Back in December, I shared my thoughts about the King Corn documentary, and in the comments section (where lots of good information is shared but most people miss seeing it!), Miriam shared about a source for kosher grass-fed beef (Golden West Glatt – where it says ‘source’ in red letters in the sentence right before this is a link to their site).  When I checked out the prices, they looked pretty good!  Until that point, I had only been aware of one kosher source in the country and at almost $10 a pound for ground beef (the cheapest cut), it was simply out of our budget.

Years ago I spoke with an Amish farmer who agreed to sell me the whole cow, but it was such a complicated and expensive process to arrange for everything (couldn’t use his facilities, would have had to truck the cow somewhere, rent processing space from a kosher butcher and hire a private slaughterer!) so I gave up on the idea.  When I heard about an affordable option that didn’t require me to do anything but pull out a credit card, I was excited that grass-fed beef might finally be on the horizon for us.  🙂

I contacted the company to find out about how the animals were raised, and here’s the response I got:  ”They are grass-fed and then grain finished which means they are given corn and alfalfa. They are also very humanely raised, meaning that the animals are grass-fed and bedded down at night as well as shielded from inclement weather.”  They aren’t organic, which to me is less important than being grass-fed.  (A little peeve of mine are organic chickens that are marketed as exclusively grain fed.)

At that point they didn’t have ground beef in stock (I was looking for the least expensive cut I could get:)), but they soon added it and I placed an order for 40 pounds last week.  The price for ground beef (family packs) is just $3.49 lb!  That price is cheaper than even the the regular kosher ground beef at the supermarket – and after reading Wardeh’s poll on grass-fed beef prices, it seems it’s a pretty good deal for non-kosher buyers, too!  And with shipping at just $9.95 for any size order, it’s an incredible deal – my order of 40 lb was just $150 including shipping – yes, it’s a big chunk of change at one time, but that’s a lot of meat!  (Edited to add – it seems this shipping special just ended. 🙁 )

In case you’re wondering about the family packs, you get a large box of individually wrapped 1 lb packages. Very compact and easy to store.  (Usually at the store I buy family packs, which are about 3 – 4 lb, and I have to separate it and repackage it into 1 lb chunks before freezing.)  I like buying in bulk so this works well for me, though the minimum size is about twenty pounds, so that might be a bit much for smaller families.  (I think you can buy in smaller amounts for about 3.79 lb.)  The order came today in a large box packed on all sides with thick styrofoam, like a makeshift cooler.  It was in transit for three days, but was still frozen solid when we got it.

I’m not a discerning connoisseur of meat – to me everything tastes fine, and I’m buying this because I care more about how it’s raised and having the right balance of Omega 3 fats – but  several of you have told me you’re very happy with the flavor and I’m expecting it to be very good!

(This post is part of Fight Back Fridays.)

Avivah

Disclaimer- in case you’re wondering, I don’t make any money off of my recommendations on this blog; I’m just sharing an affordable source for meat that is often hard to find at a decent price.