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I made a big mistake. A friend of mine urged me to buy Hamburger at Walmart. I never shop there but having been wrong before, I decided to try it. I went and bought the 5lb chub. Brought it home, cut it in half and froze it. Was no great value to begin with, it was $13 something.
I thawed out half of it to make Sloppy Joe's for dinner. Usually a treat for us, not something we have all the time. That 2.5lbs of hamburger cooked away to nothing. It was all fat and when it was all said and done, there wasn't enough meat to feed 4 people. So I had to cook the other half of the chub too. And it wasn't all that tasty either. One meal for 4 ended up costing @ $16.00. And it wasn't that good!
I was so disappointed I went straight to Zaycon and ordered 40lbs of ground beef to be picked up on May 7th, $175. Yes it is expensive but almost no fat and it doesn't cook away to nothing. And the flavor is always excellent. It's fresh and always smells wonderful. I will bring it home and freeze it in 1lb packages.
"Below" all of these is Hamburger, where the fat content allowed is a full 30%, and the beef/fat can(and does) come from any part of the cow. Basically, Hamburger includes all of the beef and trimmings that a meat cutter is unable to do anything more productive/profitable with. Whether you buy it from Walmart or anywhere else, it's likely to cook down considerably. And trust me, when sausages and other things in the case get a little too old to sell, they're not always going into the trash bin. I shudder to think about what's being put into some of those Hamburger packages.
I do not recommend ever buying Hamburger, from anywhere.
I always buy the 90% lean from Sam's. It's about $3.60/lb. I buy a 10lb chub and divide it into six or 8 meals. Not the cheapest thing in the world, but not bad either.
I think Walmart ground beef in the tube is fine, it's ground finer than the stuff that comes on Styrofoam and wrapped in plastic and stays fresher longer without needing to be frozen. It's not different than any other beef, depending on the fat is how much beef you will actually get. Try stretching it by adding some muchrooms if you like them.
If you go to Aldi and look at the labels, you will find that the ground turkey has the same amount of fat per serving as the 80/20 ground beef.
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I have not seen 5# chubs of ground beef at Walmart for $13. Around here, you pay $13 for a 3# chub.
I've tried ground turkey and tried to make a meat loaf with it and it was inedible and bad.
I do happen to love turkey bacon. It's so much easier and less messy to cook in a microwave and although it's a different taste from pork bacon, it does not taste like turkey either. I buy the Butterball brand and sometimes the low sodium one. My father bought a different brand when I was visiting him and it was artificially smoked and smelled and tasted funny.
I've never had a good experience with the ground beef in a chub. Even at the place where I buy my beef, and get excellent beef, the ground beef that is sold in the plastic tube isn't good.
That ground beef in the chub should have the percentage of fat printed on the label. I remember looking at chub beef that was 38% fat. I was looking at it because of the advertised price. I thought I could feed it to my dogs. No, even at "cheap" it was too much to pay for 38% fat.
I can't comment on Walmart meat because I have never bought meat there. However, the the local Walmart sells nice produce and they have an in-store bakery that bakes some good bread right on the site. (and neither the produce nor the bread is cheap)
5 pounds for $13 is $2.60 a pound. When good burger costs close to $5 a pound and sorta-OK burger is closing in on $3.50, I wouldn't think it was realistic to expect to get good meat for $2.60 a pound. I'm paying $3.80 a pound for primal cuts and grinding my own. For $2.60 a pound, I can buy some pretty nice boneless pork and turn that into ground meat that is lean. Oh wait, only of you don't count my time, my packaging, and the $800 meat grinder into the cost of it.
Sorry, but there is no longer any way to get cheap meat for your family, unless you have a local store that still does loss leaders on chickens.
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