I’m so excited to introduce Kayti from Folly Life today! Her posts always crack me up and I’m so enjoying her posts about her pregnancy journey! The thing I love best about her blog is that she’s an unflinchingly honest writer, which I so respect in the blog world. Be sure to check out Folly Life!
Have you seen that movie Food Inc? Yeah, me either. My friends, Bob and Taylor, have though which is how I accidentally ended up on this local food path. You see it’s not that I don’t care about where my food comes from it’s just that going to Stop & Shop is just so easy. Also, Skinny Bitch ruined me just a little bit to all tough love about your food exposes. I was vegetarian for a hot minute until I realized that perhaps allowing my only cheat meat to be Burger King Whoppers wasn’t all that healthy. I’m Irish, I was raised on meat and potatoes and you can imagine my need for iron directed me straight to Burger King each week.
Oh, you were waiting for a point weren’t you? Right. Anyway, my friends saw Food Inc. and were absolutely disgusted with what we are being offered at the big business supermarket. Taylor began researching local beef sources which lead her right to Duggan Farms. She did the bulk of the research and correspondence so I was pretty excited when she asked Zeb and I to purchase the cow with them. Hey, if all I have to do is give the money and get the cow, well then that’s just as easy as the supermarket!
Now comes the tough part though, the price. The cost of our cow, affectionately named Bessie, depended on her hanging weight. Last year the price per pound of hanging weight was $3.95, that’s bones and meat, no blood. Bessie was quite a fatty at 1100lbs. Taylor and I quickly realized that there is no way we’d be able to eat 1100lbs of Bessie between the four of us, and that $4400 is a wee bit expensive for meat to rot in your freezer for five years. Luckily Duggan Farms offers a fraction cow option and we were able to scrounge up two more couples to split our half of the cow.
Last November, after months of anticipation, we took a pilgrimage down to Little Compton, RI to pick up Bessie. We were able to meet some of Bessie’s friends, see where she lied down when it rained, and peek at what she ate to make her so delectably fat. I felt a little like a murderer. I was expecting PETA to come throw red paint on me. Then I remembered Skinny Bitch and felt pretty satisfied that no one stuck a laser up our cow’s bum before slaughter. Bessie’s hooves didn’t freeze to the bottom of a caboose in cow excrement. Bessie had a good life, that is until I, the cow murder, came along.
Bessie’s Playground, via Duggan Farm
We roamed the farm for a little bit and then went inside to to pay our $550 for 78lb (just meat at this point) each of Bessie. Duggan Farms had helped Taylor with the cut sheet. A cut sheet is a form for the butcher for you to specify what cuts of beef you’d life. The butcher that Duggan Farms uses is legit. The facility is completely cleaned after each animal. We were even given the option to witness the butcher cutting Bessie. That was a little too much for all of us to stomach so we didn’t take them up on the offer. We were impressed by the packaging they used. Everything was vacuum packed and frozen. It made for some chilly fingers when we were dividing the meat, but nearly a year later the meat looks the same as it did in November.
Bessie is delicious! If you want a reason to go local with your meat its that nothing quite compares to grass fed, respected, local meat. Even restaurants pale in comparison to the quality taste Bessie has to offer. It makes me a little sad to know that we’re nearly running out of her. I don’t think I can return to Stop & Shop to pay $8.00 for a crap pound of ground beef. That’s the other thing with local meat, the upfront cost is difficult to manage but in the long run you save money.
Now I’m no math wizz but lets say we’ve had Bessie for 40 weeks. That’s about $14.00 per week in beef. How much money do you spend at the market each week lining the pockets of big business? Also, I’m not running back and forth to the market each week to buy fresh meat. You know how those little trips always turn into while-I’m-here-I-need-this-this-and-that. Before you know it you’ve spent $100 on essentially nothing. Bessie was worth her hanging weight in gold considering the decrease in trips to the hell I know as the supermarket.
We started talking about Bessie 2 in the Spring. This year we have 7 couples and a whole cow. That’s right, no 1/8 of a cow this year for us! We’re getting… well, like I said I’m no math wizz but there’s a fraction to be had somewhere between 1/8 and whatever we’re getting this year. Taylor recently told me that Bessie 2 is a New Hampshire cow. Live free and eat Bessie!
