When cuts of beef go on sale in a retail outlet, is there a standard % increase in the amount of fat that is left on the meat? (Please note, I am only asking for a friend, as I always run down critters and kill them with a spear, then rip off the meat with my teeth and consume it raw.)

Fat is usually trimmed to some degree.. When I buy a beef quarter at the (somewhat) local meat market I specify that the fat's NOT to be trimmed... I'm paying for it anyway - whether trimmed or not - so I have 'em leave it on..

FWIW..

There is no such thing as a sale on beef.

You are paying higher prices for lower quality beef......and happy about it.

Fat by volume isn't very heavy compared to muscle. That's why fat guys float really well.

Soooooooo, if Michael Moore ends up in the drink - it's best to cling to him when ya don't have a life vest on?

I thought fat content was designated by name, select, choice, prime

That's marbling in the muscle, the OP is talking about the thickness of fat on the outside or edge . People have been told fat is bad and want lean meat, which is lower grade. A good steak will have marbling throughout the muscle.

I'm pretty sure I'm well marbled

Not aware there is a standard % of fat intentionally left when on sale as I've seen steaks with anywhere from very little fat to a lot of fat all together and priced the same.

A local chain of grocery stores often runs sales ads on rib-eye and NY strip steaks and when they do they usually will price them as both cut and trimmed by pound and also priced as a whole loin by pound with 'sliced for free' option but no mention of trimmed. The difference in price is typically about $1.00 a pound less by whole loin versus sliced, trimmed and individually packaged.

I have them leave it on!

what is marbling?

as an aside i love the way the marketing has shifted from loving grain fed corraled beef versus good ol lean west texas grass fed stuff.

even locally, they promote grass fed as so much more tasty than grain fed.

i guess we have to adapt, and roll with the blows.

hippies call it free range

Well marbled, with little fat left on the outside edge.

yes, yes they do. and they'd be correct also.

markets are always in flux, or so it seems.

beef feedlots, do they still exist, or not?

when people are hungry for near raw beef, does it much matter what it tastes like?

No! Ya toss the fugger a brick!!

Yield grade is based on backfat, Yield grade 1 being the leanest, 5 with the most fat covering.
Quality grade is based on marbling or intramuscular fat, Select, Low, medium, high, choice and prime.

Killer cows are normally listed as Canner, Cutter, and Breaking, I think around here. These won't be used for much but hamburger, or dog food on the other end of the spectrum.

Fire up the grill mathman,they look great. Rare for me

Yep, some great ribeye's.

Make mine a thick Porterhouse with the same marbling, though.

Last few months about once a month top round and london broil have been 1.97 on sale, I buy it for jerky, fajitas, stew, chili, machaca... anything slow cooked, I load up on them in the freezer.

Just bought this for jerky deer hunting this weekend with DARBY.

They trimmed the fat pretty tight, LB has little fat... I wouldn't serve them as steaks.

Kent

I'll take 'em !

The fat is the best part.

Exactly....

They could put a flashing light on his head and use him for a marker buoy.

The environmentalists would be up in arms over the greasy slick that would trail from him.

Nah.

They'd just think it was a dead walrus.

1.97 beef result... Dennis and I are accompanying DARBY on his deer hunt in Tonto Basin this weekend... hope they like it spicy.

Kent

The fat profile in grass fed beef is different from feed lot beef. Like wild game, it's less saturated and therefore has a lower melting point. Our bodies need the higher levels of mono-unsaturated fats that grass fed beef (and fish and wild game) contain. A nice benefit is that the fat from grass fed beef doesn't coagulate at body temperature, so it doesn't coat your tongue (and taste buds) when you are eating. That high melting point of feed lot beef is the reason there's A1 steak sauce on every restaurant table: the acid cuts the fat off the taste buds so you can actually taste the beef.

Anyway, there's finally some science in nutritional recommendations, and grass fed beef and dairy have much healthier lipid profiles, allowing the marketeers to use that argument to sell, sell, sell!

I think you're missing the real reason for A1 on the table.

Horseshit.

Next you will tell us that buffler is more healthy.

The irony in that is back through the mid '70s - '80s and early '90s, grass fed beef was advertised as "budget" beef and priced as such.

It's been my experience that the fat of wild whitetail deer must have a very low congealing point too as when I've got some in a bite I had to drink something warm to get rid of the already congealing grease slick it left inside my mouth.

They didn't have to take the time and expense of finishing them on corn at the lot.

As is the case with any and all food-related advertising.

Of course there is some truth to that.


Feedlots are actually....sort of fast and cheap in some ways.


A true "Grass Fat/Finished" animal is an expensive animal.

Most of the critters sold as grass fats were not finished in the proper sense....they were just allowed to reach a certain age and weight and then butchered. Never having seen the feed lot.


To truly finish on grass (forage) is very time consuming and expensive. You need that animal on an increasing plane of nutrition all the time....never once going backwards.


To plan all that, have the acreage, precip, and expense of stockpiling-planting forage is quite a task!


Most of this "grass fed-fat-finished" nonsense is just that....nonsense. Like IPA beers. IPA beers are fugging terrible....but you are shunned if you say you dont like them.


Very few people have ever truly eaten a "grass _______" animal.

Very good post - "Look, the emperor has no clothes!"

I'm going to disagree on the IPA comment. Of course I was drinking IPA long before it was trendy, and before a profusion of not so well balanced Johnny come lately entries hit the market.

It has become sort of a perverse arms race among brewers to produce the most outrageous IPA.

No doubt there are some good ones out there. Schit...I can drink a little scotch now...never could before. And is good stuff too....Cutty Sark.......



My point is that most of the beef that gets sold as Premium....healthy.....grass finished.....good for the environment...blah blah blah.....is just marketing wank.


When someone says "science has shown".......generally not.


A truly Grass Finished beef is a treasure to behold. The taste and texture of such a beef is equal in quality in every way to a premium grain fed animal. Its just different!


Thats what's so sad about all this marketing wank. The producers that are turning out such animals are lost in the heap of animals that have simple never been to the feed lot. The profit is in marketing and GUILT....not quality.


Whole different animal.

It seems the further ones is from the pasture , the easier it is to convince them how much better "grass finished" beef is, most have no clue that weather and precipitation control the quality of the grass that is available at this time of year, the snow interferes with us this time of year.

It's naturally lower fat, but that's about the only inherent difference. You can manipulate buffalo, beefalo, cattle, wagoo (or however you spell that), even elk or deer through feed.

JIm is right on the money. There's grass fed and grass finished.

"Grass fed" is a trade marked marketing term. You can look up the definition and what you are allowed to feed and not feed. You can't feed trit, for example, unless it is cut before it goes to seed. Now, a dough-stage trit silage (or hay), is a fabulous, FABULOUS part of a finishing diet, but you wouldn't be able to market it as grass fed. Leave it to the do-gooders to go all pharisee on a good thing.

One of these days, I need to trademark the term "grass finished", and do a little marketeering myself....

Personally, I prefer alfalfa finished elk and deer. It is outstanding.

Alfalfa, momma's milk and a touch of wheat!

There will never be any of that schidt on my table. What a horrible show of disrespect to a noble animal. If you need that crap you need to stop being a cheap cundt and buy a quality cut.

Stand on his shoulders. With spikes.

I've seen it used on what started as a fine piece of meat. But then it was cooked well done for a heathen.

Those look extremely fatty.

I feed about a half dozen of my own calves every year to fat. I certainly don't feed them to that fat though.
Maybe years ago yes, but I just don't like them that fat anymore. Everyone has their own taste I guess.

Jim sure nailed it right on this topic.

Fed versus finished.

Want beef, I can get for you wholesale.

When I can get good ones I'm really a fan of strip steak fan more than other cuts.



I don't overcook them so they stay nice and juicy, have more flavor than tenderloin, and aren't as greasy as a similarly marbled ribeye.

Phugg me, I like A1. Not smothered, just to the side for dipping . No well done beef though, medium rare.

The grass fed I've eaten didn't taste near as good as fed beef. We butchered a good fat black heifer that broke her leg in the corral. It was weaned and fat on grass and minerals only. It was good enough and our adult kids were glad to share in it, but not as good as fed beef. That grass fed marketing is like a Democrat talking point, it sounds good to the gullible but it lacks a lot in truth.

I agree on the taste of the grass fed. The worst tasting steak I've ever had was organic grass fed that my wife bought at Whole Foods.

I have a butcher that I make sure to gets a Christmas card with a note from Benjamin. He picks out my steaks and I never ask him the price or the bull's dietary concerns. That guy makes me look good.

I shouldn't speak for Jim Conrad, but I suspect he'd approve of my method.

Thank you! Diogenes can put away his lantern.

Fun fact: up until pretty recently, a majority of “grass fed beef” were culled dairy cows.

Marketeers, they are a fun bunch!

Feed lot beef is pretty bland.
Fat, yes. Tender, yes. Greasy, yes. Flavorful, no.

I’ll take a leaner beef with a more natural diet any day. It can still be wonderfully tender and tasty, just with out the sensation of eating a bland steak cooked in Vaseline.

We always put our beef out to pasture (grass fed) but once a day we brought them to the barn for a couple of scoops of ground corn. (we didn't bring them up, they knew they got corn once a day) We had some pretty good beef. We had a small operation and one of the calves always ended up at the locker. The rest went to the sale barn. Someone was getting some great beef.

kwg

In the Northeast small family run dairys have been dropping like flies. Lots of guys thought when it came time to retire, they'd sell their registered Holsteins for $1800-2K/head. Then, time comes and they find no buyers. Their best milk cows bring $400 at auction, just to be sent to slaughter. It's been real sad. I can't imagine what it's like seeing your life's work go like that. My family has been out of the dairy business since the late 60's, but we still breed beef cattle. It's hard to lose a good old cow, but loosing them all at once, I can't imagine.

Always been attracted to IPA brews. Some are a failure, true. But some keep me going back. Current favorite especially during the waiting period between lighting the fire and reaching grilling temp is Voodoo Ranger Imperial. Not bad as a compliment to the steak, grilled squash,sweet onions and portobellos coming off the the fire together either. For an interesting and rich Black & Tan pair it with Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout.

I make, taste, and talk about beer for a living.

I’ve had an impacted azz full of over hopped IPA’s. While I enjoy tasting them, I rarely order a pint of one anymore.

We got out of the dairy business in 1968. New State regulations meant we had to go big or get out. Going big was not in the cards. My dad loved them cows and they all got sent to the slaughter. I'm pretty sure it broke his heart. We kept some of the heifer calves from them diary cows and they put out some pretty good beef calves. He ran beef until his death in 1978. He had a good little herd started. Unfortunately, I was not in a position to pick up where he left off and Mom sold every thing. I sure wish I could go back in time and make some changes and keep them cows.

kwg

Stress may have had much to do with that.

The best tasting, practically 'melt-in-your-mouth' tenderest steak I recall ever eating was from Black Angus, one of several raised from the time bought as calves in a small fenced in area with essentially no graze, only ate what they were fed, and never given any growth enhancing chemicals.

Back in the day, when I traveled to the west for skiing or hunting, many of the nicer restaurants I stopped at had a separate place on the menu for Iowa beef and pork. The prices were always a bit higher. On an elk hunt in Idaho, my hunting buddy and I did the cooking for the guide as a way to have a less costly hunt sans a provided cook. I like to cook so I was happy to do that and save a few bucks. I had brought out some marvelously marbled rib eyes for one of the meals. When I told the guide we were having steak that night, he didn't appear happy at all. I asked why. He said that was OK, but he had always found steak was too tough and chewy for his liking. I promised better. When he took that first bite of that outstanding rib eye over the coals from a great open fire, his eyes lit up. He was downright excited about that steak, having never had one like it, and it was a generous cut and nearly made him sick, but he couldn't stop eating it. I've never used steak sauce for anything but hamburgers, and my tongue is fine after eating any steak I prepare or cooked by an upscale restaurant. But I don't buy steak out much, liking the ones I grill at least as well or better.