Why does one cut of steak cost so much more than the other?
Do things like tenderness, lack of fat and marbling really make a difference?
Keep watching to learn the real difference between cheap and expensive steak.
The most expensive cuts of meat are expensive because the meat is tender,
and there are only a few cuts of beef that are naturally tender right off the cow.
Tenderloin, New York strip, T-bone, and rib-eye are the four most
naturally tender cuts of beef. They're also the ones you'll pay more for at the supermarket.
You can also make meat that isn't naturally tender
into something that comes pretty close to a tenderloin just by how you cook it.
There are a number of smart pre-tenderizing strategies that work great on almost any cut
of beef. Cook's Illustrated suggests soaking your beef for 15 minutes in a mixture of baking soda
and water. You can also tenderize your steak with a meat mallet, which helps break apart
those connective tissues so the meat becomes less chewy and falls apart in your mouth after cooking.
Naturally tender cuts of beef are what everyone wants when they have
too much money and someone they want to impress. But the tenderness of the beef
isn't the only thing that makes these cuts so expensive. If the whole cow was tender,
you wouldn't have to pay more for any particular cut of beef.
But according to Prime Steakhouses, the reality is that tender cuts only make up about 8% of the cow.
The rest of the meat is so inferior that the butcher has to raise the price of the tender cuts
just to make up for what the store isn't making on the rest of the animal. So basically,
when there's a limited supply of something, you can expect to pay a lot more for it.
Cheap steak contains a lot of connective tissue. Now, that tissue isn't always bad,
and you'll actually find two different types in beef. According to the US Wellness Meats,
collagen is present in cuts like brisket and top round, which are popular for braising or
pot roasts. Kitchn reports that collagen is actually good for these cuts because it
breaks down with heat. Slow cooking helps give these cuts an extra tender quality.
The other kind of connective tissue is elastin. You'll find elastin in the animal's ligaments,
which means it shows up in the cuts of meat that come from the active parts of the animal such as
the legs and haunches. Unlike collagen, elastin doesn't break down when you cook it. You have to
cut it off if you want to rid your steak of those chewy, inedible bits popularly known as "gristle."
There's a good reason why some cuts of meat are tender and some are not:
the anatomy of the cow. Similarly, anatomy is also the reason why you get both white meat and
dark meat on a chicken. The dark meat comes from parts of the chicken that get longer,
more sustained workouts, like the legs and thigh. The white meat comes from parts of
the chicken used for short bursts of activity, like the breast muscle.
In cows, the most expensive cuts of meat come from the loin. According to S. Clyde Weaver,
the muscles in this part of the cow aren't weight-bearing and contain less connective tissue,
which makes them more tender. On the flip side, the parts of the cow that get the
most use have more of that aforementioned connective tissue. Those cuts are therefore
much less tender than the cuts that come from the lesser-used parts of the animal.
Since the concept of mass production was born, the beef industry has taken this idea to heart.
Big operations do everything they can to raise a lot of beef and get it to market quickly.
To accomplish this, they employ strategies that some might find questionable,
like giving their animals hormones so they will grow faster and be slaughtered more quickly.
Cattle raised on large, factory farms also typically live in crowded conditions,
which makes them more likely to be contaminated with dangerous bacteria.
To keep microbial disease down, ranchers sometimes give them preventative doses of antibiotics, which
some argue makes the beef of lesser quality and perhaps even dangerous. With operations like this,
you can get beef at cheaper prices, but you're getting a lesser quality piece of meat for your
money and potentially dancing with the E. coli devil. According to Unique Flavors Catering,
meat that's produced on factory farms tastes different, too.
Beef is expensive in a grocery store, and even more so in a restaurant.
You might pay $24 for a pound of tenderloin at Safeway, but if you order the same tenderloin
at a low end steakhouse you'll probably pay at least that much for only a six-ounce portion.
The good news is, you don't have to order tenderloin in order to have a
delicious restaurant steak experience. That's because the flavor of the steak you get in a
restaurant is more about the skill of the chef than it is the cut of beef.
According to Prime-13, a perfectly cooked steak is salted, brought to room temperature,
lightly seasoned, and then cooked fast at a high temperature. And it's never served
immediately after cooking. When you let the steak rest, that seals in the juices and helps
ensure that you won't end up with a dry hunk of chewy unpleasantness next to your baked potato.
According to Clover Meadows Beef, the grade of a piece of meat is decided by a US Department
of Agriculture inspector. To make this determination, the inspector looks at the
marbling in one specific part of the cow: between the 12th and 13th rib. "Marbling" is the term
used to describe those thin, streaky bits of fat that may or may not run through a piece of meat.
"What does marbling give you? Incredible flavor, tenderness, and juiciness in every bite."
USDA inspectors put the beef that is most commonly found in grocery stores into one of three
categories: A prime cut of beef is considered the highest quality, and therefore costs the most.
Prime cuts represent only about 2% of what's on the market in America. The next category
is "choice," which is not quite as good as prime but is better than the third category, "select."
Most of the beef available in the US is choice.
If you really want to spend a lot of money on steak, look for wagyu beef.
According to Business Insider, this Japanese-bred beef is the most expensive in the world,
costing you up to $200 a pound. So, if you plan to enjoy a small wagyu steak with all four members
of your clan, you can expect to spend about one monthly payment for a new, moderately priced car.
"Mmm. That is pretty sensational."
"It liquified. The minute I started to chew -"
"Yeah."
"-It just liquified."
Why is this particular beef so expensive? Wagyu cattle are a high-endurance breed, meaning they
have more fat in their muscles. But that's not all — when wagyu calves are about 10 months old, they
go to a, quote, "fattening farm" where they stand around in confined spaces for the next couple
of years, eating nothing but carbs and fiber. By the time they're ready to go to slaughter,
their bodies are about 50% fat. This is why wagyu beef has that prized flavor and texture,
though it does come at the cost of the cow not being humanely raised.
The difference between grass-fed and corn-fed beef
is that one had a marginally better life than the other.
Grass-fed animals spend more time in the pasture, and they don't spend the last few months of their
life in a feedlot getting fattened up. This means that they don't make it to market as quickly as a
corn-fed cow. In fact, Consumer Reports says it can take up to an extra year to fatten them up,
which brings up the price. Pasture land is also harder to come by than feedlots,
contributing to the higher price of grass-fed beef.
The North American Meat Institute says grass-fed beef may be healthier in the
sense that pasture-raised animals aren't living shoulder to shoulder with other animals during the
last months of their life and are therefore less likely to carry unpleasant bacterial diseases.
Marbling is generally what determines whether a cut gets the coveted prime label or is
relegated to the lowly "select" category. Those categories exist because of presumed meat quality,
but they still don't explain why you have to pay so much more for prime beef than for select.
It's also based on demand. Consumers prefer well-marbled pieces of meat,
especially when they have that desirable "prime" label.
Simple economics determines that things that are more desirable have higher price tags.
According to Chef Steps, the other, much more practical reason why you spend more money on a
marbled piece of beef is that it costs more money to fatten up a cow. Fat cows need more food,
and they also need to eat that food for longer periods of time. More food costs more money,
and so ranchers have to charge more for the beef in order to recoup those expenses.
The truth is that in a flavor taste test between a tenderloin and a sirloin, the latter would
probably win. Tenderloin may have a leg up on tenderness, but it is also often milder in flavor
than the sirloin. A sirloin has more connective tissue, which makes it a tougher piece of meat.
The trade-off is that it has a stronger flavor which some people prefer over tenderloin.
According to Cattlemen's Restaurant, the sirloin comes from just in front of the rear leg of
the cow, meaning it's in between a rump and a porterhouse in terms of how much action the muscle
sees in a living cow. If you value flavor over tenderness, then this cut is arguably superior.
You may wonder if the top sirloin you bought at Costco is somehow inferior.
Happily, the answer is no. Probably. According to CNet, most of the beef at Costco is the same
grade and quality as the beef at Safeway, just less expensive. Like everything else at Costco,
though, you have to buy more of it in order to get those discount prices.
One of the drawbacks to buying your beef at Costco is that you may not be
able to eat all of it before it goes bad. Costco ultimately works only if you're good at planning
and are able to make the best use of what you buy.
It's also worth remembering that beef that comes from Costco is kind of, well, mysterious. That's
because Costco isn't exactly transparent about where it sources that meat. So if humanely-raised
beef is one of your priorities, you can't be sure that your Costco purchase checks that box.
According to the CDC, mass-produced meat is more likely to contain contaminants like Salmonella and
E. coli. That's not just because cattle that live in close conditions are more likely to
spread these organisms. It's also because the plants that process and package lots of meat
are at risk of introducing pathogens into the meat during handling.
Even in the store, there are variables that can bring bacteria to meat.
Costco beef has been blade-tenderized, also called mechanically tenderized,
a process that can introduce bacteria into the center of a piece of meat. So if you're
a fan of rare steak, in theory, that means you might get sick using blade-tenderized stuff.
"The CDC says there have been six outbreaks of food borne illness in the
past fifteen years that can be directly linked to mechanical tenderization."
If you're concerned about things like hormones, antibiotics, and pesticides in your food,
you may want to buy only organic beef. Yet, just because it's organic doesn't mean it
also falls into either pasture-raised or humanely raised beef categories.
In order to earn the organic label, beef cattle do have to have some room to roam, but that doesn't
necessarily mean they lead better lives. According to Mic, organic farmers can't give their cattle
hormones even when they're sick, so sick cows may end up dying for lack of medical treatment.
And that rule about giving them room to roam only applies for around four months out of the year,
so it's not like organic cattle get to spend a whole lot of time frolicking in pastures.
All of this means that organic beef may be healthier, but it's
not necessarily better tasting or more humane.
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