Whether or not grinding your meat saves you money is not a simple yes or no. How much you save by grinding your own meat vs buying pre-packaged ground meat depends on the local price of chunk meat and the amount of flesh you grind.
Spend between $50 and $100 on a meat grinder and a few trips to the butcher for some solid cuts of meat if you don’t already have one. If that’s the case, you’ll probably discover that it’s more cost-effective to buy ground meat from the supermarket.
But nothing beats grinding your meat when you factor in the quality, freshness, availability, durability, aesthetic, and health benefits. Simply put, ground meat bought at the shop cannot be guaranteed to be completely untainted.
We’ll cover all of these topics and more in this post. Let’s go right in, then.
Is It Cheaper To Grind Your Own Meat?
The phrase “cheaper” may prompt thoughts of financial considerations. However, the relative affordability of making your own ground meat vs buying it premade from the shop depends on several interrelated factors.
Price Per Pound
The thought of grinding your meat immediately brings up the associated costs. Therefore, we should probably talk about it first.
Retail-Section Grounded Meat
Ground beef retail prices rise daily like the rest of the commodity market as a result of global inflation. As of the year 2022, a pound of ground beef costs at least $4.81. The price increased to $4.26 in 2021 from $4.12.
In 2023, you may have to spend anything from $5 to $10 per pound for ground meat when you shop on Amazon or another online retailer. Freshness and quality of the meat are two factors that affect the final price.
Home-Ground Beef
The most common cuts of beef used to make homemade ground meat are chuck steak, sirloin/tri-tip, round, boneless short rib, brisket, and plate. The cost per pound differs for each of the meats due to the different ways they are prepared.
Chuck steak is the cheapest at $6.09 a pound, while Sirloin is $7.99, Round is $11.54, Boneless Short Rib is $6.49, and Brisket flat is $6.86.
When you include the expense of grinding equipment and the time and effort required to process the meat before grinding it, making your own ground beef might be prohibitively expensive.
Convenience
Because of our hectic schedules, time management has become one of our greatest concerns, and convenience therefore means a technique by which we may save time. Therefore, you should also consider the practicality.
Purchased Ground Meat
Commercially packaged ground meat is prepared for cooking with minimal work on your part. A trip to the supermarket or an online meat retailer is in order. To begin cooking, that’s all you need.
In-House Minced Meat
If you’ve got steak in the freezer and a late-night hankering for juicy meatloaf, you can make it. In any case. It won’t take you more than a few minutes, and it will improve your cooking skills and satisfy your appetite.
Conclusion: Both options are practical within their contexts.
Meat Grades
The quality of the meat must be maintained at all costs. To cut costs, you’ll want to buy ground meat that’s fairly priced, but doesn’t worry, the quality will be unaffected.
Retail-Section Grounded Meat
While not terrible, ground meat from the butcher is of a poorer grade than you might prefer. This is because many smaller portions of meat will be discarded after huge steaks or briskets are butchered.
Given that this isn’t prime meat and looks terrible. Once again, the flesh was coarsely minced so that it could be marketed as ground beef. As a result of the poorer quality, they can sell them at a competitive price.
Home-Ground Beef
A different ratio of fat to lean meat is called for in each dish. When you make your own ground meat from fresh chicken, turkey, or venison, it’s simple to stick to the exact proportions called for in the recipe. Because you should be aware of the grade of your ground meat.
The verdict is that homemade ground beef is superior to store-bought.
Longevity
You won’t just need ground meat today, but every day of the year. If that’s the case, you shouldn’t just think about the short-term benefits of cheaper prices.
Meat consumption varies from household to household based on factors such as the number of people, gender, and age.
Let’s pretend there’s a family of four consisting of a dad, a mum, and their two kids.
Adults require almost half a pound daily, while children require roughly a quarter of a pound.
That means a family of four requires at
- To feed two adults for a year, multiply half a pound by two, and you’ll need 375 pounds of beef.
- 1/4 pound multiplied by 2 kids multiplied by a year is 183 pounds of meat.
- There were a total of 558 pounds of meat (375 + 183).
Please take into account that this family needs half of the total amount to be ground beef. 558 multiplied by 50% equals 279 kilograms per year.
Retail-Section Grounded Meat
Ground beef from the grocery store will set you back $7 per pound, or $1953 per tonne.
Home-Ground Beef
To make your ground meat, you’ll need to spend $2232 ($8 x 279 pounds) plus the cost of a meat grinder.
Conclusion: Neither significantly cheaper nor more expensive.
Taste
Even if they seem decent, no one wants to consume insipid and monotonous cuisine. And as a regular cook, you know that the quality of the components makes a huge difference in the final product’s flavor.
Purchased Ground Meat
The food won’t have the same out-of-this-world flavor as when you grind your own meat at home because the quality isn’t as high and you can’t regulate the fat-to-lean ratio.
But it’s fine for a quick morning meal or afternoon snack. It’s not the best option if you want to impress your guests with your culinary expertise.
In-House Minced Meat
You don’t need to be a professional chef to make delicious burgers, sausages, and ground orange chicken when you use high-quality components. When grinding beef at home, it’s important to keep the meat-to-fat ratio consistent. There will be a noticeable improvement in flavor of at least 50% over regular ground meat.
Conclusion: Homemade ground meat appetizers cooked with your own care will have a far superior flavor.
Effect on Health
You are supposedly what you eat. You’ll be a healthier person if you eat more nutritious foods. Therefore, you shouldn’t buy ground meat based solely on price; you also need to consider how it will affect your health.
Purchased Ground Meat
You can’t trust ground meat from your neighborhood butcher because you can’t be sure of its freshness or date of manufacture. This ground beef isn’t even edible.
As a result, you can probably expect subpar results from utilizing ground meat in your dish. Furthermore, there are potential health hazards associated with excessive consumption of this meat.
For more information on how poor-quality ground meat might affect your health, please read our dedicated piece.
Personal ground beef
As the driver, your top priority is keeping everyone in the car safe. When grinding meat, it’s important to keep things clean, keep the quality high, and keep the lean meat-to-fat ratio consistent. Therefore, rather than being harmful, eating this meat is beneficial.
Conclusion: Home-prepared ground beef is better for your health than pre-packaged ground beef.
Frequently Asked Questions
How important is it to buy pre-ground beef versus making your own?
Besides reducing the likelihood of E. coli infection, grinding your own meat yields ground beef that tastes much fresher than ground beef purchased from the grocery meat counter.
Is it more economical to cut your meat?
A good response to this topic is that you can save money by grinding your meat. However, that is not always the case. What we mean is as follows… Most of the ground beef and ground meat sold in supermarkets are produced from poorer-grade cuts of meat that most people would rather not eat.
Exactly what advantages can making your meat grinder provide?
It’s much superior in taste and quality and simpler than you might assume. You don’t need to know how to butcher or have access to a vintage hand-crank grinder to enjoy the advantages. Light and airy meatballs, burgers that taste like steak, and a lack of convenience are more than made up for by the quality of the meat’s texture.
Final Words
Both have comparable costs over time. Whether you opt for pre-ground beef from the butcher or do it yourself is a matter of personal preference.
Avoid grinding your own meat if you are a student, a single person, or a single person living alone. Simply place an online order, and your meal will be ready in just a few minutes.
However, if you are a parent, family member, or meat lover, grinding your own meat is a must.
