healthy food has their priorities totally backwards as far as I'm concerned! I get the meat & bring it back in a small motorhome. If I can do it.... you can do it. It's just a matter of priorities. I don't need to drive a new car, I need a reliable car & healthy meat. That's how my priorities are structured. Costco memberships cost too much money. A lot of the stuff on their shelves costs more if you bother to do the unit pricing. Then you also have to deal w/ that huge package! Go find a grower of meat near the outskirts of where you live. I'm in Los Angeles & I've found growers with in 2 hours of my home, if my kids run out of meat before I bring the next one back. I will only buy eggs, chicken & meat when I've seen the animals in the feild & really know how they're raised! Tue Dec 18 15:34:29 -0800 2007 2740573 150938 Dexter lover