One of my favorite books when I was a kid was "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." In the beginning of the book, the main character Francie is sent to the butcher shop to buy $.10 worth of ground beef for her family's Saturday night dinner. Her mother insists that she have the butcher grind it in front of her instead of buying it off the plate, because you never know what might be in your meat if you buy it pre-ground. I remember reading that section back in the day and thinking how nice it was that ground meat is so safe and available so that people didn't have to worry about it anymore. I went on thinking that way until Tuesday, when I read this post by the Grocery Guy. Apparently mass market ground beef isn't nearly as safe and clean as we think it is. The Grocery Guy stresses that it is important that you know and trust the people who make your ground beef, which is not always an easy thing in this day and age (especially if you tend to shop at large, chain supermarkets). He says that if you don't know your butcher that you should grind your own (and gives tips on how to go about doing just that). It's an interesting read and will definitely make you think about ground beef more critically (if you are still among the number who eat the stuff. Personally, I have a very hard time resisting a good hamburger).
Cheese Course: Brebis Pardou
A transcendent summer tomato salad
Sliced bread turns 80 today
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-03-2008 @ 3:58PM
Laenir said...
This is the first Grocery Guy post that I have read, so maybe I should read more of his writings before I pass judgement on his conclusions, but the whole story about the Jimmy Dean butcher and the green meat screams exaggeration. The description read like something straight out of "The Jungle." Am I supposed to believe our USDA and FDA don't complete health inspections?
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1-03-2008 @ 3:59PM
Unika said...
Holy cow...reading that article makes me wanna vomit...thank God I've been making nice with the Pike Place Market butcher's! Ugh! But I may just have to make the meat grinder attachment the first one I buy for my shiny new Christmas present...the KitchenAid Mixer!
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1-03-2008 @ 4:48PM
cydeweyz said...
Inspections:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/20/AR2007122002409.html?hpid=moreheadlines
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1-03-2008 @ 8:56PM
Kathy said...
I love A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. It was one of my favorite books growing up and I loved the movie!
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1-04-2008 @ 1:17AM
Grocery Guy said...
Laenir,
I assure you that packing houses are not as careful as you might like to believe and that trimming the suface off hanging weight trim is a laborious and time consuming task. I think that in the wake of the closure of the New Jersey based Tops meat plant after an E. Coli recall we can all draw our own conclusions about the dangers of having meat dealt with by faceless people in far away places. We need to think MUCH more deeply about the way our food is produced and this is but one tiny, if graphic, illustration of that.
As for the green meat going into Jimmy Dean Sausage I think that if you would have seen the look on his face when he told me over a cigarette on the grocery store loading dock you would not have much doubt to it's truthfulness. The food business is a shady affair with small margins and all manner of sketchy legislation supporting less than admirable practices. Let's just say that people do whatever they can get away with for as long as they can and leave it at that.
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1-04-2008 @ 8:23PM
David P. Hopkins said...
Back in the 1960's I worked in a small town grocery store that had a full time butcher. We had the typical open butcher shop meat cases and we ground three grades of ground beef. Ground sirloin, ground chuck, and budget grade, priced at, (remember this is the 60's), 99 cents per pound, 69 cents, and three pounds for 99 cents. The ground sirloin was appox. 15% fat with the rest 100% lean beef, the ground chuck was appox. 25% fat with the rest being 100% lean beef, for the budget burger the fat content was close to 50%. Some shoppers might say, that budget burger looks like ground pork! Ah! but not when a large can of tomatoe juice is added! Ground beef is ground two times, after the first grind the tomatoe juice was added and then ground the second time giving the high fat burger a nice beefy color! Burger beware!
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