Carnivore hack: how to buy meat without spending a fortune \ stacker news ~HealthAndFitness

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Carnivore hack: how to buy meat without spending a fortune

904 sats \ 19 comments \ @Signal312 27 Apr HealthAndFitness

After doing these things haphazardly over the past year or so, I've got it down to a system. This is the way to get the absolute best prices on meat.

Don't let the "meat is so expensive" thing scare you away from going carnivore, or perhaps keto/low carb. Especially with carnivore--you eliminate so many other expensive food products that you don't need, that I truly believe it can actually SAVE you money. All bets are off, though, if you buy the expensive cuts at high prices.

So, here's the steps I'm taking to get the best prices.

Most of the grocery stores have a weekly ad, often on Wednesdays. I put in a calendar reminder to check all the local grocery stores (online) for their sales. One of them will usually have a great loss-leader price on meat.
Go and STOCK UP on the loss leader. I just got 60 pounds of ground beef at $3 a pound. That's a great price. One of the local groceries has it available at that price about 1 week in 6.
You'll need a separate freezer, or a good amount of space in your refrigerator freezer. A freezer will definitely pay for itself very quickly.
You CAN buy the big chunks of meat, and cut them yourself. That'll be far, far cheaper than getting the individually cut steaks, etc. For instance, we got ribeye for $6.97 a pound, during a very good sale. Normally the price is at least $12 or 13 a pound. It was in the form of a huge bone-in roast, we had to cut it up. That was a little daunting at first, but after watching a youtube video, all was good. It turns out that the easiest way to butcher it is by completely cutting the bone OUT first. And then cutting out the steaks and the ribs separately was easy. We invested in a little vacuum sealer to make it easy to freeze.
Places like Costco are a mixed bag. They tend to have the more expensive cuts, and will never have inexpensive ground beef, which is one of my staples. They don't seem to really have good sales.
A place like the US Foods Chef Store (restaurant food supply) is great, but they usually sell big chunks of meat. You need to be able to cut it up. Again, not a problem, just watch a few videos and experiment. The fact that a restaurant supply place often has great prices is a reminder to look at ALL the local food stores, including ethnic ones, instead of just standard grocery stores.

I know a lot of people swear by grass fed beef, but I've had outstanding results with the cheapest available ground beef, so I'll stick with it.

Here's some of my other carnivore posts:

2025-04: Rendering beef tallow, from beef fat trimmings - yum 2025-03: I was unknowingly almost vegetarian, before going carnivore 2025-02: Is sugar the new smoking? 2025-02: I would continue with Carnivore even if I got only this ONE benefit 2025-02: Weird, oddball health improvements I've experienced on the Carnivore diet 2024-10: There's currently a propaganda campaign against low-carb diets 2024-07: Carnivore quotes in classical literature 2024-04: Carnivore diet - looks like it fixed this nighttime disorder for me 2024-04: Carnivore diet - believe it or not, it healed this oddball disorder for me 2024-04: Can a keto/carnivore diet heal issues like depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar? 2024-04: Eating Carnivore on a short trip - tips and tricks 2024-01: Latest steps in my carnivore path 2024-01: Carnivore achievements unlocked 2024-01: Taking a temporary break from mostly-carnivore diet during holidays 2023-12: Sugar and Alzheimers 2023-12: Kinda-carnivore diet is leading to WAY more energy 2024-12: Question for carnivores/carnivore-curious folks 2023-12: I'm transitioning ... to a more MEAT centric diet 2023-11: This book is blowing my mind - The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholtz

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34 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b 27 Apr

When I was doing carnivore back when we lived in California, this is exactly what we'd do. Our local Safeway was the best source of deals. They also only stocked choice grade meat, which was the grade we preferred.

We'd request entire sides of ribeye or strip from the butcher, still in the package they receive before cutting it into steaks, when it was on sale and freeze them whole. They'd look at us like we were crazy at first but eventually got used to it. During Ramadan, they'd have 10 pound tubes of ground beef for a $1.99 so we'd buy those. When t-bones or porterhouses were on sale, we'd stock up on those too. We'd also get pork shoulders or spare ribs when they were on sale.

We had a pretty small chest freezer, but it was enough. Nothing would stay frozen too long and we didn't notice a difference between frozen or not.

These days, even though I lack the discipline to do carnivore these days, we still buy whole sides of ribeye from costco for meat for the week.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Signal312 OP 21h

So you'd freeze the sides of ribeye whole, and then I guess you have to thaw and then cook them as a big roast?

I'm definitely no expert on cooking the big roasts, I just have memories of Christmas dinners, where my mother-in-law would stress about everything.

The temperature of the oven, exactly how long to leave it in and then let it rest, and all the different meat thermometers, which ones are accurate and which ones are not. It seemed like it was tough to get right.

34 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 20h

Oh no, we’d cut them into steaks ourselves by hand as we wanted them and store the rest of it whole in the fridge in the original package (one end is cut open but we’d roll it on itself and clip it like a bag of chips). It keeps well for a couple weeks like that which I learned having done some wet and dry aging experiments with whole sides in the past.

33 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 OP 20h

Ah, okay, that makes sense. I'm learning that meat actually keeps pretty well in the fridge.

I've actually had really good experiences (on a car camping trip) with having pre-cooked ground beef patties just in a cooler. They lasted for about 3 or 4 days, even though the ice had melted.

I deliberately keep on eating these beef patties past the point of where more cautious people would have stopped because they may have gone bad. I think it was on the 4th morning, after eating it, I did get some diarrhea, nothing too serious but enough that I stopped eating them.

I'll write up a post soon about another method of having great meat, without needing refrigeration - shawarma.

34 sats \ 6 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 27 Apr

Sprouts has the Wednesday deals!

What fat % do u buy for your ground beef?

20 sats \ 3 replies \ @Signal312 OP 27 Apr

73% meat, 27% fat.

I did the calculations a while back - depending on the price differential between 73/27 and 80/20, you may actually be getting a better deal (meat only) on the 73/27 even if you THROW AWAY all the fat on the 73/27.

Of course, you're not going to throw it all away, so in all likelihood, 73/27 is the best deal. It's certainly the tastiest, once you're fat adapted.

34 sats \ 2 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 27 Apr

80/20 is the lowest I’ve seen!!

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 OP 20h

Hmm, interesting, here you get the higher fat percentage meat easily. However, only at the "lower end" grocery stores. The ones that are a little bit higher on the socio-economic scale, with lots of organic, gourmet foods, won't have that type of ground beef.

I guess the wealthier people are more bought in to the idea that animal fat is bad?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 18h

Yes

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 OP 27 Apr

What's Sprouts like? We may be getting one in our town.

I just checked out the Sprouts weekly ad from a nearby city, and it's had ZERO animal products, except for some (regular, sugary) yogurt.

34 sats \ 0 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 27 Apr

Has great meat. Bison. Kangaroo. Wild boar. Just no discounts on meat I guess

34 sats \ 1 reply \ @Lazy_AMA 17h

I think the only hack on buying meat without paying for it is to become the hunter yourself.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @aljaz 13h

Road kill.

34 sats \ 2 replies \ @NunyaBidness 23h

If you can find a Costco Business Center instead of a regular Costco you are golden. They cater to Restaurants so they sell primals of meat.

Learning how to butcher at least a couple of different primals is good knowledge to have.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 OP 21h

Primal - I assume that means the big hunks of meat, like the ribeye roasts, that you have to cut up yourself?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @NunyaBidness 19h

Yeah. There are roughly 8 different primals on a cow. If you learn how to butcher then your cost on a $ per pound basis falls pretty rapidly. If you have a large enough freezer and a vacuum packer then you can materially reduce your meat cost.

34 sats \ 0 replies \ @benwehrman 23h

Great tips, thanks for sharing!

Let me know if you'd ever like to come on my podcast to share your carnivore story, I never get tired of hearing people's journeys to optimal nutrition & health 🥩❤️

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuGtfhmsMa-JJ2s95aWSIZZKj80Y7Gb9w

34 sats \ 1 reply \ @aljaz 27 Apr

I feel like frozen meat tends to always taste worse

also depending on where you are most grocery store meat tends not to be of the greatest quality, butchers/farmers with grass fed beef tend not to run many ads with loss leaders sadly :D

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 OP 21h

I really haven't noticed a difference with frozen meat not tasting as good. The ground beef, we buy in the tubes, they're very well packaged, air-tight. And most everything else seems to be fine. We either keep the packaging from the store, or vacuum seal it with one of those little devices. If a meat came on a styrofoam tray with thin plastic over it, I'd probably try to use it quickly, because that's not the best packaging.

Where I really noticed a degradation of quality with frozen items was with frozen veggies and fruits. They got freezer burn REALLY quickly, surprisingly so.