Where’s the Beef?

div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”a href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JyWGND_X4cY/TZoJnkl8q4I/AAAAAAAAAYA/OxCvOVj0jBs/s1600/DSC_0366.JPG” imageanchor=”1″ style=”margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;”img border=”0″ height=”212″ src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JyWGND_X4cY/TZoJnkl8q4I/AAAAAAAAAYA/OxCvOVj0jBs/s320/DSC_0366.JPG” width=”320″ //a/divbr /…In my freezer thank-you-very-much!br /br /In my previous post, a href=”http://www.daveramseyroad.com/2011/03/in-interim.html”In the Interim/a, I mentioned that we were buying a 1/4 of a grass-fed cow. nbsp;Above is the bounty from that purchase. nbsp;Let me tell you how we got to this point:br /br /We have a friend who loves to cook and makes everything from scratch. nbsp;She was in the Financial Peace University class we led. When we were talking about the importance of ibterm /b/ilife insurance, my husband joked nbsp;that if anything ever happened to her, they had better have a solid amount of life insurance because he would need to find an biOrganic/i Mary Poppins/b. nbsp;What we love about her is that although she has different views on eating, diapering and green living, she never makes anyone feel bad for making different choices. nbsp;i{Some people have a knack for piling on guilt if you don’t share the same views or philosophies…she is not like this AT ALL!}/ibr /ibr //ibr /A month ago she started looking for families that wanted to split the cost of purchasing grass-fed beef. She was very familiar with the process and only purchases organic grass-fed beef (easily $7+/pound just for ground beef). nbsp;We decided to try it to see if purchasing in bulk would save us money. nbsp;We have heard from numerous people i{including my parents}/i that grass-fed beef has a different flavor than what you find in typical grocery store beef which is usually grain fed. nbsp;We’ve also heard that once you start eating grass-fed beef, you will have a hard time switching back to store bought. So we signed up! nbsp;We had to purchase the cow and then it had to go to a processor that would butcher the meat for us.br /br /On Monday, we went to Palmer’s Meat Processing to pick up our beef.br /br /div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”a href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Kv8zdU6SymE/TZoMSLFce1I/AAAAAAAAAYE/HYYaoyi7j1c/s1600/DSC_0358.JPG” imageanchor=”1″ style=”margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;”img border=”0″ src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Kv8zdU6SymE/TZoMSLFce1I/AAAAAAAAAYE/HYYaoyi7j1c/s1600/DSC_0358.JPG” //a/divbr /I stepped out of our van and was greeted by Ben. This sweet pup had the life! He got all the small scraps from the butchering station and lots of attention from customers.br /br /div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”a href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-09Y8y0rClR0/TZoMoysWHAI/AAAAAAAAAYI/2BVQSVhIEb0/s1600/DSC_0359.JPG” imageanchor=”1″ style=”margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;”img border=”0″ height=”303″ src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-09Y8y0rClR0/TZoMoysWHAI/AAAAAAAAAYI/2BVQSVhIEb0/s320/DSC_0359.JPG” width=”320″ //a/divbr /After all the families arrived, we started dividing the cuts and packing them in our coolers.br /br /div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”a href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zXWYzVLFgXU/TZoMxbitZUI/AAAAAAAAAYM/_G4VSwsOrrU/s1600/DSC_0362.JPG” imageanchor=”1″ style=”margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;”img border=”0″ height=”205″ src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zXWYzVLFgXU/TZoMxbitZUI/AAAAAAAAAYM/_G4VSwsOrrU/s320/DSC_0362.JPG” width=”320″ //a/divdiv class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”br //divdiv class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: left;”This processor was so awesome because they vacuumed-sealed and labeled all the meat for us. nbsp;After about a half-hour of dividing the meat this is what we had:/divdiv class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: left;”br //divdiv class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”a href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PCWTERpdj-U/TZoNDV6M4WI/AAAAAAAAAYU/HCeTUADQF2s/s1600/DSC_0364.JPG” imageanchor=”1″ style=”margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;”img border=”0″ height=”212″ src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PCWTERpdj-U/TZoNDV6M4WI/AAAAAAAAAYU/HCeTUADQF2s/s320/DSC_0364.JPG” width=”320″ //a/divbr /div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”a href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ivIzqeM6sDs/TZoNDBubMqI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/FUq96fgc1RI/s1600/DSC_0363.JPG” imageanchor=”1″ style=”margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;”img border=”0″ height=”212″ src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ivIzqeM6sDs/TZoNDBubMqI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/FUq96fgc1RI/s320/DSC_0363.JPG” width=”320″ //a/divdiv class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: left;”br //divbr /That is about 6 months worth of meat in those coolers. When we got home, my husband weighed the meat and it came to about 65lbs of beef. nbsp;We have 25 packages of ground beef, multiple packages of T-Bone, Sirloin, cube steak, stew meat, roasts, and ribeye i{we refused the liver – not a fan}/i. Because we had so many families (8 families and 2 cows) we did not get cuts of ribs, filet mignon, or brisket. nbsp;If we had asked for those cuts it would not have been enough for each family.br /br /All-in-all I think the final amount of meat cost us about $360. nbsp;That included the purchase of the cow and the processing. That comes out to an average of $5.50/lb. nbsp;That may seem expensive, but this is actually a great deal for grass-fed, organic beef – especially the steaks. nbsp;Now, when I go to the store the only meat I need to buy is chicken. Andnbsp;becausenbsp;I have paid for my beef upfront, that is grocery money that I will save to go to our next cow purchase.br /br /If we do this again I think we will buy 1/2 a cow so we can get the ribs and brisket that our family loves. nbsp;It may be more expensive upfront, but the meat should last us about a year. And since my hubby knows all the different cuts of meat i{funny how men know it so well}/i he volunteered to talk to the processor to get exactly what we want.br /br /ibIf you’d like to learn more about organic living and cooking, you can visit our friend’s blog a href=”http://www.mommymadegreen.com/”Mommy Made Green/a. nbsp;She also owns a natural living company called a href=”http://www.mommysecretsonline.com/”Mommy Secrets/a./b/ibr /br /a href=”http://www.aghdesigns.com/images/blogs/siggy4.png” target=”_blank”img alt=”Anna” border=”0″ src=”http://www.aghdesigns.com/images/blogs/siggy4.png” //a