*3/25/15 UPDATE: Since writing this blog post, I got such a great response from my readers that I began a group sharing service. If you are interested in group share, go to our website at www.sharehappycows.com for more information. We'll be happy to walk you through how easy it is to get local meats at an affordable cost in a quantity that fits your space. And we'll deliver it to your house.
Before we moved to Cleveland, we discovered the love of buying locally raised beef. We have some friends back home who raise just a few Holstein cows at a time, taking excellent care to raise them in a healthy, all natural way. After being frustrated with the meager options at the grocery store and the ridiculous mark up of price on the "organic" beef options, we decided to buy-in on Steve and Michelle's stock.
There are many reasons to fall in love with buying local beef. It's cheaper, it's healthier, it tastes better and it supports your local economy while at the same time takes away from factory farming. Now that we've moved, Steve and Michelle are about four hours from us, so we've had to find a new local cattle farmer in the counties around us. It wasn't as easy as I would have hoped but after some time invested in research, we found several.
On our first run at purchasing local beef, we chose to only order a quarter of a cow to start. If you’ve never bought beef this way, you might not know how rewarding and cost effective it is. The beef is sold by the quarter, the half or the whole. We stocked our deep freezer but it didn't take as long as we thought to go through that meat!
Each portion has a market-based per pound price that is multiplied by the hanging weight. So for example, a half a cow hangs for about 350 pounds. A typical market price for all naturally raised beef is around $4.00 per hanging weight pound. So 350 X $4.00= $1,400. Your take home yield, meaning the actual meat you come home with after processing a half cow is about 65% of that weight or 225 pounds. So, 225 pounds of meat at $1,400 means your actual price is about $6.25 per pound for ground beef, steaks and roasts.
NOTE: If you don't want that much meat or can't afford that much of an upfront cost, you can contact us to do a group share where you can share a quarter or a half or a whole with several other families. With group shares you can buy on a budget, it requires less storage space, and you can re-order more often, keeping your meat inventory fresher. You also get a variety of meats and cuts. We do beef, chicken and pork. Contact us at www.sharehappycows.com for more information.
There are reasons other than price for buying locally-raised beef. First, the butcher typically ages beef longer than store bought beef, 14 to 21 days compared to only 5 to 7 for commercial beef. So it tastes better. But it’s also typically fresher because commercial beef can sit longer before it gets to your table. With local beef, once the butcher cuts it up, it's yours. Plus, commercial ground beef comes from a variety of cows, whereas your local beef purchase is all from the same cow. That means the ground beef you buy from the grocery store is made up of several different cows. Finally, even the "organic" beef you get from the grocery store cannot compare. Most of it is shipped in from Australia and it is wet aged, meaning it ages inside the plastic packaging. This makes it less flavorful, less safe and it contains more water. So, when you pay per pound, you are paying for more water in the weight of that pound of meat. It's a waste.
The taste of local beef is worlds away from anything you’ve ever bought at a store. If you’ve never tasted local beef, you don’t know what beef is actually supposed to taste like, but I can tell you it is delicious. But the best thing about buying local is that you know very well how that cow was fed, raised and cared for. The cows we buy graze on pasture land and are supplementally fed an all natural diet of non-GMO feed, have plenty of room to roam, have clean living quarters and are not pumped full of steroids or antibiotics. And the beef comes from the butcher without preservatives, nitrates, nitrites or “pink slime.” We can also get totally organic 100% grass fed cows but the cost is more and the difference is actually minimal.
Now many people may argue that red meat in your diet is not a good thing, that you should feed your family lean meats. I disagree, sort of. Yes, lean meats are healthier in terms of their fat and cholesterol content. But red meat provides vital nutrients that are hard to find elsewhere in our diet.
For instance, red meat is rich in Vitamin B12 as well as thiamin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, folate, niacin and B6. It's also a great source of Vitamin D and iron. Red meat is also a great way for us to get zinc. Since the American diet is not rich in organ meats and shellfish, red meat becomes the primary source for our vital nutrients such as zinc. In red meat we also find significant amounts of minerals such as magnesium, copper, cobalt, phosphorous, chromium, nickel and selenium. And all of these vitamins and minerals are much more bioavailable in red meat than in other sources such as our plant-based foods. Bioavailable means the body can absorb them much more efficiently. Finally, the fatty acid profile of red meat is far and away better than leaner white meats.
Media reports will scare you that red meat is dangerous to your health, that it leads to cancer and heart disease. However, there have been no conclusive studies that show evidence of this. And if anything, it's the nitrates and nitrites that commercial beef companies pump into your grocery store beef that is the most dangerous thing about it. That HAS been proven. This is probably the most important reason to buy local.
So, if you are interested in getting involved in group sharing of locally raised beef, chicken or pork, check out our site and contact us for more information. You will not be sorry and you will probably never buy beef at the grocery store again. www.sharehappycows.com.
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