An Unscientific Comparison of Meats

The Builder (my hubby), and I went to the local Farmer's Market and purchased a couple of pounds of ground beef from a local farm that raises grass-fed beef. I've wanted to switch from the gross factory farmed grocery store meats for a while, but I could never justify the extra cost. Food is expensive, and we need to stick to a budget. Well, we brought home the beef, cooked it, and were quite surprised. There was absolutely no fat to drain! So I figure, except for a bit of moisture loss, the pound of meat I cooked gave me - get this - a pound of meat! I should have weighed it, but I didn't think about it until after we ate. This pound of meat cost me $5.50. Yes, it was a little hard to explain to the Builder why we were spending that much when I could buy it so much cheaper at the store, but he loves me, and he's a good sport.

Just to compare, a few nights later I cooked some ground beef I had in the freezer. I forgot to weigh it (to calibrate my scale) before I cooked it, but it was 3.5 pounds of ground beef I bought for $3.19 a pound. After I finished cooking it and (attempting) to drain off all the fat, I weighed it. It weighed 2.25 pounds. So I paid for 1 1/4 pounds of fat! BLECH! My grocery store beef ended up costing me almost $5 a pound, and I never could get rid of all the fat. So for just a little bit more, I could buy much healthier, grass fed, local beef. Plus (and this could easily be a biased opinion), the grass feed tasted better.

Totally unscientific experiment completed.