Make Your Own Cow Patties

So, my in-laws and I were sitting around having lunch yesterday when my mother-in-law offered us some of this "free" hamburger that they got.

I know, right- you need to be suspicious of "free" meat.

And I was.

I remember, though, that my grandparents used to get the best cheese and peanut butter for free from the senior center (which we all privately joked was to kill off the seniors quicker....half joked).  But, anyway, I told my mother-in-law, "Maybe".

That's when she started selling me hard on taking this free meat.

"Hamburger Patties"

"Uhm, no"

"It's 'Choice'."

"Uhm, no."

Then she went and got it out of the freezer.

"Don't you use it for meatloaf or something?"

"errr" (we prefer ground chicken and ground turkey) "Well, what's the % fat in it?"

...and it wasn't listed.

I actually didn't know how to calculate percent fat in beef- was it weight/weight or weight/volume or some other calculation?

When I got home, I looked it up.  It is weight/weight (fat weight/total weight).  And there's a requirement that ground beef contain nor more than 30% fat weight/total weight....but that's ground beef.

Turns out that % fat is not required to be listed on "Prepared" products like hamburgers.  They are required to put the little RDA label on the products.  And the little label said 48g fat in 150g total weight.

That's 32% fat.

I know that's kind of close to the limit, but it is a good example of how buying prepared food, even if it's marked as not having any preservatives, is not as good for you as buying the "raw" ingredients and making it yourself.

I just didn't realize that it was truly better to make your own cow patties than buy them.