Eating Meat Cheaply

Eating Meat when Times are Tight

If you are eating an ancestral diet – whether that be Paleo, Primal, a Paul Saladino “animal-based” meat and fruit diet, keto, or certainly carnivore, you are probably eating a lot of meat.  Of course, there are more vegetarian-leaning versions of keto and paleo, which I would be happy to give some tips on in another post, but most of you following this way of eating eat a lot of meat. 

As well you should.  While I very much respect ethical concerns about meat consumption, from a health perspective, all the claims that meat is bad for you are quite weak, and the evidence supporting its inclusion in your diet is quite strong.  There is very strong evidence that prehistoric humans lived on a diet of mostly meat , and even today, there is a very strong worldwide correlation between countries who eat the most meat and countries with the highest life expectancy.  

Yet, meat is so expensive these days, you say.  True enough.  Of course, it’s cliche to point out that if you think healthy food is expensive, keep in mind that it’s a lot less expensive than the medical treatments you’d need to pay down the road if you leave your metabolic syndrome unchecked.  True enough, but that doesn’t help you at all now.  So, let’s instead look at what you can do now to save money on meat.

What is the Meat Replacing?

Depending on what you were eating before you cleaned up your diet, you might actually save money on your grocery bill, even without trying.  Sure, rice and beans are cheaper than meat, so if you were already doing a lot of cooking at home using real ingredients, your grocery bill will probably go up.  But if you were eating out a lot or eating a lot of heavily-processed food, you might not realize how overpriced restaurant food and processed snacks are.

  Furthermore, as your appetite stabilizes and you nourish your body with more nutrient-dense foods, you may find that you just plain don’t need to eat as much or as often as you did before.  Still, your food bill might go up anyway, so let’s look at some strategies to get your meat cheap.

The Incredible Edible Egg

As I’ve said previously, eggs are the perfect combination of superfood, culinary wonder, and affordable source of calories.  I know that egg prices have been elevated recently, but, compared to many kinds of meat, eggs are still quite cheap; I can currently pay $11.12 for a five-dozen crate of eggs at Walmart, which comes out to 18.53 cents an egg.   If you eat six eggs at once (like I do), that’s less than $1.12 for 420 calories, 30 grams of healthy fat, 36 grams of very high-quality protein, and a megadose of pretty much every micronutrient you need.  

But should I eat cheap Walmart eggs, you ask?  Won’t those be less healthy than eggs from happy, free range, organic, hens?  Sure, they will be less healthy; but with a nutrient powerhouse like eggs, “less healthy” is still pretty healthy.  The cheapest Walmart eggs are still way healthier than a rice and beans meal, let alone overpriced processed garbage.  If you need to make a compromise, eating less-good eggs is still way better than higher-quality bad food.

“Low-quality” Meat

The same principle applies to meat: less-good is still a lot better than bad.  Pretty much any real meat is healthier than pretty much anything you are using it to replace – certainly healthier than any form of processed carbs.

That includes processed meat like hot dogs, sausage, bologna, and even spam.  Are they ideal?  Probably not.  But, if you look at the ingredients and there is less than one gram of carbohydrates per serving, then they are mostly real meat and are certainly an acceptable compromise.  Any concerns about a slightly increased risk of colon cancer years down the road are far less pressing than the metabolic devastation of eating a diet of processed carbs here and now.

Pork and chicken are also fine.  I know that many low-carb influencers tell you to focus mostly on beef, and that pork and chicken are more likely to contain higher concentrations of PUFA oils, especially if they are not organic or free-range.  PUFAs are not magically bad; it is the chemicals and heat used in the commercial production of so called “vegetable oils” that cause many of their bad health effects, and whole foods containing high amounts of PUFAs, such as walnuts and fish, are often shown to be anti-inflammatory in studies.  Many people feel better prioritizing beef and other ruminant meat, but pork and chicken are still real, nutrient dense whole foods which will not spike your blood sugar.

Cheap Cuts of Beef

You’re probably sick of hearing carnivore influencers talk about ribeye steaks. I love ribeye steaks – but they’re about $18 a pound where I live, so I eat them about once a year.  You don’t need to eat ribeyes to eat carnivore (or keto, or paleo).  

Besides being tasty, the main plus of ribeyes is their high fat content.  But guess what?  80/20 ground beef is less than $5 a pound, and it has the same fat content as ribeye.  Furthermore, it is more versatile (you can have it as crumbles with gravy or vegetables, as burger patties with mustard, onions, cheese, or sauerkraut, or mix it with ground pork and spices and make meatloaf).  It may even be healthier than ribeye, since, in addition to the protein and fat, ground meat will often also have the tough chewy bits which people don’t like on a steak, but which are full of collagen and super-good for you.

Cheaper pot roasts like chuck roasts are just as healthy as more expensive roasts, just less appealing because they tend to be tougher and dryer.  An elegant solution is the slow-cooker – even a tough cut of meat can come out quite juicy when done on low heat in the slow-cooker overnight, and it is a very easy meal to prep!  You can brown the meat beforehand if you want for more flavor, but you don’t need to.  Throw in some water and salt, some black pepper and spices, a bit of beef broth, or some soy sauce or teriyaki sauce.  Onions and garlic are optional.  That’s it!

“Weird” Cuts of Meat

Organ meats are among the healthiest foods on the planet, but they are often cheaper than muscle meat because not a lot of people like them.  Chicken hearts and beef liver are both around $3 a pound where I live, for example.  Don’t have liver every day, to avoid possible vitamin A toxicity, but a liver meal once a week is fine for most people.

If you don’t like liver, you can try pan-frying it with lots of butter and onions, or throw in some bacon.  You can also grind (or ask your butcher to grind) a bit of liver or other organ meats into your ground beef so you don’t even notice it.

My experience is that heart is easier to eat and enjoy for people who don’t like organ meats than liver is.  It can also be pan-fried, or put on skewers and cooked on the grill.

In addition to organ meats, butchering also generates plenty of weird cuts and little trimmings that are not put into the meat case because they don’t look pretty, even though they are perfectly edible. Check with your supermarket or butcher to see if you can get these trimmings for free or for a reduced rate.

Canned and Frozen Fish are OK

Fish tends to be fairly expensive, but know that it is ok to eat canned and frozen fish, which is often cheaper.  Look for it to explicitly say “wild caught”.

Big fish can contain a lot of mercury – but the good news for you is that the more expensive cuts tend to be the ones that have more mercury and other heavy metals.  Big swordfish and tuna steaks have a lot – because the big impressive tuna are saved for steaks, the smaller tuna fish with less mercury tend to go in the cans, so canned tuna may be both cheaper and safer.

Small, oily coldwater fish like sardines and herring tend to be cheaper and have less mercury. Canned salmon is almost always wild-caught, and has very little mercury.  I buy a 14 oz. can of bone-in salmon (making it a nutritional powerhouse full of collagen and calcium) for $3.99 a can.  Cook it, and you won’t notice the bones at all.

Unless you pay extra for premium fish packed in olive oil, most fish canned in oil is in soybean oil, so buy canned fish in water.

How to Make Meat Go Further 

What you can do to “stretch” meat depends on what dietary restrictions you are working with.  If you are eating more carbs and/or veggies, then mixing meat with other ingredients in a casserole or soup is a good strategy – if you are carnivore or very low-carb, there are other tactics you can use.

Eggs are cheaper than most meat, but less fun, especially if you are getting sick of them after a while.  Why not perk up your eggs by having a bit of meat with them (such as bacon, ham, sausage, ground beef, or steak) – enough to make them more exciting while still having less meat?  If you tolerate them, you can make an omelette with some cheese, spinach, avocado, tomato, onions, or mushrooms in the middle.

Ground meat is very versatile – it can be mixed with other ingredients or cooked as patties.  One of the advantages of making meatloaf is that you can mix ground beef or bison with cheaper forms of ground meat, such as pork.

As discussed earlier, the slow-cooker is your friend.  You can also use the slow-cooker (or pressure cooker) to slowly cook bones and little bits of gristle with some water and salt and make bone broth.  

Miscellaneous Tips

Keep your eyes out for sales.  At the supermarket where I shop, we buy a lot of “manager’s special” meat – the manager will mark meat down to get rid of it the day before the “sell-by” date.  Obviously, cook or freeze it right away when you get home to avoid food poisoning.  One advantage to shopping in-person (rather than relying on DoorDash or InstaCart) is that you can keep your eyes out for deals like this which may not be advertised in the circular or online.  You may discover there are particular days or times when meat is often marked down.

The freezer is your friend.  Buy large quantities of meat on sale, then cook and freeze it right away.  Store cooked ground beef in convenient one-cup portions in the freezer, for example.  

If you are feeling bold and you have a large freezer, you can buy a whole or half cow at once.  This may be something you would want to go in on with another interested family or families. 

If you are a hunter or know a hunter, venison and other game can be a very tasty and nutritious addition to the diet – and you get to know that the animal had a normal life in the wild before it was killed rather than being raised in a factory farm.

Finally, don’t be afraid to experiment and be adventurous!  If you see a cut of meat you are not familiar with on sale, buy it and try it out!  Do some research (perhaps on paleo, keto, or carnivore forums online) and try new recipes and ways of cooking things.  And if you have any special tricks for buying and cooking meat cheaply that I didn’t mention, be sure to share in the comments below!