You are so right Chisue!! People are shying away from beef and buying chicken, and now the price of that has gone up.

Simple hamburger is now $5/lb.

I remember the days that hamburger was the way to go if you were on a tight budget. I pay the $5/lb but I get mine at a local place and it's for 90/10 fat. Plus it's raised/butchered/ground locally.

Shirley

Yeah, I just went shopping and decided no beef. Even on sale it's outrageous. I got salmon (lol-much more expensive but better for you) and a whole chicken.

The live market price went up last fall to amazing numbers. Good for us on the producer end. You, the consumer, are now just starting to get the price increase. The higher cost has been absorbed by those in the middle for a while - but it is starting to go up.

Corn prices are way down now though. It takes a long time for the prices on one end or the other to change in the beef market. (well, not really on the producer end - the price can bottom out over night)

Beef consumption seems to be declining, it certainly has in our family. We buy only US pasture raised grass-fed beef, and we try to find meat from in-state sources when possible. It tastes better than the product of the large operators who pass their animals through feedlots for fattening.

Cows are ruminants with multi-stage stomachs, they're meant to eat grass. Corn isn't a traditional food for cattle.

Just the 2 of us, so we really don't buy a lot of beef...But, we do have a grand son who raises beef cattle and they are pretty much organic grown...I knew one day, having kids and grand kids would pay off, lol......

IowaGirl -- I was hoping you'd post about this. Glad some of the money is coming through to you!

We prefer grass-fed beef too.

Now, on to what is and is not a humanely raised chicken. Can you find 'pasture raised' as a designation? I think 'free range' may only mean not caged, but still jammed into a huge facility, not scratching outdoors. When I see huge chicken breasts at the market, I can't believe those birds could have walked without falling over.

Beef has definitely gone up, but I still buy it. We haven't raised a calf in a long time, but need to, even though it ends up costing us much, much more....at least I know it isn't imported and you can't even compare the taste...it is so much better. I figure we are feeding horses (and donkeys and a mule) and most of them don't even get ridden and are on special "senior" feeds which is twice as expensive as regular horse feed...so might as well spend the money on something that we get something back from.

I would raise chickens for the freezer if I didn't have to process them myself. My husband said he can do it....plucking the feathers, etc....but I don't know how well he can do that. I have more issues with eating chicken, due to how it is raised and processed than I do with beef.

We get half a grass fed cow from a local rancher every 12 to 18 months. We are still on our 2013 order. 442 lbs - averaged out to 3.35 a lb. It is cut, packaged and wrapped to our specifications. I have a London Broil in the crock pot now.
DH was defrosting the freezer a couple of months ago, I go down and take an inventory to see what we still have and what we need to order. I pulled out some round steak out for him to make jerky. A few days later, he was ready for another batch. He didn't want to "waste our good meat" and went to the store to find some inexpensive cuts. He came home shellshocked, and meatless, and said that two dehydrators of jerky (less than a gallon zip lock baggie) would cost about 60.00!

I wish I had easy access to organic grass fed beef, but being alone, I can't really get just small amounts.

But I luck out on the chickens. I have a connection for fresh organic eggs and now the chickens will be coming available at the end of July. I don't like freezing meat. To me it doesn't taste the same as fresh, but I might get an extra chicken to have in the freezer.

These will be 4H raised market chickens. You might check with your local county 4H and see if you can get some. My girl will have I think she said 50 chickens available.

kath..be sure If you are buying salmon, try for wild, not farmed...(Alaska if you can...the deep cold waters are less toxic than farmed or wamer waters....same with tuna..we only eat a can every few weeks....and pg moms have to be very careful....I can't imagine what the waters off Hawaii to Washington state are getting from the trash from Japan's storm a couple years back...

I don't want to get any closer to food animals than the meat counter at the store.

I too don't like frozen meat. I'm sure we don't use even 50 pounds of beef per year, so buying in bulk wouldn't work for us.

See the attached link if you want some insight regarding the boneless chicken you find at the store. Don't worry, it's not offensive or gross.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Its been up for long time and you either have it or dont but then chicken went up high too for long time, in fact it all costs too much.

Yes, hamburger and pasta used to be for what was considered affordable but that hasn't been for long time.

I would see the seniors as we have lots here and look at the steaks and you could see the senior men especially wanting so bad for some and they sigh and move on, then they look at other meats and then chicken and its all expensive.

Even weiners cost almost six dollars a pkg. and then there is the cost of buns and condiments.

Hamburgers are out for lots of people.

I don't know how families fill up their families and they aren't hungry.

I worry about the seniors as I feel too many are going hungry and not eating much per week.

According to stock market information, in the US, beef consumption peaked in the1970s; pork is nearly unchanged for the last 10 years; beef consumption has fallen and chicken has risen to equal beef; and turkey has risen some.

It is possible to eat VERY well using less meat. Pasta and sauce, curries with rice, cornbread and beans flavored with ham hocks, potato casseroles with cheese and a bit of sausage.
I made incredible burritos the other day using sweet onions,tomatoes from my garden, avocados (25 cents each at Walmart),cheese and a bit of cooked chicken.

Susan, it was wild caught and frozen. Individually wrapped so it was more convenient for me and Lauren, taking out individual pieces to cook.

Boneless chicken - Oh how I miss the Far Side! LOL My all time favorite was "Doreen breezes through Chapter 9"

Grain fed cattle are not exclusively fed grain. Forage is a large part of their diet. The grains fed are an important part of the ration for digestible energy which helps fatten the animal. In a perfect world, all grass fed beef would be great - but there is not enough land or labor to make this even a remote possibility. A cattle ration is a somewhat complicated recipe! Even a slight change in it can throw them "off their feed".

Like Snidley said - I don't want to get any closer to food animals than the meat counter at the store. Most people really don't want to know how or why certain practices are used in production, but many are willing to believe the worst stories out there.

Snidely -- Thanks for the visit to the 'way back' of truly humorous cartoons.

DH and I like bone-in chicken better than what he calls 'wimpy chicken'. It's not as though bird bones *weigh* much -- if anyone is 'economizing' by not buying whole or half breasts. The less 'processing' the better IMO.

Did you see where they cooked up some lab-built beef, raised from stem cells, a while ago?

Cost about 250,000 (Dollars ... or Pounds) for something like about 10 ounces.

Quite a long way from becoming a major part of the market ... at an affordable price.

www.cbc.ca/quirks (science, astronomy, etc. radio program) of a week or so ago (and sometime last year, I think, as they are now on summer re-runs).

ole joyful