Okay, so I didn’t actually buy a whole cow…just 1/8th of it. This is the first time I’ve participated in something like this, so I had to share it with my readers. A group of us belong to a traditional food Facebook group. I was very fortunate to learn that one member had a connection to a farm in Arcadia, FL (this is near the Peace River) that raises grass-fed cows. We determined about a month in advance just how much beef we wanted and placed our orders. We have an extra refrigerator/freezer in the garage, so we decided to get 1/8th of a cow. This is what 1/8 of a butchered cow looks like, sorted by cut. (The ground beef is stacked 3 layers high.)
Here’s the breakdown:
- 17 pounds ground beef
- 3 pounds stew meat
- 10 pounds chuck roast
- 5.25 pounds round steak
- 2.75 pounds rib steak
- 3 pounds NY strip steak
- .75 pounds filet
- 1.25 pounds cube steak
- 6 pounds sirloin
- 4.5 pounds short rib
- 3.25 pounds liver
- 3.25 soup bones
- 2.5 pounds neck bones
- tongue (not calculated into weight/cost)
Total hanging weight: about 615 pounds
Cut weight for 1/8 cow: 62.5 pounds
Cost: $350
Price per pound: $5.60
This is a good diagram to see where the different cuts come from to help with preparation.
1/8th of a cow easily fit in the Euronics freezer portion of the extra refrigerator we have in our garage.
Now, imagine for a moment I went to Whole Foods and tried to purchase all of this grass-fed beef? Just the ground beef, which is usually the least expensive beef you could purchase, would be $8/pound. A grass-fed filet or NY strip for $5.60/pound is simply unheard of — You can’t even find an average-quality filet or NY strip on sale in a regular grocery store for $5.60/pound.
And something else to think about… people often talk about the expense of grass-fed meat in general. If I were to go to McDonald’s and purchase a quarter-pounder (which of course has a lot of fillers), the patty itself probably costs $2. If I multiply that by 4 to get the cost per pound of “ground beef” at McDs, they sell their meat for $8/pound. My grass-fed filet was $5.60/pound. If you could afford fast food, surely you can afford real food.
I truly appreciate access to real food for my family. Some people think I’m gone mad, some just don’t get it. I truly believe that it does make a difference. I’ve said it before — if you are what you eat, then you are what your animals eat. I want to eat good, healthy food…so I need to know that my food source is eating good, healthy food.
Now I have to decide what to make with all of this delicious beef!
i would have bought flank but i dont rreally eat red meat.
Awesome…Can you please share how you found this? Recently started using Annie’s for fruit & veggies Share…love it so far. This would be our next step.
See comment below for a source. I am not sure where you live, but I also have a farm order club that I belong to where you can buy meat, dairy, produce, fermented foods, etc. Just send an email to SeaBreezeOF@aol.com if you are interested 🙂
We’ve been talking about buying a whole cow and having it butchered although it seems that 1/8 is PLENTY at a time. Thanks for putting it into perspective…..this may be an adventure we embark on here shortly.
The wife is nagging me about grass fed pork…..got any info?
Hahaha…I did find one source for pork, but when I contacted them, I didn’t get a reply to one of my emails. You may wanna try, though. Here’s the info: http://www.pastureprimewagyu.com/
Now, if you just want to buy some grass-fed meat at a good price, I belong to another farm order club type thing. If you email SeaBreezeOF@aol.com, you can get the list and different pick-up locations. They travel between Ft. Pierce and Homestead, so there should be a good location for you 🙂
My parents have a few cows in Central Florida and last summer we did the same thing. They might have one that is almost ready (I know kinda sad)…but I will check with them and if anyone is interested they can message me. The cost would be about the same I think. And BTW, we are spoiled because the meat is delicious and tastes like REAL meat!
We buy 1/4 of a cow every year and love it. Once you do this and you know where your meat is coming from it’s hard to go back to store bought meat. I think if your meat is any good you will feel the same way.
It’s so nice to know I’m not the only crazy one 🙂 Because my family and friends certainly think so, they don’t believe in organic or any claims about one meat being better than the other. Or at least they don’t believe that organic isn’t just the marketing segmentation for the same meat (or anything else). To be honest I can not know it either, but I learned to just explain that at least I’m paying for the Hope that it is better. There is no hope with conventional food…