Forgot to share some photo’s from my last trip up to my property. The whole region was flooding. The pond was quite full. Glad I brought my canoe. I got lucky, just barely.
Henry,
I believe he meant 1.50 - 1.75 per lb.
Hi all,
just by coincidence, I was up at my parents place last weekend and got about 100 pound of meat from one of the cows they had slaughtered the week before. I do this every 2 to 3 years, just as it comes along. My parents and my brother kept a quarter of that cow, and my parents-in-law and my wife and myself split another quarter (all rough numbers here). The other half stays for sale at the butcher’s.
We do this, because this way we know exactly how our meat was raised and fed. If you buy meat at the grocery store, you don’t know that, but you can tell: If you put their steak in the pan and fry it, it will shrink by 50 % (or close to that, there are of course big differences in meat quality…)
If we put “our” meat in the pan, there is hardly any shrinkage that is noticeable.
How come?
The art of modern/industrial butchery or slaughterhouse is to convert water to a firm and cuttable or sliceable “matter”, thus boosting the profits (selling water for the price of meat…).
When heated up in pot or pan, the water will dissolve/evaporate and what stays is just the little portion of meat and the stuff that was used to solidify the water in the first place. And the latter is certainly not suitable to maintain your health!
Therefore, my wife and I decided to eat less meat and to better spend a little more on higher quality meat and also to get meat from well-known sources (as from my parents’ farm).
They do this with ice-cream, too. Here in Germany, ice-cream is one of the few, if not the only solid food item that is sold by volume, not weight or mass. This is because they manage to even make thin air cuttable and sliceable and firm. And they improve their ability to foam up the ice cream year for year. Compared to my younger days, a litre of ice cream weighs less than 50% of what it used to weigh back then! They don’t even have to spend the (little) money for the water. Air is free!
The only other ones, that are able to make money from thin air, are the banks on our planet - but we’ll better not get into that…
Best regards,
Sam
EDIT: Just to chime in on the pricing issue: I pay a little short of 300 USDollars, if I convert it. That is for a little less than 100 lb, so I am pretty close to 3 USD / lb. That would be the prize for slaughtering and cutting up the meat. Very close to Chris’ numbers, actually.
And another reason for not buying the “cheap” meat: The slaughterhouse definitely do earn more money with the “other” stuff, that is not the meat you end up buying as meat (“slaughterhouse waste”, is that correct?). The big corporatist food trusts buy this stuff and put it in all kinds of Fast-Food or convenience-food (a really nice name for the crap they put in, isn’t it?).
They even “glue together” the mechanically recovered meat to make us believe it is a real steak! This all became public roughly ten years ago, when there were a couple of Mad-Cow-disease-incidents in Europe. Beef prices went rock bottom instantly, and my dad was glad and happy he had not gotten rid of his pigs as he had planned for a decade already (and now has done a couple years ago…too much work for an old man).
Nevertheless, we do have roughly one big food scandal per year - and nothing changes! The last one (a couple weeks ago) was horse meat declared as beef in convenience lasagne of all those producers… I wouldn’t care. Horses have a nice and tasty meat and I have no problems eating it. This meat, however was from sick and ill animals (mostly from Romania) and someone saved the fees for the knacker’s yard and - quite the opposite - made some money by selling it…
I prefer to pay a little more and know what I’ve got…
Best regards,
Sam
Good Morning Henry,
Sorry I didn’t put the decimals in the numbers. Should have been $1.50-$1.75 per pound.
Sam, that sure explains my failures at marinating. Can’t sop up gravy with a wet biscuit.
Jim,
there you go!
I also heard a couple years ago, that for the american market the meat would be “sweetened” with little doses of sugar. I figure, that would give a unique taste to it (which you surely would have to like to eat it…). But of course it would help bind the water as well…
Best regards,
Sam
“So they pay the producer $1.50 - $1.75 / lb for beef, then resell it for typically $4 - $5 /lb to consumers. Wow, all that energy and fuel to refrigerate and transport the product really adds up quickly! As expensive as that seems to us when we’re paying for it, I’d guess there probably isn’t that much profit margin in it for the local grocer?”
Henry, the middle man is taking most or all of the profit in the foodchain, but not on the raw meat. First it gets butchered, and that removes about half the weight via bones hide guts etc. Already you’re at $3 to $3.50. Once you pay for all the processing and shipping, raw beef is actually sold at or near cost. That’s not where they make their money.
Pre-packaged foods have extremely high markup relative to the food value inside. If you buy hot dogs, balogna, pre-cooked bacon, even deli meats, they’re way more expensive than the actual meat in them, at a tiny extra cost of processing. Then there’s frozen dinners, Hot Pockets, canned soup and anything else with a smidge of meat. This is where they make the real money, since basically all the grain/vegetable based parts of the dish are dirt cheap, the only cost that really matters is the meat. Next time you see a frozen dinner, estimate the pounds of meat, vs the price. You’ll be shocked.
Just hatched out 14 Muscovy ducklings on Monday. I can yield about 2-1/2 pounds of meat from a mature drake (we skin them rather than pluck - takes too long), and a hen is good for about 1-1/2 pounds. Takes 17-20 weeks to get to processing size, and all I have to do is give them feed, water and a place to lay their eggs. They do the rest. They’re naturally mute and can’t fly (at least not very far), so they don’t bother the neighbors. They’re pretty good foragers, don’t (usually) bother garden plants, and the water from their wading pool is excellent liquid fertilizer.
For someone who doesn’t have a lot of grazing land for larger animals, Muscovy ducks are the most cost-effective and self-sustaining source of animal protein I can think of. As far as the meat goes, it is not “poultry-ish” - we use it as a direct replacement for beef. Same color, same texture, and very similar flavor.
Yes. Yes. Yes. On the quailty of all of the information being put up here.
Let me clarify a few points.
Now I figure his beef, sawboards and even sold out firewood are Mr Waynes cash sales - sustainable “crops”. EVERYBODY has to pay thier Ceasar Taxes even apartment dwelling renters. Don’t pay your rent/lease (with all of the included taxes - plus a little more for the administation handling, interest on the LANDLORDS money tied up, etc) and out on the street, homeless you will be. As an actual property owner ( now the lord of your own land) DO NOT pay your Ceasar property taxes and out on the street, homeless you will be also - just takes a little longer to occure.
If you have any sense and really want to be Free and Independent You NEVER comsume your own cash crops/products!!
The remains of this old 120 acre family farm that we live on was built up from one acre by a very independnet minded and willed German immigrant woman root hogging locally on cloths washing & mending, eggs, milk, cream and later beef and hog sales over the course of 70 years of her 89? year life. He five girl children told stories of only years eating steamed whole oats ( dairy cow feed) with one egg every moring with just skimmed milk. The cream was for either direct cash sales or sold wholesale to the creamery. Any pork, having been skimmed milk fed, was for cash sales. Cheap to raise “rooter” chickens were for dinners - day after day after day. The dairy and beef cow WERE the main property tax money. Herd reduced twice a year early Spring and late Summer to match out with proprty tax payment cycles. ONLY some of the organ meat made it back onto the family table. She was able to decade by decade to penny save back and acquire more adjacent properties with each economic up and down cycle at default back taxes seized sales for pennies on the dollar from other people who had bought into which ever had been the latest “spin” wind-up causing poeple to think they were dollar-wise with “sure things”, "make money investments’’. Much of this occured in the newest Tech ventures like radio, defence industries, Nuclear energy, TV, different audio formats, ect.
She also put 4 of the 5 daughters through to collage degrees. Intelligence runs mostly in the genes with some nurture help along. Smart is learned - YOU control that. They hated her; her skin-flint ways; and only one ever came back into the valley much later after two husbands come and gone, to help her in her old age. Only my wifes mother stayed home and adoped her ways. Ha! Ha! These two penny pinching woman why we have the overmature, unmarketable big trees saved back. Even penny pinchers need to look up occasionally and see something has to be done with the accumulated dollars now and again. Only I am the only one now able to run a chainsaw up there without suffering a broom beating. My married in hunter/fishing Father-in-law was the one 1940-2005 who finally brought some fish and meats variety to the family table and some sensible lands management.
This same ethic of NOT consuming your own cash sales needed for unavoidable “they will only take Caesar coin” applies to everything unavoidable that you cannot do for yourself. (Ha! I usually say here even the best of Drug dealers and Pimps/Madams know and apply hands off the cash product as awake-up statement. Actually this is a true reality.)
The builder/beaver/investor building a big McMasion house to live-in and actually doing it is really eating his own cash crop. You: the tradesman buying into “scratch your back” “Bro” helping in what should have been your own family time just got played into this same web of self-deceit. He WILL sell it. Or repossession bank lose it down the road. Your Lifea Time will be gone, expended, building his fortune or his leveraged/broken limb bankruptcy. Cars the same. I began to figured that one out with the 3rd blown up engine R&R helping buddy on his pet GTO obsession back in 1969. Then later with a different buddy always having a “keeper” aquiered car needing my help that seemed to always be sold later for a profit.
As much as my Dentist likes the eggs I take to him he needs Caesar cash to pay his own overhead expenses.
I’ve put this into more non-rural examples so you’all reading can see the same principals always apply. Always have. Always will.
The best time in your Life? Right now. What did you do today? Tomorrow IS today. Yesterday, yesteryear IS your now. People were just as bright and intelligent back then as they are now and doing what they thought (or were convinced into thinking) was Best. YOU chose Best for who; Best for how many; Best for how long. Choose wisely. YOU will always be facing that person in the mirror with the results of your choices. No excuses accepted from your mirror judgement.
Alex those mucsovies are great for every reason you said. Thier eggs are also suprior for baking with.
Glad you said “generally not bother the garden”. We got ours 1997-99 “to clean out the slugs and garden pests”. Hmmm. That worked alright. But after the 2 generation they learned to eat thier wieght in unripe turning blueberries. By the 3rd generation the hens learned to fly out and back in circles. Got to become hazarous coming home and being whoosh! fly-by greeted. By the 5th genteation I could not keep them off the house porches in “fowl” weather. They were reallly “fouling” up the boards. That was it! Meat gone and now replaced with much dumber chickens. Muscovies generational learn and teach each others too damn well. Was a good observable life lesson in that for most criiters the intellect and wisdom is in the herd/pack/flock, aquiered and passed along. They ain’t so dumb after all. Smarter than most humans overall.
Regards
Steve Unruh
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Another well explained “lifes lesson” I thank all of us can respect. Thank you Steve U. And by the way I would be the first to buy “Your book” If you ever desided to publish one.
" And by the way I would be the first to buy “Your book” If you ever desided to publish one."
Hey Sheldon,
You would have get up pretty early of the morning to be the first!
Well, as long as I was in line would be good enough for me.
We would all be much richer in wisdom that day.
Awww . . . fellows knock it off. You are embarrassing me. As far as writing, go to Mike LaRosa blog here and read Bruce P. Jacksons “In Iraq” story. He is a woodgasser too and that man can actually write and is people wise to boot. I consider HenryA and some others here to be much better writers including young ChrisKY.
People wise and Life wise there are many here I respect much also beginning with Mr Wayne and 'bout a hundred others here included clear throught the alphebet out to Carl Zinn. Mr DousieR. experssed quite well the responsibility of loosing out capabilites without responsibility for the personal hazards involed. Couple of . . . naw even I cannot say that open forum.
Old gray-hairs know that half of people and life wisdom occures just by living long enough through it. What helps the most is to get involve and active in Life, Doing and never stop. Then think a lot about “What just happened?”. Honesty with yourself is very critical also.
I think you fellows are just mostly reponding to my entertaining edgyness.
These last four years in woodgas will be the only book I’ll be writing. Bits and pieces of me in many places woodgas now if you look before they Internet dissapear or get buried.
The people now out woodgas Doing was what is all about for me. Others like Mike LaRosa been pushing that rock for a long time and it was time for me to step out of the shadows and take turn pushing also.
Thats the truth of it . . .we all need to take turns pushing and pulling to progress forward to a better way of living on the face of this planet. Stunning moment in my life was 1969 watching the little blue-green lonely ball seen from the real humans TV broadcasting from the face of the moon and realizing finally we really are in this lifeboat earth togather. SF/Futurists aside for spreading the Human race out, only a few would ever actually be able to go somewhere else. The rest will be here togather. Especially bad teeth, nearsighted, left handers like me. So how can you take the most forward with the highest quality of freedom and independence?
I do not think it will be with Hummers, MB’s and V-12 anythings. I do not think it can be top down driven. Has to be from the bottom up to be practical and everyman, everywoman usable, affordable and sustainable.
This last part is most important: the 60’s 70’s “Back to the Land"ers were bottom up - I was there. Current politically popular Greens in our countries now in power are top down driven. Yes a Hippy and a Redneck are the same as being bottom up people. Top down wether from the Church, the Royalty, the Banks, the Party, the Left, the Right, the Greens all become elitist, self serving, “know best for all”. It is this “know best for all” that is the corrupter. A bottom up by your bootstaps person would say, " this works for me”, “give this a try”, “YMMV” - your mileage (your results) may vary from mine. ONLY takes putting a bottom upper into actual power to corrupt them! Think not,eh? Marshals Stalin, Tito. Chairman Mao, Castro. only a very few can stay true. Christ, Washington, Ho - and they by knowing when to step out, and aside. Most are saved from aristocracy “Noble Obligation” drifting only because we boot them out and tell them to go back out in the real world and get real jobs.
First step to personal freedom in todays worls is to stop biting on the newest, latest, bright and shiny to get your true Freedom back. Be a Human not a fish. Independence will come bit by bit - after prices are paid. And you will find have to be re-payed again. And then later again. Life is dynamic - it never stops. Your responsibility to be a Human is to direct this in yourself.
Regards
Steve Unruh
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Sorry for the necromancy, but it seems like 1 thread on beef was enough.
My mom and I were talking about local beef and one question came up that we didn’t know the answer to: what is the minimum and/or optimal turnover rate for beef cows, i.e. How old does/should one raise a cow from calf to steak?
@Wayne any other beef farmers?
You go by weight more than age. Within reason, heavier is better, younger is better.
We used to only winter them twice before slaughter. That’s where most of the cost is on grass fed beef…
Our steers usually finished about 1000 - 1500 lbs. A little on the small side but no grain was used. Plus these were 3/4 Jersey, not bred for meat production.
You can actually get a tape measure to estimate their weight on the hoof.
Also remember that the yield of retail, ready-to-cook cuts is about 40% of hoof weight. Make sure and keep the tongue! 
Good morning Brian.
The cattle farmers in this area will raise the calves up to 400 -600 pounds and then take them to the local cattle auction . The feed lot buyers will buy them and take them to the west or mid west ( corn country ) and pour the feed and hormones to them and bring them up to 1200 - 1500 pounds before slaughter .
Cattle are pretty high right now , the last calf I sold brought 1400 bucks !!
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Hi BrianHWA
As a fellow PNW Wetsider the kick you in the pants decision on grass fed beef in the necessary “must feed hay annual cycles”.
Normally they are never taken into a thrid must feed hay - no growing grazing grass - winter. So . . . slaughtered out at ~18 months old.
This year NOT normal. Summer drought killed off all of the free grazing by mid-July forcing early feeding out of what should have been winter saved back hay. Self-made hay will be gone before next springs new grass. This will/would force buying out of eastside shipped-in hay. This forced unusual hay “supply and demand” cycle has already driven up hay prices 2X.
Smart now to herd reduce BEFORE this upcoming winter. Hay price/availability forcing premature herd reductions will short term depress beef-meat retail prices. Retail prices then spike up next year with less beef cows available coming to maturity.
Again. The only way to dampen cycles dependencies is to as much as possible step up-and-out, stand aside, and raise your own meats.
My free ranging chickens been loving this drought bug filled year and been self-forage feeding better than in the last three, too wet, no-summer years.
Ha! Just fine untill the drought wild rabbit reduction forced the coyotes to eating MY chicken too or starve. Four laying hens, one rooster, 5 half-growns ran down in one day and ate. Took me and .357 rifle six days early/late sitting to get the bullet points hammered into my brother coyotes that MY chicken meat was going to be too expensive for them to harvest.
Couple of neighbors complaining of missing cats now.
Rural life is always active and real-life intersting.
Regards
Steve Unruh
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