I ordered from a local vendor of pastured organic animal products. It appears demand is good because they are charging $20+/lb for most of the steaks, $35/lb for filet mignon. But beef cap fat is $2.50/lb. It’s tasty and nearly given away.
If all you people keep blabbing about the benefits of eating fat you are going to screw up some really good deals. Shout it from the rooftops, fill the newspapers and magazines with stories: FAT KILLS! FAT KILLS!
lol! That’s what I was thinking the other day. My desire to be a cheapskate and my desire to save the world are at odds.
Butter = Bad!! Bacon kills!!! Save the animals!! Eat margarine, sprouts, and tiny bits of gravel for your digestion!!
Ha ha ha. love this thread.
yeah, butter prices keep going up, bacon prices keep going up… things we enjoy that are still cheap for the most part, bone in, skin on chicken thighs, can get them for like 69 cents a pound…
Could backfire. If demand becomes too low, there becomes less incentive to produce, process, ship, hold on shelves, etc. Then places start buying in smaller quantities or produce in smaller quantities (reduce supply or simply less bulk buying to end points). Then prices go up as well. Part of that equation probably won’t hurt you if you buy direct from the farmer, but if the farmer stops seeing enough potential demand for his product, he might shift to a different product.
Butter…chomp, chomp…is disgusting and you should…chomp, smack…avoid it all costs. Pass that over here.
I feel the same about organ meat. I buy this (they mostly only have lamb’s liver and kidney, which is fine) in relatively small quantities from time to time, from the fresh meat counter in my local supermarket. I feel almost embarrassed because it rarely costs more than £1 total, and never more than £2, and that’s very often all I buy from that counter (I get my other meat on the ready packed, self-serve counter). If people realised how nutrient dense this stuff is, they’d be willing to pay much more (even if it’s a very acquired taste).
I just bought a sample of a great variety of organ meats including lamb liver and kidney, neither of which I’ve yet tried. Today I’ve got beef heart doing a slow bake in the oven. It will be my first time trying it too. It appeared very lean so I covered it with bacon ends. Yesterday I had chicken liver which my wife and I made into very rich pate using lots of Kerrygold butter and fresh herbs from our garden. She picked up a copy of The Joy of Cooking from a garage sale for $1, publlshed in 1936. The older edition is much more keto friendly then my new one. So far I’ve been liking the combinations of organ meats and fats that we’ve been trying. And yes, it is much more affordable compared to eating muscle meats.
I don’t see heart very often, but one time when I did see some, I bought quite a bit (it was frozen) and tried it. After I’d tried it, I wished I hadn’t bought so much. I don’t know what it is, but I found it a bit “odd”. It’s a pity, because I know it’s nutritious, but if I was to try it again, it would have to be in a small quantity, and perhaps well-disguised. Years ago, you would very commonly see tripe in traditional butcher’s shops, but no more (actually, there aren’t many traditional butcher’s shops left).
When my dad used to manage a butcher’s shop (my mother worked with him), they would make something called “chitlins”. I’m not 100% sure what they were made of, but they sounded nutritious, and were quite popular. …ok, chitterlings, according to wikipedia, and made of pigs (or other animal’s) intestines. hmm…I thought it might have been made with brain, and that it might have fallen victim to the BSE scare, but apparently not.
Oh, one thing I am very fond of (although not offal), is oxtail. Can be very tasty, and hopefully nutritious.
I liked the beef heart. It was surprisingly like turkey gizzard, one of the few organ meats I had eaten prior to going keto. Chitlins and tongue I’ve yet to try. I had tripe once a long time ago and didn’t like it then but I should give it another try.
My mom used to make an oxtail stew. It was very fatty and one of my favorites as a kid. When my dad turned 40 he needed a triple bypass heart surgery and fatty foods were blamed and I haven’t had oxtails since. But now I suspect my dad’s heart trouble was more likely caused by smoking, alcohol, sugar and other refined carbs and job stress. If I find oxtails I’ll have to try and recreate my mom’s dish - minus the potatoes.
Oxtails are fabulous! We can occasionally get them in our local supermarket, and I can get them (may have to order them in) at the nearest we have to a proper butcher (it’s really a wholesale/trade place, but with a tiny retail counter).
However, in the nearest city to the small town where I live, there is a covered market with several “proper” butchers, some of them up-market aimed at the better off university types in the city.
I specifically went there today hoping to find liversausage (aka liverwurst aka Leberwurst). Fantastic stuff, but often hard to get hold of here.
However, I also noticed a couple of places doing sliced oxtail, and even one doing pigs trotters. Didn’t get any today, but I’ll do so another time.
And one of these places also had tripe! Hadn’t seen it in years! Never had it to be honest, and I’m not sure if I’ll like it, but I feel I ought to try it one day.
Cold tongue, sliced, from the deli counter is nice, but the few times I’ve tried the fresh tongue, cooked, I felt the same way about it as I felt about the heart. It almost feels “too rich” somehow - can’t describe the feeling exactly.