Went to the super giant mega international market today while waiting for our traps to catch some feral cats† for a client. There wasn’t a single whole tissue pork or beef cut for less than $5 a pound. Ground pork was $4.50 a pound. Cow feet were more than $5 a pound.
This makes chicken the only affordable option for making meat based meals for cheap right now.
Once these fertilizer shortages caused by the war in Iran take hold the price for vegetarian meals are going to skyrocket too.
By the midterms things will be way worse than they are now. Time to stock up on rice, beans and pasta. Start that herb garden now so you can flavor your calories.
I planted 200 onions this year. They are already looking great. I might have to start looking at more 18th century recipes. They loved onions.
† no. We are not eating the cats. This is a standard TNR situation. Pulled four kittens that were about two weeks old. One of them was already dead and one wouldn’t have made it through the day without intervention. Fix yo damn pets.
For a number of reasons (cost certainly being one), I’ve been paring back meat in my diet. Been experimenting with different ways to cook tofu and incorporating more grains and legumes for protein, but sometimes the meal still feels lacking. It’s hard to divest oneself from the attitude of “it’s not a meal without meat!” when that’s how you were raised.
I try not to think too much about future prices. I’ve got enough dry staples and canned goods to feed us for ~3 months and fresh veggies in the garden. Worrying beyond that is just anxiety without an outlet.
We can do meat free pretty easily as far as satisfying meals. But my wife has anemia and no amount of black beans, chickpeas and supplements fixes it. A 16 ounce steak makes her whole overnight. I don’t know if it’s some kind of bioavailability issue between the two. But the results are obvious.
We used to have about three months on hand but the last two years have depleted us down to about one.
Why no eat cat? She is obviously well marbled!
Eating cats conflicts with my other priorities.
On the bright side, someone may have solved bee colony collapse, so we got that going for us!
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260327000518.htm
tl;dr - Bees need essential lipids called sterols to survive and the sterol count in natural pollen has dropped due to climate change.
An artificial food, infused with the sterols bees need, increased the larvae population 15x(!)
That’s great news for quickly replenishing commercial hives. If something wiped them out suddenly we would be facing global famine and a lot of hand pollination work.
I thought I read that commercial honeybees have never been in danger (are there other types of commercial hives?).
Commercial bees were the most in danger. For a while beekeepers were losing upwards of half their hives each year. It’s easy enough to replace the lost hives but it takes time and resources.
Between colony collapse disorder, neonicotinoid and other indiscriminate insecticides and Varroa destructor mites they had a very rough decade. Things are getting better now.
Maybe someone will engineer their demise intentionally. Never know when it could be really needed and for what.
Or CRISPR a food to create an army of hunter killer bees. 🙌
If the bee superfood becomes commercially available, I’d be putting some out to boost the wild bee population around me, but I guess that’s how you get swarms. LOL.
I read that they would also make a “beeline” for the best food option, which if it’s that, means they wouldn’t be pollinating flowers, just feeding on the new food. So probably better as a tool for beekeepers, so they can still go pollinate flowers
Wild bees are typically solitary and don’t form swarms. Honeybees also wouldn’t swarm over finding a food source.
If you want to help wild bees, plant wildflowers.
That’s the problem they are finding, climate change is reducing the amount of naturally occurring sterols in pollen, so the bees can’t get all the nutrients they need from naturally occuring sources. 😞 Planting more flowers won’t correct for that.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I gather this has only been found for honeybees.
So far, yes, but the last paragraph:
“The same technology could also be adapted to support other pollinators or farmed insects, opening new paths for sustainable agriculture”
So it could help any pollinator.
Planting yarrow and milkweed is great for native bees, at least where I live.
I suspect this would not boost native mason bees to the same extent. Each mason bee makes about 25 cocoons for her eggs in a season, while a honey bee queen can lay 200k, and the remaining work goes to the rest of the hive.
Or do you mean putting out the supplement for feral honey bee hives?
The latter… Supplements for everyone! 😉
Locally, duck is cheaper than beef.
Boneless imported Australian leg of lamb is absolutely delicious and comparably priced to fucking hamburger.
It’s insane. And yes I’m also mostly eating chicken, but my partner grows more discontented with the fowl every day no matter how many different ways I prepare it. I found a bizarre cut of beef at a Chinese grocer for $4.80 a pound which I turn into braised beef dishes.
Truly a bizarre time for cuisine.
The going rare for duck was about $19 per bird. Figure that an average weight of a meat and that half of it will be bond and it probably does work out slightly cheaper than beef. And you can make stock out of all those bones.
I raised a batch of meat ducks a few years ago. Worked out to about $13 per duck after figuring in feed. But the cost of ducklings has almost doubled since then so today the cost would be about $19 not including labour.
Once we can put together $120 we are going to get some Muscovy and see if we can get some meat production here. Muscovy is the closest to red meat you can get from a yard bird and they are known for going broody, unlike pekins. This will help decrease dependency on an incubator.
Great insight. Thank you!
Boneless imported Australian leg of lamb is absolutely delicious and comparably priced to fucking hamburger.
Noticed this when we were at Sam’s Club last week. Freaking crazy.
Yah dude, buck wild. Doing one of those guys up with a ras el hanout and pomegranate gremolata for Pesach and I’m really looking forward to it. Did the same thing last year and it came out great.
Yeah, I quit eating meat the last inflation spike, like few years ago. Just couldn’t justify the costs anymore.
In our house we differentiate between eating meat and protein. This is very important because of my wife’s anemia issues.
I specified whole tissue meat for a reason. There’s just something so satisfying about the toothiness of a cut of meat versus ground meat. That’s purely psychological. But it also makes a difference medically. I can feed her ground beef and it will be nowhere near as effective for her overall health as a smaller portion of whole tissue meat.
For generations ground meat was the cheap fix for getting animal protein. But these days the price differential between ground meat and whole tissue is diminishing.
Why are there no pictures of cat and kittens?
I posted cats over at cats
The kittens weren’t in great shape so no pictures of them. I was informed that they are now in an incubator so hopefully they will start getting better.
I’ve been getting a farm share (CSA) for several years now, and I’m increasingly grateful for it!
Not sure if they exist where you are, but Sam’s Club is doing a $15 membership through today.
Ours pays for itself in gas savings alone, but their meat prices are pretty good in our area (Upstate SC).
We’ve been doing more Pork lately, as it’s been in the $2 - $3 per pound range.
If you can afford a larger cut of meat and do your own butchering at home, you can save a few dollars doing that as well.
Nearest Sam’s club is 30 miles away.
