How to: Get shit-free ground beef

Photo by David Chief.

Here is step by step guide to getting shit-free ground beef.

1. Go to an organic butcher or a good butcher that sells organic meat
2. Choose a large chunk of a cheap cut of organic beef and/or pork
3. Ask the butcher to grind it for you
4. Separate in batches
5. Cook or freeze the same day.

And voilá! Shit-Free!

This is because:

1. This story was in the NYT this week.
2. Feedlot cattle goes into ‘processing’ covered in shit. That’s because they live covered in shit.
3. Organic grass-fed cows, by their very nature, don’t spend their lives covered in shit, hence, there will be less or no shit in their meat.
4. There have been countless USDA recalls of ground beef contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 (read: shit) Most of them after the meat has been eaten.
5. E. coli O157:H7 exists because of factory farming methods. They have created the problem by feeding grain to cows and made it worse by giving them antibiotics.
6. Ground meat has a natural shelf-life of 24h. The fact that you can buy it in the supermarket with a month of shelf-life is just wrong.
7. Carbon monoxide keeps meat looking fresh and perky even after weeks of its sell by date. You could be buying spoiled meat and never know it by the looks of it.
8. I am a traditionalist. I think cows should live in the field, that meat should be bought at the butcher’s and ground right in front of you.

PS: I don’t really know why I am posting this, since I am already 95% vegetarian by now. And I think you should be too.