Single Origin Beef

[rotuts]

news to me :

 

single origin beef

 

a way to read the WSJ article in today's paper.

 

are you eating Bessie ?  Ralph ?

 

Yikes !

[ElsieD]

Interesting.  I remember "back in the day" when my then MIL used to buy half of a beef.   That would be single origin beef and it was cheaper than the beef sold in the grocery store.  That was common then.   Does that even happen any more?

[chefmd]

If I buy a piece of beef and grind it myself, I will have single origin beef burger.  If I grill an individual steak, I will have a single origin beef steak.  I can even buy the whole (or half) prime cut of the beef and will have single origin beef steaks for the party.  Single origin of my beef products does not mean it is high or low quality, marbled or not, fresh or not.

 

Sounds like it is marketing at its best.

[rotuts]

you betcha !

[Anna N]

3 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Interesting.  I remember "back in the day" when my then MIL used to buy half of a beef.   That would be single origin beef and it was cheaper than the beef sold in the grocery store.  That was common then.   Does that even happen any more?

 Suspect it is less popular now than it once was.   If you buy a half a cow then you buy all the cuts that that entails. And a good portion of those cuts will require long slow cooking or other special treatment.   The trend today seems to be towards only the prime cuts. If you are only going to eat steaks and roasts then a side of beef makes no sense.  

 

The concept of single origin beef boggles my mind. Will we soon all be carrying our own personal DNA kits? 

Edited October 6, 2016 by Anna N (log)

[rotuts]

I think this was more common ' in the country ' rather than the 'burbs and esp. the city.

 

you had to have a pretty large freezer in your basement or garage or somewhere.  Lots of the tougher cuts were ground up into 'burger

 

and if you didn't know personally the processor  you might not end up with what added up to a 1/2 cow after you added things up.

 

there is a WholeFoods across the street from my Tj's.   maybe Ill stop by and see how they are doing this .

 

I sure for the price;s mentioned in the WSJ  fraud would be rampant.

 

just like  ""  Fish "" and "" EVOO ""

[Allura]

There's a few farms near me that will sell you a half or quarter of a cow or a half of a pig. They pre-cut and pacakage it for you, too. The beef runs in the $4/lb area, but of course there's a lot of weight to a quarter of a cow. Generally the more unusual cuts can be turned into hamburger f (or sausage in the case of the pork).

[MelissaH]

We haven't done a portion of a bovine but we have done a pig and a lamb. We split both of the above with friends. The one thing I'd suggest is that if possible, make very clear the sort of butchering you want (how thick do you want the pork chops cut? would you prefer chunks of stew meat or ground lamb? pork belly as a whole piece, or already turned into sliced bacon?). Unfortunately, the friends moved across the country, so we need to find more people to split animals with because our meat consumption isn't enough to warrant a whole quadruped for just the two of us. But with the right sharing partners, I'd do it again in a heartbeat...regardless of the trendy name it may have now.

[liuzhou]

Since I never buy ground / minced beef or any other processed beef, all my beef must be "single origin". Silly term.

[quiet1]

2 hours ago, liuzhou said:

Since I never buy ground / minced beef or any other processed beef, all my beef must be "single origin". Silly term.

 

I keep passing the subject line of this topic and thinking "are you kidding me?"

 

It is very silly and I'd have a hard time buying from someone who marketed it that way because that is too hipster to be tolerated.

[Shel_B]

17 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Interesting.  I remember "back in the day" when my then MIL used to buy half of a beef.   That would be single origin beef and it was cheaper than the beef sold in the grocery store.  That was common then.   Does that even happen any more?

 

The Local Butcher Shop here in Berkeley has been selling "single origin" meat for years.  A friend has a small cattle operation and I've been getting such meat from him for a couple of years.  All grass fed ...

[quiet1]

9 hours ago, Shel_B said:

 

The Local Butcher Shop here in Berkeley has been selling "single origin" meat for years.  A friend has a small cattle operation and I've been getting such meat from him for a couple of years.  All grass fed ...

 

My mom did it years ago for a quarter of a cow, and then realized we really wouldn't use it all. My housemate also bought some portion of a cow when he lived in the Bay Area a few years back - it is definitely not a new thing. I don't recall what my mom got, but my housemate got a LOT of ground beef. He is a recovering vegetarian and so would send me photos of various vacuum packed frozen beef parts to ask how to cook it. Lots and lots and lots of ground beef.

[kayb]

On 10/6/2016 at 8:41 AM, ElsieD said:

Interesting.  I remember "back in the day" when my then MIL used to buy half of a beef.   That would be single origin beef and it was cheaper than the beef sold in the grocery store.  That was common then.   Does that even happen any more?

 Yes. I buy a quarter of a steer and a quarter of a pig every year; I get about 150 pounds of beef, ranging from soup bones and ground beef to steaks, roasts and stew meat; about 30 pounds of pork, which I can to some extent specify how I want it -- I get sausage, shoulder roasts, loin roasts, tenderloin, and pork belly. Then I buy chickens about four, whole, at a time from a local farmer. I have a storage room in which I keep a 10-foot freezer. I suspect the practice saves me money, but I KNOW it provides me better quality meat.

 

What I DON'T know is if my beef qualifies as "single origin." It is, in that it's all from the same farm, but whether it's all from the same critter, I have no idea; ditto the pork. These are small farmers that generally take in eight to 10 animals at a time to be processed.

[IowaDee]

My in-laws were farmers and raised beef cattle.  In later years,when they had retired from that, they rented out pasture to a friend who also raised cattle, Black Angus.  His "rent" was to provide half a steer annually, butchered per their instructions at the local locker.  Imagine, eating beef that was raised on grass in your own backyard so to speak.  Dream about the steaks, roasts, chops and more. Now dash those dreams, they had every ounce of that wonderful beef ground up and packaged in two pound packages.  Dreams of burgers, meatloaf and meatballs just aren't the same. To say my MIL;s cooking was in a rut is saying it all.  The cookbook, 365 Ways to Cook Hamburger was her kitchen bible. 

[IndyRob]

Sounds like BS to me.  We routinely see meatball recipes utilizing three different species (never mind single animals).

 

Is a burger made from three different Wagyu steers better than one made from 'poor ol' Bessie'?

 

'Sounds like a "Please buy all of my product" ploy.

 

That's not to say that inferior blends don't exist in the market.  But 'does it come from a single cow?' doesn't strike me as the most useful question.

 

 

[beingchinmay]

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