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Originally Posted by ilduclo

I'd be a little leery of the cheap meat, if I were you. The conditions in the slaughterhouses in Iowa and Colorado are approaching that found in the Jungle. I'm of the more veg and salad meals and less of the pork and beef. Food safety is a real crap shoot in the USA these days, so best of luck to ya!

oh hey man, i inadvertently missed this post and didn't reply earlier

cheap meat and cheap cuts are not the same. i buy the same meat everyone else buys, USDA inspected and graded, but i buy the cheap cuts.

the same cow that gives you the ribeye steak gives you the chuck roast/pot roast

the same veal that gives you the luxurious cutlet gives you the supernutritious and inexpensive liver

furthermore, i buy large cuts instead of retail bits

so a pork loin that's $2/lb gets sliced into pork chops and it magically goes up to $5/lb-- because it had to be cut and repackaged. roasts beat steaks & chops by a large margin.

large vacuum-packed roasts give you the best value also because of reduced spoilage. which means safer meat that wasn't handled twice. you cook & cut & freeze at home.

as for jungle conditions etc-- large meat processors have to be compliant with the humane slaughter act, which has been in the books since 1958... more on that next.

while enforcement back in the day was very spotty, these days cattle handling is pretty great. don't know if you know who temple grandin is, but she's designed more than half of the large beef processing facilities in the country. sure, the are cases of animal abuse but those are far from being the rule.

fact is, stressed out cows yield carcasses that are called "dark cutters" and are undesirable in texture and appearance. those are not sold to consumers but end up in school cafeterias, restaurants, the prison sytem, etc etc. so i can tell by simple visual inspection that my meat was handled gently (lol).

sure there is still a way to go in animal welfare, and sure there are boutique processors who exceed those standards, but american beef is generally very safe and of great quality, especially if you buy like i do, vacuum-packed whole roasts.

chicken is what i don't trust due to antibiotic use and bleach for processing. another thing that i don't trust are those tubes of ground beef that mix meat from 5 different countries... i don't buy ground beef anyway, i can make my own if i need.

as for salads, etc-- yes they are nice for the vitamins & phytochemicals, but they have almost no macronutrients. beans are great though! but i'm temporarily off starches--even my menudo will have to wait in the freezer because of that tasty corn.