I have recently been wrestling through the pros/cons of buying regular grocery store beef vs. grass fed, hormone free, antibiotic free beef. I am trying to go through some of my options, and I came across the option of buying a half of a cow. I would just love to know whether or not this is actually more beneficial and cost-effective than just buying it pre-cut and packaged, as needed. -Abby
Long-time readers here may remember that we attempted to buy a quarter of a grass-fed cow one time and it ended pretty disastrously. In fact, I still have visions of four inches of blood at the bottom of the deep freeze. Eww!
However, if you are smarter than us, and put your freezer somewhere where the outlet won’t shut off and spoil your meat while you’re on vacation, then I definitely think buying half a cow can be a very good investment. In fact, we’re hoping to do that ourselves sometime soon now that we have space again for a deep freeze.
To be completely honest, we’re still trying to work up the courage to makes such a big purchase again after it failed so miserably last time. However, we would really like to be able to use higher-quality meat and buying it in bulk makes it much more affordable, so I think we’re going to take the plunge. This time around, though, we’re going to invest in a freezer alarm, we’re keeping the freezer somewhere other than the garage and I’ll probably be a little OCD about checking to make sure the freezer is running. 🙂
Have you invested in a side of beef before? Did you think it was a good investment? Any pointers or tips for Abby and our family to consider (other than the obvious of don’t plug your freezer into a weak garage outlet!) I’d love to hear!
photo by Skinnyde