I'm buying a meat grinder

[jmowreader]

I think the BSE horror stories are just a bit overdone. If beef doesn't get ya, the pork or lamb will. If those don't get ya, poultry certainly will. And don't start on vegetarianism...do you know they're spraying grain right now, even as we speak, with some of the same chemicals used to pressure-treat lumber?* Apples are sprayed with it too, and even peanuts. And the other pesticides; that stuff's got to be bad for you too.

Basically, we have three choices. We can eat what they give us and hope we don't die, try to figure out ways to make our foods a bit safer, or start growing our own. I own a quarter-acre lot; even if I razed the house and gave the whole lot over to agriculture, there's no way I could grow enough food to support two people on that little dab of land.

Hence, the second solution will have to do. To that end, one of the most dangerous foods on the market is ground beef. It's got everything in it from spine chunks to bone scrapings to huge globs of fat because the current trend in meatpacking is to scrape everything they can get off the bones, throw it in a meat grinder and plop it on a styrofoam tray.

Perhaps worse is sausage--imagine spiced ground beef. All of the problems of buying premade ground meat, plus the inexorable taint of not being able to see inside the casing.

That's where the meat grinder comes in. I can buy pot roasts for about the same price as the cheap hamburger, run them through the meat grinder just before using them, and have wonderful low-fat ground beef exactly when I want it.

Trying to decide, though: do I want a hand-cranked meat grinder or one that hooks to the power takeoff on my KitchenAid stand mixer? The hand-cranked one is cheaper, but the KitchenAid one is just so lovely.

* The chemical is called tebuconazole, trade name Preventol A8. It's a fungicide.

[Atman]

1. Tried this with turkey

We don't eat beef anyway...haven't for years. But we do substitute ground turkey in all sorts of dishes, from meatballs to tacos to shepard's pie. We tried grinding our own for the same reasons you stated. Be ready for a big letdown...

First, you will get a better, leaner, safer product because you know what is in it. But; part of the reason store-bought ground meat tastes so "good" is because of the nasty stuff, not in spite of it. It is simple fact, fat adds flavor. I guess the other nasty bits do, too. But our turkey was pure white meat turkey breast...and tasted like notebook paper, with a little styrofoam on top. And burgers fell apart. And it was always dry.

My recommendation...be prepared to add something to it to give it flavor! Maybe sweep the kitchen floor first, and dump it in the grinder, just like the packing plants do.

[jmowreader]

5. I always added pork fat to ground venison

They call pork fat lard, and I can get quite a bit of it. Vegetable shortening would probably work too. Five percent by weight to start, and work up from there until it's right.

The "regular" ground beef is 30 percent fat, so going as high as 10 would still produce a very low-fat product.

[curlyred]

2. we opted for the kitchenaid add-on

It works great. works better if you freeze the meat slightly before grinding....something about the texture.

[ScreamingMeemie]

3. It's so expensive though....but it works, eh?

I was just shocked at the price for an add on being 2/3's the cost of a mixer. Yes, I am cheap. :)

[supernova]

4. If you grind enough meat

the cost of the attachement will pay for itself. edit: you have to add it the cost of your manual labor too. How much time could you save for other activities v. how much time spent over a hand-crank grinder.

Besides, there's no sense in doing something the old hard way, unless you just enjoy endless hours of manual labor.

I say Go Kitchenaid!

[Whitacre D_WI]

6. We buy our meat from a local butcher...

who grinds on site, from trimmings (not the slaughterhouse grinder).

[NashVegas]

7. Whatever You Do, Don't Buy an Oster

I got one a few years ago and it sucks.

[midnight armadillo]

8. Growing food

I own a quarter-acre lot; even if I razed the house and gave the whole lot over to agriculture, there's no way I could grow enough food to support two people on that little dab of land.

Let me suggest you investigate the permaculture method of gardening, which maximizes food production while minimizing human labor. Gaia's Garden is a great book on the subject, and there are tons of sites that'll turn up on a google search. The author gardens on a half-acre or so if memory serves. Bill Mollison, the inventor of the system, says the goal is "designer as recliner".

While it's unlikely that you'll supply 2 person's food needs year-round on that much land, you could certainly supplement your grocery buying with fresh herbs, greens, veggies, and fruit. Dwarf fruit trees are suitable for tiny lots. Permaculture is a scalable system that begins with small lots.

[grasswire]

9. I was wondering about that.

It seems that even a 10x10 kitchen garden would grow enough stuff to supplement the pasta, flour, rice, beans you could buy in bulk. With clever use of climbing crops, tub planting, etc. it seems I would be able to grow more than I could eat.

[cap]

10. go for the electric one...

when you start grinding day-to-day, you'll get tired hand-cranking. Also, Kitchen Aid has the attachment for sausages.

It isn't cost effective to grind your own unless you buy a lot of meat from a butcher/farmer. I go to the farmer direct and I trust his meat so I don't grind any more unless I want to make my own sausage.

We have just bought a freezer and I am waiting for delivery. When we get it I will place my order for 1/2 a cow.