I don't remember seeing the Oklahoma State study when it came out in 2017. Only 5% of consumers knew how many cattle may be represented in a single ground beef patty. Are you among the 5% in the know? I wasn't.

Don't spoil it. I'll link the study and give the answer from the study over the weekend.

Question:
How many animals represented in one ground beef patty? The question only refers to commercially produced ground beef sold at grocery store.

Choices:
1 cow
2 to 5 cows
6 to 10 cows
11 to 100 cows
101 to 1,000 cows
1,001 to 10,000 cows
More than 10,000 cows

 

Buy your ground beef from a local butcher, and do it as part of a 1/4 or 1/2 beef and all the meat in the ground beef will be from one animal....

The correct choice is not listed. More than 1 cow. Rat meat, you know.

I am assuming it is more than one but I'm not sure of the significance. What does it matter if the meat from one cow is mixed with meat from other cows?

V-tail shared this excellent joke recently in the Ikea thread

quote:

Health Inspector: "Is the meat in that rabbit stew 100% rabbit?"

Restaurant Owner: "There's a little horse meat in it."

Health Inspector: "How much horse meat?"

Restaurant Owner: "Fifty - fifty. One rabbit, one horse."

quote:

Originally posted by ChicagoSigMan:
I am assuming it is more than one but I'm not sure of the significance. What does it matter if the meat from one cow is mixed with meat from other cows?

If you're cooking your ground beef, it doesn't matter all that much. However, if you're eating it raw, as in beef tartare, it matters a great deal. The chance of bacterial infection is almost certain with mixed raw ground beef. That's why it's very important to have very high quality ground beef from one source if you're eating your meat raw.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by ChicagoSigMan:
I am assuming it is more than one but I'm not sure of the significance. What does it matter if the meat from one cow is mixed with meat from other cows?

If you're cooking your ground beef, it doesn't matter all that much. However, if you're eating it raw, as in beef tartare, it matters a great deal. The chance of bacterial infection is almost certain with mixed raw ground beef. That's why it's very important to have very high quality ground beef from one source if you're eating your meat raw.

apples to turnip comparison,

19 yrs a meat guy, 35 in the biz, and never knew any customer to use store bought ground beef for Tartar, they typically ground their own or back in the day when we had smaller grinders, would have us grind a roast for tartar,


some companies, years ago, would grind the burger in the store, from store cut trimmings, so depending on th volume of that store, the number may be under 100, or even less,

now, most companies contract out the ground beef, as in it is ground in a location, packaged and shipped to stores,


so the number of cows would be how many the facility can process in a day between grinds.....

I voted one cow as I buy a whole grass fed steer and have it processed.

quote:

Originally posted by lyman:

apples to turnip comparison,

19 yrs a meat guy, 35 in the biz, and never knew any customer to use store bought ground beef for Tartar, they typically ground their own or back in the day when we had smaller grinders, would have us grind a roast for tartar,

Seriously? How is it an apples to turnip comparison? I am literally comparing ground beef to ground beef. And I never said people were buying regular store ground beef and using it for tartare. In fact, I was precisely saying the opposite. Although, I don't how you could possibly know that all the people who bought ground beef from you didn't intend to eat it raw, but ok.

All I was doing was giving one example as to why one would not want ground beef that was mixed from more than one cow.

0. You don't eat a cow. You eat a steer.

quote:

Originally posted by JWF:
I voted one cow as I buy a whole grass fed steer and have it processed.

The wife and I buy a quarter of a steer. Lasts us about 12 - 18 months.

quote:

Originally posted by Rawny:
0. You don't eat a cow. You eat a steer.

Hamburger is dairy cow.

quote:

represented

Interesting way to put it...

totally ignoring 'special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun'

One animal processed poorly could have more E. coli than 100 animals processed properly. The bacteria is in the gut of many if not most cows. The worst strain, 0157, doesn’t make cows sick. It’s host normal flora for them.

It must be one hell of a grinder with a hopper that can hold 100 steers.

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:

quote:

Originally posted by Rawny:
0. You don't eat a cow. You eat a steer.

Hamburger is dairy cow.

Both of you are a bit too narrowly focused. Cattlemen do not keep every heifer calf, they only keep what’s necessary for replacements. Some of the culled heifers could certainly be bought at the sale barn by other cattle growers and put into their herds, but they can also be fed up and slaughtered.

The key word is “culls.” Bull calves are almost always sold off from dairy operations. Beef cattle producers and dairymen will cull when the animal is no longer capable of sustaining the operation. Dairy cows when milk production drops. Bulls when sperm count and motility drop. An animal that becomes crippled out on the range would be sold off for obvious reasons. These would be run through the sale barn. Any and all could be represented in your hamburger. There will also be beef from desirable finished steers included, it’s not all going to come from an aged out bull or mother cow—the hamburger has to be good enough to bring you back.

I neglected to say, most of the meat from those aged out culls would probably go to pet food, rather than the meat counter.

Hopefully all of them