Always Buy the Cheapest Ground Beef

You should buy the cheapest ground beef you can find.

Does that sound crazy to you?  Well, if you've ever bought ground beef, you've surely noticed the crazy difference in price between 93% beef and 80% beef.  But hey, you're getting way more actual meat in that 93% ground beef, so it's worth the extra money, right?

Actually, no.

At my local grocery store, 80 % ground beef is a frustrating $3.49 per pound, while 93% ground beef is a ludicrous $6.29 per pound. 

Before I get into the math, let's lay the foundation for my claim that you should be buying that 80% beef, even though there's more fat, and thus more waste (because we're all just draining that fat off and throwing it away, right?) in each pound that you purchase.

If you buy a one-pound package of ground beef that is 80% meat, that means that 20% of it is fat. Yes?
And if you buy a one-pound package of ground beef that is 93% meat, then only 7% of it is fat.  Are we on the same page here?

Next.  If we can think of that 20% fat as being waste, then that means that when we buy our ground beef, we're actually only getting .8 lbs for that $3.49, which means it is actually $4.36 per pound of meat.

Which means that for the 93% beef, which is only .93 lbs meat for the $6.29, you are paying a whopping $6.76 per pound of meat.

Here's the math:

              $3.49/.8 = $4.36                          $6.29/.93 = $6.76

So who wants to pay almost $2.50 more per pound, for the same meat?  Not me.

Kate

P.S.  If all that math is just too much for you to stomach, forget about it.  All you need to remember is that cheaper meat is cheaper.  Buy the cheaper stuff.  Trust me.