FWIW, I asked a deer processor if he would do hog or beef if I brought it to him. He said no, too many government regulations. Evidently wild meat doesn't matter. I asked what about wild hogs. He said the govt considers them 'feral', not wild. Political correctness at work.
Red
If I buy a whole boneless ribeye (13-18lbs) from my butcher it's $5-$6/pound. And they'll cut it to order if you want (we prefer to cut it ourselves). At the supermarkets, even Wal-Mart, the "jumbo pack" which is about 3-4 lbs costs between $8-$12/pound. There's also a warehouse place (requires a yearly membership) that sells whole ribeyes in blister packs for about $9/pound. When I was in Italy last February I realized just how dirt cheap food is here in the USA. Of course, it helps that I live near (easy driving distance) several dairy farms, a poultry farm, and at least one beef/pork farm. I buy my stuff at the local butcher because they get theirs locally. I could save a few pennies driving directly to the poultry farm, but then there's gasoline cost to consider. I still drive out there (20 mile round trip) when I want a fresh turkey at Thanksgiving or if I need a bunch of fresh game hens for a medieval feast (that I get stuck doing every few years).
Yes, food and gasoline are still very cheap here. Water (in bottles) isn't. ;-)
Up here in Waterloo County, Ontario Canada, there are plenty of custom butchers, and a very large store - Central Fresh Market - that does virtually all their meet cutting inhouse. All the Zahrs stores (loblaws) also have qualified and experienced meet cutters on site.
I like grass-fed beef - a bit stronger tasting, not as well marbled as corn fed - but healthier. There is no dangerous e-coli in the gut of grass-fed cattle.
Up here we have a lot of general farms, a lot of Dairy farms, and beef farms, as well as too many "holdout" hog farmers who still believe the price of pork will go up high enough, long enough, for them to make back their losses in their lifetime. Ain't NEVER going to happen.
Quite a few of the Mennonite farmers in the area have put up greenhouses and gone into organic produce. The St Jacobs Farmer's market is a destination not to miss if you head up this direction during the growing season.
You might want to read this article in Slate:
Find a different store with a real butcher, what you are seeing is big business contracting cheaper.
thing has not been totally proven one way or the other. Eating either grain or grass-fed beef raw is a BAD idea.
Grain is what food eats. That's just one reason why humans shouldn't eat grains.
Good find! I knew I had heard/read somewhere that grass or grain fed, the gut of the cow itself is the perfect incubator no matter what.
Considering how long it takes to trace a killer food-borne epidemic to its source, it's easy to imagine a mutated lethal strain getting into society and doing a lot of damage before they figure out "whodunit." The "bad" E. coli does its deadly job by filling your gut with toxic byproducts of its life-cycle.
Here's something for you punsters "E. coli colonizes the colon." When it's good, it's very helpful, but a mutated strain can be very lethal and the cows that have it may show no signs of distress whatever. Or they could be downers, soaked in diarrhea but they sneak into the food chain anyway. McD's is using a new ammonia scrubbing process to sterilize their "began as beef" product.
Cows and chickens aren't quite as fastidious as cats and will pretty much always be contaminated by fecal coliform bacteria. Not that I am a fan of irradiated food, I just don't see any other solution. At least not without an army of federal inspectors forcing unsustainable levels of cleanliness on barnyard creatures who could not care at all what the FDA says about where they should poop and how.
-- Bobby G.
"Robert Green" wrote in news:hv4qrp$3a4$ snipped-for-privacy@speranza.aioe.org:
The "bad" E. coli has a disadvantage over the good E coli. It doesn't grow as fast. However, the bad grows better than the good in the presence of a) overcrowding, and b) antibiotics. I have nothing to quote other than my faulty memory, and no solutions either. My spouse buys steak as it is on sale at the local Shoprite. We freeze it (helps to tenderize), then I char it a bit with some flavorings on top, then consume it as "rare" steak. Yummy. So far, so good. My European visitors have complimened me on the meat I cook.
Another important side is the meat processor. Unless they adhere to the clean-up regs, etc., one of the major ways for e-coli spread is the equipment they use to prepare the beef for market. Of course all of this would pretty much be a sidepoint if we would just irradiate the stuff just before packing.
another contributing factor is our clean life. if all food were contaminated its likely we wouldnt get ill.
just like go to guatemala drink some water, you will probably get very ill.
while the native residents drink that water daily and arent bothered by it
Last night I was having a conversation with my current squeeze. She was going on about a dish made of various boiled vegetables plus Tofu (for the protein).
I held her with my glittering eye and said: "Vegetables are not food. Vegetables are what food eats."
(chin drop goes here)
Huh?
Publix has ribeye on sale around here about half the time for $5.99-6.99 bone in or $6.99-7.99 boneless. It may regularly be close to $10 but wait a week. Sams/Costco sells the cryopack ribeyes for about $6-7 a pound boneless. The problem there is you don't get much of a look at what you are buying. Some is good, some is dog food.
Han wrote: bby G.
Every beef recall I've heard of involves ground beef. Supposedly, the E. coli bacteria gets mixed throughout the beef during the grinding process. It has to be cooked thoroughly to kill the E.Coli. The mixing doesn't happen with things like steak. The bacteria stays on the surface and is easily killed during cooking.
E coli conrtamination of meat does not happen inside the cow. It happens in the processing. Somehow they manage to get shit on the meat. It is usually just a sanitation problem.
Of course, Publix's "ribeyes" include considerably more than just the eye. Same is true of just about everybody though.
Then there is prime rib. One would think you were getting a rib cut from prime meat, no? No, probably. "Prime rib" can also/used to mean the back three ribs; they are closest to the loin (also the smallest) and were/are considered "prime".
Thus one *could* have prime prime rib. Not likely though; not likely you'd get USDA prime rib either because the phrase has become synonomous with any cut or grade of rib because of consumer ignorance.
I won't even mention the nefarious practice of selling a thick cut of top round as "chateaubriand" :(
Part of the problem is the SOURCE of the ground beef. A lot of it is trimmings and "drops" that have a lot more surface per lb to pick up contamination - and it is not as carefully handled. "drops" is often doubly descriptive.
Where's the beef!!
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