Penny-Wise Grassfed Beef

A City - Girls Guide to Country Eats

Nowadays, people looking for healthier meat options are turning to grass-fed or pastured meats. The objection that I hear most often is that it's "too expensive" or "I can't afford it".

A chest freezer, some friends, and a twice a year drive to the country will save you hundreds of dollars on groovy meat and bring it closer to the cost of conventional meat. How?

Often we are paying a premium for buying from several layers of middlemen. With a bit of legwork (now a days we can let our fingers do most of that walking), you can connect with farmers and farmer coops in your area to purchase as close to direct as possible.  

Last year I split my half of the steer with a friend of mine. This is called a split half, which is actually a quarter of the steer. A split half is about 100 pounds of meat, depending on the animal. 

One organization that is helpful for when you are starting out is The American Grassfed Association. 

Contrary to popular belief (including mine), if you buy a steer to be slaughtered, it's not like they are going to sell the quarter carcass to you Flintstone style! There is a fee of $.75 to $2 per pound processing fee, to cut it into 1 or 2lb packs, wrap it in freezer paper, label it and deep freeze it. 

The cost of a steer can range from $2/lb to $5/lb hanging weight. So you are talking about being able to buy pastured meat for around $6.50 per pound in California. Or $650 per year. In the middle of the country you can get it for as low as $3.50 per pound or $350 per year cut, wrapped, and frozen.

Live Weight includes hooves (feet), organs (offal), bones, hide (leather), basically the whole animal. 

Hanging Weight is the weight of the carcass after the internal organs, hide, head and feet have been removed. Packaged Weight is what you take home in a package from the slaughterhouse.   

Normally the processors throw offal, fat and bones away because people don't want it, but by asking for them, I am able to use the organs to make pate, the bones to make broth, and the fat (suet) to make tallow (oil) to cook, and the meat that falls off the bones for stews, soups, beans & pasta dishes. I am able to bring my price per pound down to closer to $4/lb pound. Huh?

The organs fat and bones come from parts that are typically thrown away, I'm able to take advantage of the $2 hanging weight for those items. This last slaughter I came out with just about as much bones as meat in weight.

100 Pounds of meat means that I can serve 2lb of groovy beef per week to my family.

If a quarter pound of meat is a typical serving, 2 lbs of meat is 2 meals per week for a family of four. That is $1.75 per person per meal at $7/lb for beef.  Fast food burgers get cheaper than that, but not by much.

Add in the fact for that price you and your family get to eat top shelf steaks on a more regular basis than would ordinarily be feasible and you've got yourself a winner/winner pastured beef dinner!