This is a great frugal living/healthy eating tip

I have never been able to make burgers 'work' with extra lean beef. I've tried every different 'binding' known to man and they always just crumble and the bits that we're able to save from the grill are just terribly dry. I now just accept that burgers are not going to be health food! I like to use the more liquid taco sauce (Old El Paso) rather than a chunky salsa. I just use the seasoning in the envelope when I cook the meat and then mix a little of that sauce and some sour cream in with mine. Damn, now I'm really craving tacos and it's only 9 am!

That's definitely true, it does get dry and it definitely effects the taste. I find with tacos or spaghetti sauce I don't notice it as much because it's mixed with either taco sauce or tomato sauce. But with things like burgers or meatloaf it isn't worth the sacrifice in taste.

I would think with burgers and meatloaf it would just crumble instead of keeping in tact (unless a lot of binding was used I guess?). I never tried that. For taco meat, I just use chili powder, oregano, and a dash of salt (no liquidy sauce), so I need the fat to help disperse the spices better since it's all dry. You remind me I forgot to buy taco sauce for this week when I went shopping earlier - hee hee.

Yep, you're right, as much as we don't like to admit it fat tastes good. When I'm cooking something like a sauce or taco meat then I don't care it it's extra lean because of all the extra spices and added flavor & texture. I think I'll try the rinsing for those. But when it comes to things like burgers where the meat is the focus it just doesn't work. As much as I would like it to and as much as I've tried to make it work the sacrifice on taste just isn't worth what's saved on calories or grams of fat.

Can't argue with free! It's amazing how much grocery pricing can vary from place to place though...at the grocery store I usually shop at, lean ground beef is definitely not double the price of the fatty stuff.

I thought about that too but this is what the article says about it: 'If you cook a pound of raw hamburger, it will become about 10-2/3 ounces of cooked meat. This is merely 2-ounces less than the most expensive super-lean ground beef. Regular hamburger costs less than half as much as super-lean ground beef. I am not willing to pay double for 2 more ounces of meat. For frugal folks trying to keep the grocery bills as low as possible, Regular Hamburger is the best choice.' And in my case the meat was free so I'm still ahead either way :)

I don't know when that page was written. It seems to me that the prices are rather cheap compared with what I pay. But then, when I was a kid, a piece of topside was around 1 shilling and 6 pence a pound (that would be around 5p - 7p in today's money and converted to US dollars in the rates prevailing then - early 1950's - would have been something like 20 or 30 cents a pound). These days I expect to pay about £6 - £8 ($10.00 - $15.00) per pound or more for an equivalent piece. According to the cost of living index, though, meat is still cheaper now than it was then.

That hillbilly site is funny. They have pictures of a faucet and of a colander just in case your reading skills are lacking and you might not know what one was. LOl It's just too funny.

It did seem like a pretty amusing site, I'm glad I found it!

I can see that happening. I wonder if it would still be good to use in a soup or something like that? But I think I will just keep spending the extra money and getting higher quality extra lean once this freebie meat is all used up!

Turkey or chicken meat has almost no fat (most of the fat on fowl is just below the skin and in the offal - think of goose liver or pate de fois gras, so if you take off the skin, you are left with a meat that actually requires the addition of some fat in order to moisten it. Any wild game (deer, rabbit, hare or wildfowl) will generally have less fat than cultivated meat, except in the autumn and winter when they will have stored fat to survive. This is also the kind of fat that a human (who didn't have the benefit of central heating and gas-powered transport) also required in the cold season. Fat levels in cultivated meat are very carefully controlled by diet, environment and by feeding the correct hormones and enzymes that produce 'what the customer wants' (unnaturally lean meat) in the shortest possible time (which is to the farmer's advantage). What we do need is SOME fat (and some meat) in our diet. What we don't need is the over-indulgence in fatty meats and highly processed foods.

I always buy ground beef at the local butcher, which is way less expensive than the grocery store, but I don't think they carry ground turkey. I buy it every now and then at the grocery store but I'm pretty sure it ends up being way more expensive than the butcher's ground beef. And now that we've got this 'windfall' of free meat I have to use it up somehow, this seemed like a pretty good solution. Well, for tacos and stuff like that anyway.

HI SU, I remember very well. When i frst married a 100 years ago, lol if i spent 425 AT THE GROCERY my ex would have a tizzy fit, the old tightwad. Groceries are ridiculous for sure. I don't see how big families afford to feed them. I do buy things i don't have to have but i stay home all the time & very seldom ever go anywhere so u deserve a few treats.

Antiquelady,,remember when chicken was an economical meal? Those days are gone too. The fact is that there is really nothing cheap anymore and my weekly food bill proves that. Sometimes when I'm grocery shopping and more so at the check out, I want to cry..100.00 is absoultely nothing when it comes to groceries..sigh..

This is what it says about losing weight: 'If you cook a pound of raw hamburger, it will become about 10-2/3 ounces of cooked meat. This is merely 2-ounces less than the most expensive super-lean ground beef. Regular hamburger costs less than half as much as super-lean ground beef. I am not willing to pay double for 2 more ounces of meat. For frugal folks trying to keep the grocery bills as low as possible, Regular Hamburger is the best choice.' Not that this article is the end all and be all of ground beef or anything, but it sounds like you still come out on top. Honestly, I can't see myself continuing to do this once our stock of free regular ground beef runs out, I will most likely just go back to spending the extra money and buying extra lean.