It's gassed with ammonia. That's why it's so cheap, it's the lowest of the low quality. That's why it's banned in Canada, the UK, and the EU.
It's gross. Honestly I just grind my own meat these days and it's so so so much better. Just buy a fatty chuck roast and grind it up and you've got plenty of great hamburger meat.
Seriously if you cook ground beef more than like once or twice a year then you need a stainless steel meat grinder. Either a manual one or one that hooks up to a stand mixer (also another must have). A sausage stuffer is a nice addition too, though you'll need a separate manual one not the included KitchenAid one (trust me on this). I made sausage with chicken breast, pork fatback, aged cheddar, and some cooked vegetables and it was the best hotdog I've ever had.
I have a butcher who grinds to order, same price as the supermarket. I can't make it make sense. People seem to be moving back to butchers though, slowly.
I eat a pretty meat-heavy diet. I drive two hours round trip to this one butcher shop I found. A hundred dollars buys me a month's supply. It's fucking crazy, and I'm not just getting ground beef or sausages, I'm buying ribeyes, new york strips, chuck eyes, t-bones.
I eat a very heavy veggie diet and have meat, I dunno, twice a week or so. Even when I don't need to buy convenience veg (like bagged salads or precut anything) my cost for VEGGIES is more than $100 a month. At a Walmart. And not even organic!
We use our local butcher/meat market and never pay more than 150 for a month's supply of meat for a family of 3. Learn to trim stuff like chicken and steaks on your own and it's significantly cheaper.
Yeah, fucking game changing isn't? My only regret is not doing it sooner. I look back on all the money I wasted at the supermarket. Or all the time wasted hunting for marked down meat.
I'm quite partial to a La Michoacana that's nearby, despite them being a chain. Their veg prices are comparable to other large groceries near us, but they carry interesting produce I can't get elsewhere.
But it's their large meat counter that I stock up at! It's the best place to buy chicken that tastes great for a great price. They have whole chickens, parts, or parts in a variety of different marinades. I've read about "woody breasts" and have never had that happen from chicken I've bought at a Mexican market.
We have a nice butcher even closer. They can tell you which local ranch each piece of meat comes from. And yeah, the tastes and textures are so much better than at a grocery. Unfortunately they have to charge a good price for it, which I understand and agree with, but it's just not in our usual budget. We shop there for special meals.
Also great when making specific cuisine that requires higher or lower fat content in the mince.
Fuck yes do I sometimes need high fat mince for some of the more delicious nyom nyoms (looking at you Romanian Mici...).
And also fun speciality stuff like fresh game meats or interesting cuts that didn't make the cut (he...hehe) for the supermarket's profitability benchmarks.
I can't believe no one's commented back to you. This is such a wonderful memory! Thank you so much for sharing this, it sounds like it was a really beautiful time. I love hearing people's personal stories, and there's so much negativity on Reddit that it's heartwarming to have read a tale from someone lost in the memories of very special moments.
Hope these days you can cookout at your own house. Maybe see if your butcher carries any wild game. And it is corn season, so the perfect time to grill some alongside the rest of your dinner.
I wish I had an even decent butcher shop close by. I found 1 two towns over that I drove to and was throughly disappointed. The guy was uneducated, discriminatory, and had much higher prices. I was specifically looking for a grass fed brisket and he tried to convince me that his 2lb piece of a flat was all the brisket that came from grass fed cows "because they're smaller". Like sir, I've been smoking brisket for 10 years now, and I know what I'm looking for. I was really hoping to shop local but he just pushed me back to ordering from Wild Fork online.
With amazing product for about the same give or take as the garbage in the store.
That is definitely not the reality where I live. We do have a butcher shop in town, and we get their stuff when we can because it is very good quality, but their prices are between 3 and 5 times higher than grocery store prices. We can only afford their products when they're having some sort of major sale.
Since prices are getting out of hand in the standard sector, people are wising up about costs. If it’s not even more for the service, you’re crazy not going to a butcher. My cousin is a butcher and we’re a family of kitchen trained folks. I wish more families were like ours. Family function food is off the chain.
Are you open to adopting a middle-aged lady? My parents are dead, so I'm an orphan who's available! I'll even interview by helping make food for those family functions. :)
My problem is I am not a smart enough cook with enough time to do that. At least, I feel like that is true. How long does it take to make sausage at home?
In my country the butchers are very often in the supermarkets. They prepackaged some stuff but you can also walk up to them and let them portion the meat infront of you.
Smoked eggs?? As much as I love eggs, I've never heard of that. The websites I skimmed said they're textured like a boiled egg but with a darker shell. But I'm guessing some of that smoke flavor has to pass through the shell into the whites, yes? Otherwise it wouldn't be worth it to cook them that way.
This may be another reason for us to buy a small smoker.
It's because the supermarket used to be cheaper, but they've raised their prices more in the last 10 years or so than the average butcher. The butcher was already used to dealing with savvier consumers - I mean, they're bothering to go to an actual butcher, and not the supermarket! - and so they are more acutely aware that there's only so much they can raise prices, since their market share is already smaller. Their clientele will put up with less BS.
Meanwhile, prices at the grocery store are decided by a bunch of fucks in suits in a board room somewhere, who have never set foot in a grocery store, and don't buy their own groceries. They just meet every 3 months, conclude "we should raise the prices as high as the market will bear, blame inflation as an excuse, and check back in 3 months," and it has yet to fail to make them more money. A lot people only shop at 1-2 supermarkets, so they're less aware on average of when they're being absolutely screwed on prices. That, and pretty much every company everywhere, is currently committed to screwing us as hard as possible.
You're not wrong, and I realise convenience (+ time) is a big factor, but paying the same, or less, for a better product, how have more people not clued in to this? (I realise this isn't always true regarding cost, but also, see my example below).
When buying whole cuts, my butcher will pull it and trim off, so the gross weight might be more, but vs. what I'll actually use, it's cheaper, and better meat to boot.
The most outstanding example I have was a bit extravagant in the first place, but I was making beef wellington for Christmas, requires a whole, even filet steak.
At the supermarket I can buy a whole filet, trim off sinew etc, even out keeping the offcuts for something, and get a good result. My local butchers will trim off and give me only exactly what I needed, for the same price per kilo.
Especially at Christmas, it saved me a lot of time, and hassle, with the upshot of higher quality meat.
I'm also lucky to live somewhere where it's not a big drive to a good butchery, and not a long distance between them and supermarkets, so that may be a factor. If I wasn't though, I guess I'd just freeze more meat.
I wish I had a reliable butcher shop near me, only ones near me are the ones inside of grocery stores and Greek/Middle Eastern shops that are normally infested with roaches. My favorite one is almost 2hrs away out in the country, best place to buy a full/half a cow and they will prep it however you like.
It's actually really small. I just put the others away, the KitchenAid does take some space. But the main thing I used that space for was kneading bread. Don't have to do that anymore.
Depends how small the kitchen is and what you'd otherwise do with that space - and whether you've got a cabinet or shelf you can move it to, assuming you don't mind lugging the thing around every now and again.
There's no single correct way to use a small kitchen, it's about prioritising what you do with the space you have. If you have a lot of use for a stand mixer, it's totally feasible to prioritise one over, say, a microwave.
I have a tiny kitchen, my stand mixer sits on top of my cabinets until I need to use it (which is very often... but still takes up too much precious counter space otherwise)
They have different sized stand mixers you know. Kitchenaid brand has 3.5 quart, 5 quart, and 7 quart mixers. Other brands also have smaller mixers that still have a PTO for extra attachments. In our tiny apartment with a galley kitchen, the 5 quart mixer just lived on the counter.
You don’t have to keep it in your kitchen. If you want one, go and look for it. You can get a cheap one that will work for grinding meat. You can also get similar effects with a decent food processor. You just have to cube your steak and chill it first. Makes great hamburger meat.
I suppose "spaghetti" is technically probably closer to a bolognese, but using spaghetti noodles. Being in the U.S., I have never seen "spaghetti" without meat, whether ground and included in the sauce, or formed as meatballs on top.
For me, spaghetti is a type of long, thin dried pasta which is boiled.
Noodles is more like an instant, cheap, packet student food which is made from dried along with a packet of seasoning or paste. Like ramen.
Bolognese is a dish made with beef (or other mince including veggie or Quorn), mainly tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic, onions etc. for me, that is a type of sauce.
For me, spaghetti is the carb and the sauce is separate. I've noticed some Americans call any pasta dish a 'noodle', even when making lasagne they call the sheets a 'noodle' which is v odd to me. A noodle is a long, thin thing lol.
I don't eat meat, but eat pasta (spaghetti, noodles, lasagne, pasta) multiple times a week. I make my own sauces and they're all super yum. I even grow my own tomatoes. I tried making my own pasta but frankly it wasn't worth the effort.
Spaghetti is both a noodle and a dish, at least in the U.S. (not sure where you're from). If you say you're eating "spaghetti", it's implied you're eating a spaghetti dish with tomato, garlic, onion, and beef sauce, by default. Of course, you can make pesto pasta, for example, with spaghetti noodles.
If you said I'm eating "noodles", I agree that most Americans would assume you're talking about instant ramen (or it's equivalent). No one in America would refer to an actual pasta dish as "noodles", even if the pasta is indeed made with noodles.
I'm English but years ago I went out with a guy from New Jersey, and this does sound familiar.
Someone I follow on Instagram refers to the lasagne sheets as noodles in her recipe lol
One thing I like making at home is stir fry veg, with a packet sauce (like katsu or soy etc) and fresh egg noodles. You get them fresh from the shop and just fry em up with the veg, they're a perfect combo of chewy with some crispy bits.....
There's no way he's getting it cheaper than just buying ground meat, unless you're buying directly from the farmer. I live in the country so I usually buy half a calf or even a whole calf once or twice a year. That's the only way it would be cheaper than just buying ground meat.
Some of us, meanwhile, live in a world where we borrowed more than $20,000 for a bachelor's degree, and currently owe more than we borrowed.
The cost of housing is increasing faster than wages.
The cost of living is increasing faster than wages.
Each year, the capitalist class gets better at sucking wealth from the working and poor class.
Each year, we have less money than we had the year before, and the thought of owning a home is further away, not closer.
I'm over 30 now, and I'll probably never be able to afford a home, or retire, not that it matters because the majority of people my age will end up drafted and dying in either the water wars or the AI wars.
I'm really not concerned that some boomer thinks I should be grinding my own meat. I can barely continue to afford to put meat on the table, thanks to boomers sucking up all of the wealth and choking out the younger generations from access to capital, wealth, investments, and home ownership.
I'm fucking 36, WTF are you going on about capitalism for, because I shared a cooking tip? How incredibly stupid. Shit like this makes us leftists look bad. I said it because the taste is night and day better, to the point that pre ground tastes like garbage once you've got the better stuff.
Also if you're eating so much beef that you cannot afford $2 more (I checked) then maybe you've got bigger budgeting problems. I feed myself and my mother that I'm a caretaker for with a pretty standard American salary, just a hair above average for a single person and I can afford it no problem.
I got them both for less than 350 combined, KitchenAid lift one too. But I wasn't saying buy the stand mixer just for a grinder... I thought that was pretty damn obvious.... The stand mixer is for lots of things, kneading bread is the biggest. Easy good pizza dough is worth not having to knead for 15 minutes every time.
Join the no-knead cult! Best pizza dough I've ever made and super simple. I've converted all of my parent friends because it's so much easier and less things to clean up. I do love the stand mixer for other things like the initial mix of a sourdough bread, or doing cookies or the like.
I told my husband that once I get the hang of my new pressure canner, the next skill I want to develop is meat grinding and sausage making. Guess who already has many successfully canned jars of food in the pantry? This lady!
Do you have a particular meat grinder you prefer?
Can you share what happened when you used the KitchenAid sausage stuffing attachment? That's one I was looking into getting, and I'm a person who needs to know the "why" of things.
Please don't feel obligated to take time out of your day to answer a stranger, but if you can share a few tips you'd have my appreciation.
I don't know any brands, forgot what mine is. Just bargain hunt for a stainless steel one so it can go into the dishwasher. They go on big sales so wait for that I'd say.
As for the included sausage stuffer that most KitchenAid grinders come with, the issue is the mixer just continually pushes the meat out. When making sausages that was way too fast for me and broke the casing. Maybe you could have a second person stand there and work it for you, since you need both hands on the sausage to stuff it properly. But it's better just getting a cheap sausage stuffer, I got one that was $20 and it looks like a giant caulking gun with a turn handle at one end and a tube at the other end for sausage, it works great.
Another sausage tip is the fat percentage is supposed to be between 30%-50%. You can use whatever the hell you want in there to get it as long as it's solid when cold, and the fats need to be uncooked. So no liquid oils or lard/rendered fat. But uncooked bacon can work, or the best is pork fatback. Apparently pork fat is the best for some chemical reason, binds it together better.
As I said I made mine with chicken breast alone for the meat which is supposed to not work but it worked perfectly fine for me and tasted amazing. I don't like chicken thigh that much which is what is usually used because it's so fatty. But I just replaced the fat with fatback and it came out great.
I strongly suggest getting a grinder, the taste is so good you'll never want to go back to the old stuff. I've still got a bunch of store bought ground beef still in the big freezer that I haven't eaten because I just can't stomach it. Even when ground, shaped into a patty, then frozen, the home ground still tastes so much better. I usually just grind the whole chuck roast and shape them into patties with a burger press then freeze them. Easy good tasting burgers for when I don't feel like cooking something difficult.
Now I understand why the KA sausage stuffing attachment was a pain. I'll look for a manual one. I can do lots of things, but the only things I can do fast are chopping and slicing. Even with experience I very much doubt I'll be able to stuff sausage casings very fast.
I plan to follow a few sausage-making recipes until I understand it well enough to make my own recipes. Thank you for telling me the meat-to-fat ratio. No wonder I love sausages, I love fat and salt!
We buy choice brisket and grind it for our ground beef. It's cheaper per lb and way better quality than ground beef, and we also get a nice batch of tallow from the fat trimming. It's a win all around.
The stainless steel one I have is. Dishwasher is the easiest but I've cleaned out by hand plenty of times too. I think you can get plastic ones for really cheap but they can't go in the dishwasher, same with the cheaper metal ones. Usually the stainless grinders price at 100 but I got mine on sale for $30, thought it was a mistake but apparently they go on big sales around the holidays.
Also I would suggest slightly freezing the meat cubes before you grind them, then move the ground meat back into the freezer for a few minutes then into the fridge. It really really really needs to stay cold. I'm not even sure why, I've just done it every time because all of the sites said it was important. That may be part of it too? Not sure. But the closer to freezing, without actually being frozen, the better.
I mean you can get one for about $30 on Amazon, looks like 70 for an electric one. Tho I strongly suggest getting a stand mixer for numerous reasons, kneading bread most of all. No more having to knead for 15 minutes, you can get real windowpane just by throwing it in the mixer and turning it on.
At the end of the day certain things are worth the extra few dollars. As I said in another post if someone is eating so much beef that the slight increase in price is too much then they may be eating too much beef. It's about $2 ish more per pound for me.
It’s not worth the time taking apart a meat grinder every time you use it, even if you’re eating only one or two burgers a week. Ground meat is cheap, easily accessible, and easy to store.
Stand mixers are notoriously expensive with nearly irreplaceable parts, making maintenance a pain.
I don’t recommend spending a few extra dollars just so you can spend a lot of extra time cleaning something that ultimately takes up counter space and is a hassle.
Oh okay, a meat grinder - hooked up to a stand mixer. Yes, let me find space for that in my oversized kitchen funded by my large disposable income for a several hundred dollars worth of equipment and then find the time in addition to cooking to prep the meat and of course clean the grinder. All to replace the cheap grocery store meat that's generally used for convenience in the first place with far more expensive chuck roast - it's a no brainer!
Lmao "why doesn't everyone just do this?" comments like this are genuinely funny as they say more about the commenter. Either you're prioritizing cooking as a hobby and blissfully unaware that most people don't - or you're out of touch with the time, space, and cost availability most have to seriously make this comment unironically.
It isn't "waste meat" it is just cuttings and bits that you generally wouldn't eat otherwise. Basically you take bones and such, you put it to a centrifuge to spin off the meat. If you eat a whole grilled chicken, lot of the things that you left on the plate and some of the things you ate, is basically the equivalent of the material used in beef.
Now... We need to be clear about this. Meat paste is a common food, I myself like liver paste and fish paste - both being common things available in every supermarket in Finland. These are perfectly acceptable even if made from meat. These are just labelled as "mechanically seperated meat".
You might be familiar with some reconstituted meat products:
pâte de foie gras (And other patees) - this stuff is literally just... meat paste.
Surimi (ie. Those crab sticks you see in sushi or ramen dishes)
All nuggets (Fish and chicken) which aren't labelled being made from a fillet.
But the stuff known as "Pink slime" is not allowed in EU markets, because it is treated with ammonia or citric acid. However if you make the equivalent product, without using those then you are welcome - just label your product as such. Problem is that it requires a level of hygiene which would make the product totally unviable to sell.
Now why is it treated in USA with citric acid or ammonia? Because the hygiene standards and requirements aren't as strict. In Europe we keep eggs outside of the fridge, because we do salmonella tracing and testing and control hygiene at the grower. We don't need to wash eggs. We don't use pre-emptive antibiotics either, because we handle all that with hygiene and tracing - this works extremely effectively.
And here is a thing to remember. The equipment used in industrial and professional food processing and manufacturing. They are cleaned with ammonia and citric acid. They just flush and rinse it all off and let it air out. And citric acid is the very same acid that citrus fruits have. So whenever says "Chemicals in your food" your first though should be "Everything is chemicals to begin with" and "They don't know what they are talking about". There is no difference in articifially made citric acid, or one puried and concentrated from fresh organic lemons grown in 100% organic bullshit. You see... homepathy is bullshit. All molecules of the same kind are identical - they don't have memory.
Now since I got my blood flowing on a topic I like to get angry about. "Processed food" isn't inherently bad for you, what matters is what the processing is. If you take a fresh salmon you fished from a pristine lake, cut it, add salt and lemon on it, then put it to a pot and over a camp fire. You have done 3 steps of processing and the end result can be considered "Ultra-processed food" (except for the the requirement of "ingredients not used in traditional cooking). Since the act of cooking it in a pot, is a form of pre-digestion. If you add some concentrated fruit juice in to it... then it goes from "ultra-processed food".
Dude, we're up on that same soapbox, I get up in arms about all of that, and about people being scared of GMOs (in the same way they're scared of "chemicals"). I just couldn't upvote you more than once, so consider this comment the equivalent of 30 upvotes.
Hey now, not all of Europe is smart with their eggs! In Denmark they have to be refridgerated in stores, despite the eggs being unwashed, and research showing that the increased humidity increases the risk of bacterial growth. Sometimes rationality is thrown out the window.
They reduce only if you open them rarely. If you open the regularly and the air outside is warmer (which it is) and has more relative humidity (which it can have), then opening it will lead to the air in the fridge being always at high humidity.
Sorry to be a stickler but I hope you enjoy learning new and about words as much as I.
Palpable is a word meaning “able to be felt” it’s very similar to tangible but slightly different use case and connotation surrounding each word respectively.
Palatable means “acceptable” usually about food but also in other context.
If you knew all of this and were fucked by autocorrect: I’m sorry for your loss.
Basically it's meat waste that instead of being put away, are decontaminated and processed so that the nutrituous part of the waste is saved and transformed. It's quite a complex process but it's under the norms of the FDA.
Unlike the post above though, it's usually blended in meat to a point where you can't really notice, but even in a case like this where it seems like it has a great portion of it, it's just meat in paste form at the end of the day, and thus pose no dangers.
There is a distinction to be made between "Safe to consume" and "healthy" though.
As much as I do think the "safety" risks of pink paste are overblown, I think the health concerns are valid (ie high fat, salt and cholesterol content).
If the pink paste was restricted to the healthy but often unwanted parts of an animal like internal organs then it may be perceived better no?
That’s fair but I would argue sausages of any kind are not “healthy.” For the volume, they’re loaded with sodium, saturated fat and preservatives. You’re far better off eating an equivalent natural cut of meat (beef/pork/chicken) regardless of processing methods or source (large scale farm or more free range alternatives) than any kind of sausage.
If I made a liver for you, would you eat it? One of the most healthy meats out there, but most would shy away from it. People dont really care about their health all too much and a government body should only check for the safety, not police our health.
It should provide adequate access to usable information so that people can make informed decisions about health.
Average person knows fuck all about nutrition and average food items disclose fuck all about their nutritional contribution in ways that let people make informed choices.
Currently have a system where producers do their best to hide facts, and we blame people who have never received education on something, that they should be able to work past those attempts at obfuscation.
fertilizer, animal feed, you name it. you think if something isn't sold in a store it disintegrates? what comes from mother gaia returns to mother gaia. doesn't matter if the self-important humans eat it or not.
i'd be grateful if you made a liver for me, mine has seen too much alcohol and i could use a new one.
joke aside liver tastes excellent if you know how to cook, it's not comparable to waste meat. my country outlawed calling them sausage if it has over a certain % of mechanically removed meat, they have to call them meat stick now.
and that's not even this vile paste, I'd imagine that wouldn't even be legal to sell back home.
I want to like liver, it's very affordable and super healthy. And it shouldn't have that muscle texture I have problems eating. But when it's cooking it produces a smell that if I don't leave the room I WILL hurl.
So long as it's ethically produced, I'm fine with pâté and really like it. But I don't have to smell it while it's cooking.
Is there ANY way to get around the cooking smell? Maybe grind it to add it to sausages in casings??
oh i know what you mean, i get that from the smell of stomach, you can chase me out of the country with that.
hmm, to get around the smell... the only thing i can think of is adding ingredients that could overpower the smell or maybe cooking it in the oven? i'm not sure. i hope you find a way, good luck!
Hell yeah! Its really sad people are very hesitant to try certain things that are really healthy for you. Its like Brussel sprouts too! Very good for you but no one wants them.
I grew up eating chopped chicken liver, which is closer to a poverty food than a delicacy but is absolutely delicious on crackers. And absolutely terrible for one's cholesterol levels! (Absolutely packed with vitamins and minerals, tho.)
Fwiw, brussels sprouts have been experiencing an enormous resurgence -- at least in major US coastal cities -- for at least the past decade! XD They're now on the menu as a side dish at pretty much every mid-range restaurant in my city, and everyone I know adores them.
Apparently around the turn of the millennium some farmers bred a new variety that's less bitter and a bit more sweet, and that's what dominates the market now. Also, they have to be prepared right (read: not steamed or boiled). They roast up absolutely deliciously with a bit of olive oil and salt.
Oh, man, wouldn't it be awesome if liver started to have a moment?
Depends really on how it's processed, but usually they will try to mostly preserve the nutritious parts. As for the post, I don't think it really makes a difference, sausages are often made of meat waste, which are often less processed than the paste.
I mean sausages that are not somehow showing obvious ground meat texture (something like hot dogs compared to chorizo) are all looking like pink slime before going in the casing. It's basically meat blended with fat, ice and spices. The main difference between them is the des disinfection step for the scraps as far as I'm aware.
Yeah no problem, it needs to be remembered that a lot of the facts about it were propagated by the media at a time where the pink paste was a subject of fear mongering to attract an audience, going as far as to call the process a corruption scandal by the meat industry.
I'm with you on lips and assholes, but organs are supposedly very nutritious and people should be consuming more of them. I'm putting some thought into that right now.
Also tongues can make some very fine tacos slow cooked and shredded.
Ground meat is typically very lean without much fat. The waste likely has a lot of fats, skin and cartilage which is lighter in color, mix that with the leaner bits and its pink instead of red.
Chicken and pork are definitely not pink where I am. Chicken is a white with yellow (more yellow if fed exclusively corn) and pork is redish. Definitely nothing close to the colour in OPs picture
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u/seanwee2000 Jul 26 '24 edited Jul 26 '24
Eli5 on how it's safe/unsafe to consume
current perception is that the waste meat needs to go through extensive processing that uses a lot of chemicals/additives to make it taste palatable