"Water added to ensure freshness."

[K Frame]

"I don't believe that is true.  My butcher is neither kosher nor halal and he doesn't add saline.  I have no idea if he's special in that regard or not, but there's an anecdote."

Is your butcher a hoof to meat case butcher?

Please note EXACTLY what I said.

Some butchers are hoof to meat case. If you live in an area that supports that, that's fantastic, I'm jealous.

Many, however, are NOT. They buy their meat from a commercial slaughterhouse. It all depends on how they purchase them and how the slaughterhouse processes them.

If they're buying primals instead of sides or whole carcasses, they may be getting already treated meat.

That's not a certainty, but it's possible.

In my area I have to go at least 50+ miles to find a hoof to meat case butcher.

The butcher shops around here deal mostly in primals.

The grocery stores that used to have butchers on staff no longer do. They get their meat in prepackaged from either a contract commercial slaughterhouse or from a company butcher plant that brings in carcasses.

The one time my neighbors and I did go in together on purchase of a half pig. It was born, raised, and died on the same farm where I picked it up, custom cut to our order. I had to make a 145-mile round trip to get it, but it was worth it.

[cordex]

Is your butcher a hoof to meat case butcher?

Yes.  My neighbor drives the animals directly there from his farm.   

Please note EXACTLY what I said.

Okay!

...unless your butcher is a full service butcher that goes from hoof to meat case following either Jewish or Arabic religious laws on meat prep...

You are a competent user of English.  Your use of the participial phrase "following either Jewish or Arabic religious laws" which modifies butcher and is not joined by a coordinating conjunction like "or" has the literal and objective meaning that the only way you can get unadulterated meat was to have a full service butcher that goes from hoof to meat case while also following either Jewish or Arabic religious laws.

If that's not exactly what you meant, that's cool too and makes more sense.

[JTHunter]

And what, run down a squirrel in the park and cook it up at home?

Better get 2 as 1 just isn't enough meat. 

[K Frame]

"You are a competent user of English.  Your use of the participial phrase "following either Jewish or Arabic religious laws" which modifies butcher and is not joined by a coordinating conjunction like "or" has the literal and objective meaning that the only way you can get unadulterated meat was to have a full service butcher that goes from hoof to meat case while also following either Jewish or Arabic religious laws."

I is a writerly dued! I writerly gud!

OK, I see the confusion. My apologies.

That was not my intent to infer that the only way to get unadulterated meat was to go to a religious butcher in all areas. In my area, and probably most metro areas, I'd bet it about the only way to do so unless you can luck into finding a butcher that's part of a hoof to meat case process. There used to be one of those in my area but it went belly up about 15-20 years ago.


The best thing ANYONE can do is to read the label.

If water is added as part of the processing, it has to be listed on the packaging (if it's prepackaged, I'm not sure what the laws are for custom butchers/meat shops) . Here's a pretty good rundown of requirements from USDA -- https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/water-meat-poultry#:~:text=If%20the%20carcasses%20or%20parts%20have%20absorbed%20such,absorbed%20water%22%29%20must%20be%20stated%20on%20the%20label.

I picked up a really nice Angus chuck roast from my local grocery store last week. Almost 4 pounds, on sale for $4.99 a pound.

It's one of the plant processed and wrapped (the heavy vacuum packaging) pieces now that my local grocery store chain has largely stopped meat cutting.

The label states minimally processed, which means that it's cut from the primal and packaged. No additives of any kind, not even added water.

If you're buying at grocery store, that's what you want to see.

Obviously, though, you're never going to see that label on ham or ground meats, as the preparation process for both takes them beyond minimally processed.

[K Frame]

Better get 2 as 1 just isn't enough meat. 

I've not had squirrel in probably 30 years. Always liked it, but in Pennsylvania it tended to be a bit bitter they're virtually 100% acorn fed up there unless you're able to hunt the edges of standing feed corn fields.

[230RN]

There used to be a storage locker owner up in Boulder who butchered and stored  your game animals.  You drove up to his store  with a deer "on your hood," and he'd take it from there, and prepare what parts you wanted to keep at home for you.  Gargling "game meat processing" indicates a number of them around the Denver area.

The squirrel thing reminded me that I  used to "manage" local farmers' prairie dog population around here.  I always wondered about their edibility since they feed on nothing but grass.  Wouldn't be "corn-fed," so I wondered about that.  Of course, there usually wasn't much left after my management techniques with a .223 Remington got them, but still, I wondered. The raptors and ground predators seemed to enjoy them since the bodies were usually gone by the next day.  Protein is protein.

Terry, 230RN

[cordex]

The lamb shoulder came off the smoker and is resting. Four ribeyes and six strip steaks are going on the grill shortly.

The animals are cooking a quarter of a mile from where they lived. Good meat is good.

[Ben]

Wouldn't be "corn-fed," so I wondered about that. 

Corn fed is overrated, IMO. The local stuff I get is all grass fed and has plenty of marbling for me.

[dogmush]

Corn fed is overrated, IMO. The local stuff I get is all grass fed and has plenty of marbling for me.

Agreed.

[230RN]

Me:

"Wouldn't be 'corn-fed,' so I wondered about that."

I was using "corn-fed" in quotes as if corn-finishing represented the zenith of quaity and flavor.  A semantic device, if you will.  I guess whether it is or not is a matter of individual taste.  Me, I don't think I could tell a corn-fed piece of meat from a rutabaga-fed one. Protein is protein.

Terry, 230RN

[K Frame]

Corn fed is overrated, IMO. The local stuff I get is all grass fed and has plenty of marbling for me.

For beef, I agree 100%. Pasture raised/grass fed is much better.

For squirrels it's much different. If they have access to a good amount of corn the tannins don't build up in the flesh and you don't have to soak them in milk and salted water.

The same is true of pigs. In the east it used to be a thing to "forest" or "wood lot" raise pigs and they'd basically feed themselves on stuff like chestnut and acorns.

A couple of weeks before slaughter they'd be corralled and fed primarily a corn diet to sweeten the meat -- essentially get rid of the tannins from all of the acorns they had been eating.

That way of producing pork really changed when the chestnut blight hit the east and killed off about 75% of the mast producing trees starting in the 1920s. It took a couple of decades for the oaks to move in and take over where the chestnuts had been growing. In the mean time you also had the depression, which killed off a lot of the farms, and also World War II. Those three events completely changed how people farmed in the east. It became FAR more business oriented.

[K Frame]

Prairie dogs are perfectly edible. They're a form of ground squirrel.

[cordex]

I enjoy grass fed beef, and it is probably better for me, but for steaks I definitely prefer corn fed or corn finished for flavor and fat content.

For ground beef and roasts it doesn’t matter a bit.

I can get either one from farmers I trust, and I end up buying corn finished 90% of the time.

[Ben]

I enjoy grass fed beef, and it is probably better for me, but for steaks I definitely prefer corn fed or corn finished for flavor and fat content.

I get the "flavor from fat" part, and I know that it's part of why an enjoy a ribeye, but at the same time, ever since I was a kid, I have been OCD on cutting off fatty parts on the cooked steak. I probably cut away 25% of the average ribeye to make sure I don't eat any fat globs. 

On the other hand, fat content doesn't matter much to me on something like a tritip or top sirloin, which are my "everyday" red meats. With something like a tritip, I'll eat it as "steak" on Sunday, then after that I cut the leftovers into little bits for tacos or burritos the rest of the week.

[cordex]

Interesting … I don’t mind eating fat from beef or lamb right along with the meat. I don’t like gristle or tendons or fat from deer, but soft, cooked, corn-fed fat is delicious and probably better for you than equal calories of carbohydrates.

I think the 90s and 2000s “fat is evil, eat sugar instead!” craze was a bad idea.

[JTHunter]

Prairie dogs are perfectly edible. They're a form of ground squirrel.

IIRC, isn't it prairie dogs that are carriers for Hansen's disease aka leprosy?

[zxcvbob]

IIRC, isn't it prairie dogs that are carriers for Hansen's disease aka leprosy?

No, that's armadillos.  Prairie dogs carry the plague.  HTH 

[K Frame]

IIRC, isn't it prairie dogs that are carriers for Hansen's disease aka leprosy?

Interesting … I don’t mind eating fat from beef or lamb right along with the meat. I don’t like gristle or tendons or fat from deer, but soft, cooked, corn-fed fat is delicious and probably better for you than equal calories of carbohydrates.

I think the 90s and 2000s “fat is evil, eat sugar instead!” craze was a bad idea.

Same. I LOVE the fat around the outside of a rib eye, porterhouse, or T bone. It adds SO much flavor to each bite of meat.

[WLJ]

No, that's armadillos.  Prairie dogs carry the plague.  HTH 

And armadillos have now been spotted in Louisville

[JTHunter]

And armadillos have now been spotted in Louisville.

They are as far north as St. Louis now.  I've seen some of them as RK this summer in my area SE of St. Louis.