Meat: cost vs. value

While cooking biscuits w/ country gravy for my family last night, it occurred to me that I have very different views on the cost of meat than what might be normal. 

Let's just say that when shopping for chicken I freak out if it's any more that $1.99/lb, and will usually try to not buy it unless it's on sale for $1.79/lb....oh and if it's one of those rare days where it's on sale for only 99 cents/lb, I get this kind of crazy euphoric high and buy as much as I have money for and then freeze it.

Then there's ground beef. Generally I know it can't be found for less than 2.99/lb and I've pretty much accepted to get that price you have to buy one of those tubed ground beef packs. Which isn't really all that appetizing or as nice to cook with as the ground beef in regular packs. Occasionally I'll get lucky and find a sale on fresh ground chuck for $2.99 like I did this week....guess what, time to stock up!

Pork, you're looking at $2.99+/lb pretty much at all times. Maybe you get lucky where you live, but here this meat seems to never go on sale.

Now back to the whole cost vs. value thing....why on earth  have I accepted paying $5+/lb of deli lunch meat as completely normal!?

 Well, I'll tell you why...value of product. I may pay $5+ for a pound of  deli lunch meat, but that one pound of lunch meat can give us an entire week of lunches, especially if I get it sliced thinly. That one pound of $1.99 chicken, or $2.99 pound of ground beef gets us one meal. And sometimes it costs even more than that having to use 2-3 chicken breast to have enough for all of us.

So how have I tried to increase value in my meats? By making 1 pound go further. We now use a lot of shredded chicken....1- 1 1/2 chicken breasts are usually plenty for this. Cut down to 1/2 - 3/4 pound of ground beef in a meal. And I can get 2 meals out of a pork loin. Slice up 3/4 of it and then dice up the rest of it for pork fried rice.

Really it's all in how you think about cooking. And cooking frugally can be done if you just take some time to plan out your menu. I'm trying harder at this, and hopefully soon will have my camera figured out so that I can share some frugal recipes here.