Cheap Bastid's: Who Wants a "Pink Slime" Burger?

Doesn’t that sound good? A big old double-stacker of Pink Slime.

Last week, “pink slime” leaped to the top of the standing in Google searches after a series of stories hit the news about 5 million pounds of it being sold to school lunch programs.

All of a sudden people were questioning whether or not their kids should be eating such stuff. Well hell, they’ve been eating it for a while in the burgers and tacos they snarf down at fast food joints.

Beef Products, Inc. of South Dakota (or BPI) is apparently the main purveyor of this tasty product which they call “finely textured lean beef”. Dr. Gerald Zirnstein of the USDA coined the
term “pink slime” in a memo a while back defining it as “boneless beef trimmings”, or such products that have gone through a centrifuge.”

“Mary Jane’s Farm”, a blog which was quoted in a post by TLC (The Learning Channel) described “pink slime” like this:
“Ten years ago, the rejected fat, sinew, bloody effluvia, and occasional bits of meat cut from carcasses in the slaughterhouse were a low-value waste product called ‘trimmings’ that were sold primarily as pet food. No more. Now, BPI transforms trimmings into something they call boneless lean beef’. In huge factories, the company liquefies the trimmings and uses a spinning centrifuge to separate the sinews and fats from the meat, leaving a mash that has been described as ‘pink slime’, which is then frozen into small squares and sold as a low-cost additive to hamburger”.

Oh yeah, and BPI produces more than 7 million pounds of it. Per Week! That’s a million pounds a day. Enough each year for more than a pound of this magical elixir for every person in the U.S.

What the blogpost didn’t say was that the “mash” is treated with ammonium hydroxide in order to kill germs like e coli.

Supposedly this product now is present in 70% of the ground beef sold in the U.S.

OK, if you’re alarmed, worried or a bit scared raise your hand and let’s count. Yep, I see quite a
few hands raise out there, including mine. I don’t want to eat that stuff, do you? I wouldn’t want my kid eating that stuff at school either.

And, there’s no requirement to label the product or otherwise warn consumers that the amburger they’re buying contains “pink slime”. I’m not too thrilled about that either. Janet Riley, Senior Vice President of the American Meat Institute told ABC News that there’s no need to label this product as anything other than “beef”. “It’s beef,” she said. “and it’s labeled as beef.”

Huh? I have a problem defining “connective tissue” and the waste meat that was discarded then treated with chemicals and put into a centrifuge as beef. I have a big problem with it.

What’s the motivation behind it? How about profit? I would guess that it’s more profitable to
take the stuff that would normally be thrown out because it dropped on the floor or might be contaminated with fecal matter to “process” it and sell it as an “additive” for ground beef than to box it up to be processed into pet food. If it can be peddled to the consuming public it means that they can 1) charge more and 2) not have to raise and slaughter as many cattle.

So, WWCBD? (that’s short for “What Would Cheap Bastid Do?”) I rarely buy pre-ground hamburger. For the last several years I have about 90% of the time selected a chuck roast or round roast when it’s on special at my grocery store and asked the meat cutter to grind it for me. My grocery store will grind it for no extra charge. I typically spend less than $3 a pound for ground beef that is $4 or more per pound if it’s already ground up.

I know the roast I picked out comes from one cow. It’s clean. I’m confident in its quality—and
there is NO “pink slime”.

When I get home, I take my meat package, open it up and divide it into freezer bags. (One other
Cheap Bastid secret is that I’m usually planning on cooking for 2 so, to me, a “pound” is 12 ounces—we don’t need more than that for 2 people. If I have “pounds” or about 2 ¼ pounds of
actual meat, I’ll put 12 ounces each into bags and then divide the last 12 ounces in half, wrap each 6 ounce lump in plastic wrap and put the 2 of those in a bag—that’s in case we’ve got more than 2 to cook for). It takes about 5 minutes to do when you get home. You’ve got enough time to do it.

Check with your grocer’s meat department to find out if they will grind meat for you. And ask the meat department manager if they use “pink slime”. If they do, find out in what products and don’t buy that product anymore if you’re concerned.

You know, my father was a food safety inspector in the Air Force for 30 years. After that, he did
the same job for the Florida Department of Agriculture for another 20 years. I remember what seemed to be his favorite word when it came to food. That word was “wholesome”. His job was to make sure that the food being processed and provided to people to eat was “wholesome”—that it was safe and fresh and that it met “standards”.

That’s what I think this is all about. There are a lot of us who wonder and question whether or not “finely textured lean beef” or “boneless beef trimmings” or “pink slime” is “wholesome”. We’re paying for it at the grocery store and at the restaurant and I think we’ve got a reasonable expectation to know exactly what’s going on and to have any product which contains “pink slime” labeled with big bold letters “contains chemically processed trimmings”.

That's the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!

Cheap Bastid Buys Meat Cheap

Over the last year or so, Cheap Bastid has shared a number of recipes and cooking ideas that do two things—reduce your grocery expenses and help you make tasty, nutritious meals. And, you know what? Once you get into the “Cheap Bastid Way”, it becomes almost like a sport.

Many is the time when Cheap Bastid has written about cuts of meat, and what I try to keep stocked in the freezer. I’m always looking for the best deal, waiting for meats to come on sale and then stocking up. It’s a rare occasion indeed when Cheap Bastid will pay more than $2 a pound for meat. Now sometimes that limits me a bit but 90% of the time it’s easy and with but a tiny bit of creativity you can feed a family really, really well.

Cheap Bastid's freezer. And yes, it's organized. Kinda.

This isn’t anything new. Shows like Top Chef have conditioned us to shop at places like “Whole Foods” with almost unlimited “foodie” budgets. But that’s not the case with most of us. We have to follow Gunny Highway’s mantra of “improvise, adapt, overcome”. And there’s one really easy way to do it. Do just a little bit of planning for what you stock up on and what you’re going to cook. Heading home after work with no idea of what you’re going to have for dinner is the surest way to kill your food and family budget. Spending a few minutes a day or per week planning some meals means that you spend less and eat better.

We have to look at the weekly specials closely and sometimes take a pass on an item until it’s at a cheaper price. And that’s getting tougher because this year, prices have been going up. Our favorite bacon at Stater Brothers has gone from $1.99 a pound to $2.99 a pound (all the other bacons have gone up to $3.49-$3.99). That means that we’re eating less bacon—and that’s a “sacrifice” because we love bacon.

So today, let me just show you how I go about shopping for just a few meat items. Maybe you’ll pick up an idea and maybe you can give me an idea or two or maybe you’ll think I’m full of crap. That’s OK, you’re still reading aren’t you?

Let’s start with pork. We love pork loin chops. But, their price has increased this year too. Now, the least I can find them is $2.89 a pound and that’s stretching the limit even though they’re pure meat and leaner than most beef. Plus grilled to a perfect well—cooked through and juicy—I’d just as soon eat one of these as a steak. So, recently pork loin roast was on special at the grocery store—it was $2.49/lb. So I bought 2. One to cook as a roast and the other to slice into chops. At the time, pork loin chops were $3.29/lb.

Like anything, it’s pretty simple as long as you’re willing to spend just a few minutes when you get home repackaging. I took one of the roasts out of its shrink wrap, got out my meat cutting board and a sharp knife and it took me all of 1 minute to slice the roast into nice 1 ¼ to 1 ½ inch thick chops. Then I put them into smaller freezer bags and popped them in the freezer.

And that’s kind of my theme throughout this piece—spend just a few minutes when you get home prepping the meat you’ve bought into family sized servings. Plus we also like to individually wrap a couple of chops in plastic wrap because sometimes there’s 3 of us for dinner and we can just take out an extra or sometimes we want to do something like pork fried rice and one chop is more than enough to make fried rice for 4.

Cheap Bastid loves beef. But I can’t afford my favorite cuts anymore—cuts like New York strip and flank steak. They’ve gotten just too expensive for my wallet. I love tri-tip and wait for it to come on special, then buy a couple of them. Otherwise, I buy a lot of bottom round (sometimes called London Broil) and sirloin when it’s on special for $1.99/lb.

Ground Beef. Now, my grocery store will grind meat for free. So when bottom round or boneless chuck or sirloin is on special I’ll buy a package and have it ground up. That accomplishes a couple of things. One, is that I spend a lot less even on ground beef. Bottom round is about 95% lean. I buy it for $1.99/lb. Ground 95% lean beef is usually about $4/lb. Ground chuck is about 85% lean and is the tastiest but I spend $1.99 rather than $2.99 or more already ground up.


When I get home I repackage it into meal size bags. Now here’s another trick that I pull on myself. I make 4 packages out of 3 pounds of ground beef. That means that each package is about 12 ounces. So we trick ourselves into using ¾ pound rather than 1 lb. We eat less and spend less and get the same benefit. Besides, a 6 ounce hamburger patty is enough. You don’t need a half pound patty.

Last Friday, I bought 2 London Broils. I had one ground and the other left whole. I’ll use the whole one to make 3 totally different meals for my wife and me. That’s 3 dinners for 2 for a total of $6 for meat.

As for steak—you can do all kinds of good things with sirloin. I’ll buy a 3 or 4 lb. package and divide it into 2 major meals on the grill or use it in any number of different ways and have lots of left over meat that I can use for hash or put into fried rice or slice thin for sandwiches. It’s not going to go to waste. Right now I have a grilled half pound left-over chunk in the freezer which will soon be turned into either “Grish” or fried rice.

So there’s no recipe today. Just a little “practicum” on how Cheap Bastid tries to stretch the food budget. But there’s lots of recipes and there’s also your creativity. The economy still sucks and it’s going to be a while before things start to get better. Lots of people are unemployed. And that’s why Cheap Bastid pounds the food pulpit.

You can eat good. You can eat frugally. You can do both with just a bit of planning, and a bit of common sense. And then you can also do what we do, put your feet up on the coffee table, balance your plate with shredded BBQ beef or pork sandwiches and homemade oven fries that you cooked yourself for about $3 for 2 people and watch the “action” on “Top Chef” or “Next FoodTV Star”. And feel smug because you’re smart, thrifty and eating good.

Because, that’s the Cheap Bastid Way:

Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful

Cheap Bastid's School, Slaw & Sliders

Once again, Cheap Bastid got either too hungry or too spontaneous and I didn’t take out my trusty digital camera often enough.

But I’ve been thinking about good, cheap food a lot (or is that cheap, good food?) because I like to eat. For some reason lately I’ve been on a cole slaw kick. (OK, I already know that another Foodie Tuesday poster did cole slaw this week but mine’s simpler and doesn’t use mayo which can be an advantage for a picnic).

When it’s hot (like it has been around here for the last couple of weeks—try several days in a row of 95-100 in an apartment with no A/C) a bowl of slaw can be a welcome treat. The bite of the cabbage combined with whatever other ingredients you put in it can wake up your mouth and help cool you off for a bit. And cabbage is inexpensive $.49 a lb at Frasiers where I go for produce. With just the 2 of us I find that half a head is the right amount and will make a couple of bowls of slaw.

So here’s my take on slaw (and it only takes about 5 minutes to make):

Cheap Bastid’s Southern Slaw (for 2)
¼ head of cabbage (more or less—about 3-4 cups)
Red onion (about 1/3 cup)
Juice from 2 small limes (to taste)
Sugar
Salt & pepper
And, your choice:
1 roma tomato or tomato and ½ cup cucumber or 1 granny smith apple

Prep
Chop the cabbage (it doesn’t matter if you cut it in strips or chop it—whichever you prefer just cut everything the same general shape and size). Cut up the onion and whatever other ingredients you’re using (tomato, cuke or apple). Put them all into a medium bowl. Add the lime juice, salt, pepper and sugar (about a teaspoon of sugar). TASTE IT! Then adjust the seasoning if needed.

This tastes great with its touch of sweet and sour plus just a hint of pepper bite. It’s refreshing and goes great with pretty much any meal. And, even better, it’s cheap!

Sliders

Now let’s turn our attention to Sliders. It seems as though every fast food joint on the planet has jumped on the slider bandwagon. Midwesterners have been doing sliders forever! It’s the perfect size for a pot luck when you want to offer sloppy joes or MaidRites but want it sized so that people can eat them one-handed while balancing a plate. I used to be able to buy “mini-buns” at HyVee in Iowa but can’t find them in SoCal. But I’ve found that good old fashioned dinner rolls work just fine—and I can pick up a dozen at the dollar store for a buck (no need to spend $2-$2.50 on ‘em for crying out loud.

I cooked sliders on the grill last night. It’s simple. I usually make about a 6 oz. burger patty each. So, I made 3 small, thin hamburger patties each. One advantage is that they only took about half the time to cook. And I convinced Carolyn that it would actually seem like we were eating less and we would actually eat a bit more lettuce and tomato than usual (healthier!). That’s a hell of a rationale for trying the same old thing just a bit differently isn’t it?

Anyway, I did come up with one advantage. Usually with a nice thick burger, the meat dominates and it’s messy. These are smaller and less mess (think school night dinner!). Even better is that the flavor was a lot more balanced. With each bite I could taste meat, lettuce, tomato, melted cheese, a bit of onion, and a hint of mustard. MORE FLAVOR!

Give it a try, and maybe you can cut it back to 2 sliders for a total of about 4 ounces of beef and both save money and calories! It’s a great school night meal and can be done on the grill or on the stove really quickly.

So, that’s the Cheap Bastid story for this week. Next week I’m going to start with some school night recipes. Just because the kids are back in school, you’re working all day, etc. doesn’t mean that you can’t cook a good, cheap, nutritious meal in less than a half hour and sit down to eat as a family!

That’s the Cheap Bastid Way. Eat Good! Eat Cheap! Be Grateful!