And one more for the new year. Ive been buying meat at one of my local stores that is almost outdated. This is a good store with a great meat department! They put out quality meat at a fair price. No, its not organic, I cant afford that luxury. But here is something I will share for those who need the protein but have limited income. My grandparents, and then one of my cousins ran the local locker plant in a small midwestern town. A locker plant was the American solution before electricity was common in the rural areas and farmers needed a place to keep their food frozen. The locker had a deep freeze so even if the power went out, you had several days before anything would thaw. Being in town, the power delivery was more stable as well. Farmers would sell live animals to neighbors, and both the farmers and neighbors would have these processed into the different cuts of meat they preferred and keep quite a bit of that at the locker, coming into town every week or so to pick up something for the family needs. OK, so years ago, before all this non-stop processing of CAFO meats, it was a common practice to age meats. This wasnt just for wild game, but aging beef lets the meat break down (yes, thats what it is all about) and when cooked, the meat is tender instead of stringy. We have made progress with our meat quality since this was a common practice, but still, the lower priced cuts of meat have more need of this aging process. That is why stewing, roasting, or other extended cooking processes are used for a lot of the lesser cuts. Coming from a family where the butcher would take what the farmer, etc. didnt want either in trade for part of the processing charge, or just to keep worthwhile food from going to waste, we enjoyed massive amounts of stewed, roasted, braised, and all other preparations of meat. So what does it mean if a reputable meat department marks down the older product? It means the meat is still considered safe, but if it doesnt sell and either get in the freezer or get cooked, it is going to be garbage. Last week I bought some fajita spiced chicken w/ peppers. These were normally a value added product with about 1/4 pound coming in at $3.10 or so. When the stuff is near end of life, the meat department has a series of stickers ranging from $0.50 to $3.00 off on the packaged meat. I didnt really want the peppers and fajita spice, but bought a couple of packages when the markdown went to $3.00 off. This was pretty tasty (Well Cooked) in the morning with a couple of eggs and my cost for the meat was $0.03 and $0.11 for the two packages I picked up. Today I bought some pork cubes for stewing, $1.59 for just under 2 pounds after the price markdown. This is already seasoned and seared waiting for some beans to soak and will become several days of good hearty bean soup for the cold winter weather that has finally arrived. Im not going to tell you to go and buy expired food. You do need to know what to look for and there are places I wouldnt (and dont) buy fresh meats from. But when you are dealing with established quality meat departments, understanding food borne illness and how to handle meats can let you shop those manager specials and enjoy knowing you are keeping food wastes down while freeing up one of your higher outlays on food purchases to let you do things like buy direct from your local farms - at a price that allows them to live a quality life.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 03:40:46 +0000
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