The one time I purchased 73/27, I wondered if they got the ratios reversed when I cooked it. It was mostly grease!
This YouTuber posted this video just yesterday, and she was talking about beef being >$9 a pound. And it would, if one counted steaks and Wagyu cuts. Her primary channel focus is about food insecurity, which she did experience as a young single person
Just to add, and indicative of how shopping for (usually) one isn’t price-sensitive, the reason I don’t know the fat content of my burgers is that I don’t buy bulk ground beef, but rather, fresh (not frozen) pre-formed patties from the butcher shop section of a store known for the quality of its meats. These machine-formed patties hold together much better than anything I could make at home and have a uniform thickness. The fat content, whatever it is, is “just right” as they smoke and flame nicely on the grill. They’re about twice the thickness of a McD’s “quarter pounder” and far, far superior! My homemade burgers are in fact way better than those from Harvey’s, where the burgers are grilled over open flame and made to order, and put other fast food burger outlets to shame!
Hamburgers is the only thing I will use 73-27 for. And you will be pouring off a lot of grease or losing it in your fire, but for grilled patties I’ll do 80-20. On the flattop, anything goes. Like I said, I loved the 60-40-ish meat I had. I tend not to like preformed patties as they tend to be too formed and handled for the texture I like, which is to barely even shape the meat into a ball or disk. But I had some that were 50% off a few weeks ago, and those were 80-20 on the packaging, though I’m sure they come in various fat contents.
I only feed myself, and food is one of the few things I like to ‘splurge’ on. But my definition of splurge is maybe not the same as others. I find for me, that I can eat pretty well on ~$15/day.
I could cut it down to $5-10 a day, but thats only a savings of a few hundred a month and not worth it for the lack of variety.
I use leftover buns for sandwiches. They certainly last long enough to get finished up. My wife and I live alone, and we’re old, so it is not like we eat like we’re teenagers, but we have something different every night, often three new recipes in a week We do keep instameals from Costco (like Rana lasagna) when we’re pooped or need something fast, but we eat those once ever couple of weeks, and we count ribs and rice and a veg as an instameal since it doesn’t take any prep.
Maybe alternating cooking makes it seem like less effort. And we both love to cook. I learned from my father who came from a restaurant family and run a lunch counter before World War 2.
I almost never eat sandwiches. But when i do, i want a more substantial bread than a hamburger bun. But mostly, we don’t do sandwiches much.
Anyway, the point is that often, it’s only cheaper to cook your food if you are willing to buy in bulk and then eat the rest of what you bought. Which means either eating the same thing a lot, or being somewhat creative.
I understand. My wife hates sandwiches, so I wind up eating them. But they can also be used with pulled pork, say.
When chicken thighs are on sale we defat it, split it into baggies of four or five thighs apiece, and put it in the freezer. I make thighs with bok choy, thighs with zucchini, thighs with cherry tomatoes from the garden, or just plain thighs. Not really the same thing. A big piece of pork butt slowly cooked makes a dinner from it, pulled pork, enchiladas, and sandwiches.
Now, we have about 200 cookbooks, and a few big looseleaf notebooks full of recipes from the web, so we might be a bit obsessive. But we enjoy it. And I realize it might not work for someone over busy.
Seems to work that way for me.
It’s easy enough when “buy in bulk” means that I buy a few pounds of chicken breast or ground beef and can freeze it in meal sized portions so that I don’t have to eat chicken breast for six meals in a row. But individual large pieces of meat are another story - there’s not that much I can do to roast chicken or beef that will make it different enough for me not to feel like I’m eating the same thing over and over. Two meals is about my limit.
Yes, meat freezes pretty well. And most condiments keep in the fridge. But veggies can be more difficult. There’s a reason my supermarket has started to sell individual stalks of celery. (And also a reason my supermarket is generally pricey.)
A lot of the things I cook freeze well (I like a lot of stews). I’m similar in that I don’t generally like eating the same thing even two days in a row (though I have done three days in a row for something I’m particularly obsessed with.) I put them in a ziplock and freeze them. I don’t mind sides lasting a few days: in fact, I prefer it and rotate sides out as I cook throughout the week. Another trick is to fold one dish into another. For example, on Sunday I grilled a bunch of boneless, skinless chicken thighs and had them with rice for dinner. With the leftovers, I made shrimp, sausage, and chicken gumbo. Those leftovers can get frozen or stay in the fridge, as I’ll happily eat them throughout the week (I have one serving left, and it’ll be my lunch today). That chicken could have also been folded into tacos, or fried rice or whatnot for the next day. With me, there’s always an element of “what can I do with the leftovers.” Of course, if you have no freezer space (and I’m just using my regular freezer in the fridge for this), this can be problematic, but there’s often a way to convert one day’s meal into something new the next day. Or maybe I just have gotten good at that.
Celery I find lasts me at least two weeks in the crisper. I never have any issues with it, but I have frozen it with onions before to use as part of a sofritto or trinity or whatever, as I don’t need its crunch then – it will break down anyway. (Which is what I had done with the leftover onions, peppers, and celery from the gumbo I made.) This is not to say there’s no waste in our household – I’d guess there’s still about 10% room for improvement.
No “seems” for me-- I’ve don’t the math. I went back to my bank account, and looked at spending at grocery and mega stores before I started doing mostly delivery, and then after that point, at costs of delivery shopping. Even factoring in cost of membership in Walmart-plus (once-a-year fee, or once-a-month, and yearly saves a bit-- it’s modeled on Amazon Prime), which makes each delivery no-cost, plus the tip-- and also paying the occasional $5 rush fee, delivery costs about 80% of physically doing my own shopping.
It also saves time; every time I run out of something, or have a particular need come up (ingredients for a potluck or holiday dish), I logon for five minutes and put the items in my cart; then when I will be home for several hours, I schedule the delivery.
Before I schedule, I can quickly check lists of things I usually buy to see it I missed something I need. But there is no temptation to add a lot of crap I really don’t need when I’m just looking at thumbnails, and not the real thing in front of me. Plus, I’m not seeing lots of random stuff strategically placed in the store just to catch people like me. So, no impulse shopping. Also, no running back two hours later for things I forgot.
Additionally, Walmart now has a thing similar to Amazon’s “subscribe and save” that lets me save on things I need on a regular basis. I am able to be judicious in choosing things when I’m at home on a computer as opposed to being in the store, when I would probably subscribe to M&Ms.
I do that too. I buy things in “large economy size” that won’t keep, and don’t freeze well themselves, but when they are cooked in a dish, freeze just fine. It’s also a good way to take advantage of veggies that are on special because they are overripe, and need to be cooked-- and cooked immediately. I’ll make something that gives eight servings, and save them in reusable containers in the freezer-- I’ve got a set of containers that are both freezable and microwavable, cost very little (on Amazon), and hold what works as a single serving for me (~4oz).
Sometime DH or the boychik want two servings, but they can take two different things. They can also be supplemented with bread, fruit, salad, etc. and then a dessert, and they are sometimes bean dishes that need rice or bread or something with them.
There’s always a container of cooked, brown Basmati rice in the fridge. We buy 10lb bags of it, and I make it in a slow-cooker, and then put it in the fridge. Lasts 3 - 4 days.
I grab a freezer dish to take to work sometimes, and it thaws to the point of needing about 2 minutes in the microwave to be perfect.