I’m not the only one who has noticed the price increases on meat, am I? The chicken in my grocery store has increased by 25% this past year. My local meat guy has a graph showing the beef stock numbers in America declining drastically for the past two years. The law of supply and demand being what it is, prices are just going to keep going up. The AP reports
Meat prices are expected to rise faster than overall food costs in 2012. Prices rose in the spring and may increase an additional 1 percent to 3 percent this summer.
Traders drove up the price of corn futures because supplies were low and demand was robust from livestock producers, ethanol processors and overseas buyers. Corn futures jumped to an all-time high of $7.87 per bushel last June.
Feedlot owners who use corn to fatten up cattle before slaughter felt the pinch. Hog and chicken producers cut back on the number of animals they raised to offset higher corn costs.
In addition, a devastating drought in parts of the country dried up grasslands and ranges where cattle graze. Some ranchers sold off big numbers of animals instead of paying to truck in hay for feed.
In January, the U.S. Agriculture Department said that U.S. cattle herds were the smallest since 1952. Live cattle futures jumped to $1.3115 per pound in February, the highest level in decades. That meant higher costs for feedlot owners and meat packers. And those costs were passed on to consumers.
There, see, it’s all very simple. Commodity traders are of course reason #234 why feeding a commodity grain to our 4 legged food sources is a BAD IDEA. Droughts, which are likely to become more common as rising populations put water sources under increasing stress, are another reason to scale back our consumption of beef. It takes over 400-1000+ gallons of water to raise a pound of beef, depending on whether you’re talking to the cattle men or MSM. Vegetables take between 2 and 160 gallons of water to raise a pound, depending on the veg. Even measuring by calories per gallon of water, vegetables win. 
So, of course, my first piece of advice to savvy preppers is to accustom yourself and your family to eating less meat in general, and less beef in particular. Using beef in soups and stews and casseroles to stretch it through more meals. Dropping a few beef meals each month in favor of a few vegetarian meals, perhaps something nice with beans so you don’t miss out on your protein intake.
Figure out how to preserve beef. Whether you decide on a freezer or a dehydrator or a smoker, find a way that you like, that works for your situation, and get yourself in a position to handle larger amounts of meat so you can take advantage of sales or price cuts.
Buy cheaper cuts of meat. Break out the marinades and slow/low cookers to take advantage of cuts that cost less. Top on the cheap list: Chuck steaks, ribs, flank steak, skirt steak, hanger steak, and my favorite, brisket. Mmmm, my momma used to cook the best brisket.
Freeze dried beef in a can? I know it’s out there. Provident Pantry makes some, I know I’ve seen some from Mountain House too. Has anyone eaten any of it? Sound off, let us know how it tastes, I’ve never had the pleasure.
Anyone taking measures to limit the impact of rising meat costs on the family budget?
- Calamity Jane
Buy a freezer, dig a cold store whatevere for your particular aboad, and HUNT store meat all season long and use it wisely. Make jerkys and dry things forlng term storage. Use every eatable peice of the animal waste nothing if its eatable. People had better learn how to do these things becase the economic issues that they have staved off for almost 4 years are about to come crashig in and when they do there will be hyper inflation and all sorts of other issues that will weigh n adn those who dont have the sills ad are not preparred are going to be in a bad state of affairs. can ayone say….REFUGEE?
txt mch?
That. Made me laugh out loud.
in grocery stores, get the managers specials. in meat markets try to get the boxed bulk, it usually has a good discount. look to your local farmers also and split a side of beef with someone.
I just found corned beef brisket on sale at Cub Foods for $0.99 per pound! I filled my freezer with it, obviously.
Raise rabbits. One of the healthiest, lowest in fat, highest producing sources of meat.
Jane, You allready garden, so raise chickens! It’s fair easy,and a good prep to Raise Hogs!a little harder, but they eat mainly table slops,and butcherin’ them is good prep to raise beef! None of this is hard to do ; Ya’ll just have to work at it a little to get the hang of it. When I was a child , they had a name for prepers back on candy branch, they called them; Farmers—-Ray in Ky
I look for specials on meat and stock up when I find them. After Christmas and Easter, hams are really cheap as well as turkeys after Thanksgiving. We just ate a turkey for memorial day that was in the freezer since we are trying to rotate our stock.
In my area, ground pork is a lot cheaper than ground beef and I have started using the pork in all my ground beef recipes. The taste is not much different and you can’t even tell the change if it is a spicy recipe like for taco meat or chili.
Luckily we know fisherman that bring us fresh fish and seafood when they have extra too. I currently have over 10 pounds of shrimp in the freezer from a buddy.
Most meat products are cyclical. Pork has a cycle of about 6 months; that is every six months or so it is abundant and thus low priced. Chicken is cyclical but the cycle is not even, that is there is a couple of low prices throughout the year but except the late summer low they tend to occur whenever they happen to happen. Beef is cyclical usually with a major sell off of beef in the fall but otherwise not predictable. Turkey of course can be found on sale or special deals around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Wild Salmon has specific seasons but is rarely “cheap” but if you like fresh salmon that is the time to buy. The best way to take advantage of these cycles is to be aware of the prices week to week and when a bargin presents itself you will know it. And buy the meat that is more affordable; pork chops at $2 a lb is better then steak at $7 a lb.
I have always thought that there should be a ban on growing any kind of food crop to make ethanol .
Thankfully that will not happen.
I know a few city’s around the southern parts that allow owners to have a modest number of goats, the mini’s and mid sized ones fatten up nicely on most anything, a trip to the slaughter house and waa laaa, the deep freeze is filled, chickens and rabbits as well take little space or time, just have to get your hands a lil squishy at times, more mental then not to kill and dress them…. seem’s a few cultures have enjoyed dawg, Apaches, Vietnamese, who seem so much alike to me in their warrior ways, I’m blabbering !!!!
I raise egg chickens, buy chicken thighs instead of breasts at the store, and do my best to can and put up a couple deer a year. My local store has 80/20 ground beef for $1.99 a lb for extended periods of time and I stock up the freezer with it. No more good cuts of beef for me
Husband is a chef and always reminds me to not buy certain cuts of meat when prices go up. I always stock up while on sale. Note to self- learn to can.
I have been going to WalMarts in my city that are in the lower income areas and stocking up on the “yellow tag” meat. This is the meat that is tagged with a bright yellow sticker as it is about to reach its expiration date and they are usually marked WAY down. I have found that there is a large selection in the “food stamp” walmarts (if you catch my drift) as those stores don’t have as many people that can buy the meat but walmart in all its brilliance still sends a lot of meat to them. I take it home, vacuum pack it and into the freezer. Funny thing is that steaks actually are more expensive and more flavorful after being aged when you buy them in steak restuarants. So don’t be to afraid of browning in the steaks.
Raised on a Texas farm and have always gardened, canned, froze, dehydrate and stocked our root cellar. We have our own chickens, turkeys, rabbits, goats,quail and cows. We save our own seeds and have our own water well. Buy very little from the grocery and sell our excess to pay for that. I guess we have always been preppers.