I finally looked up how many cows actually go into a 50-pound box of ground beef and I was way off

I was reading through a USDA report from last Tuesday and found out that a single 50-pound box of ground beef can come from over a dozen different cows blended together from different suppliers. It blew my mind because I always thought it was maybe 2 or 3 animals max in there. Has anyone else ever checked the actual numbers on blending ratios for their ground product?

3 comments

3 Comments

smith.anna11d ago

Corporate beef blending is crazy shady honestly.

robinf5111d ago

Hold up @smith.anna you're right that it's shady but the beef blending thing actually got misreported a lot. The big scandal was about pink slime and fillers, not mushrooms or veggies. Most of the "blended" stuff you see now is just regular ground beef with finely chopped mushrooms added, they have to label it clearly. What people got mad about was when companies like Taco Bell or McDonalds would stretch their beef with soy and water without saying anything. That's the real shady part. But the mushroom blend thing actually started with some fancy restaurants and people just ran with it like it was a conspiracy.

the_joseph11d agoMost Upvoted

Man I can't even afford real beef most weeks so blending is like... out of my tax bracket entirely. But then I found out some places are mixing in mushrooms and I actually kinda liked it? Like my own cooking is already a mystery meat situation so maybe I shouldn't throw stones. At this point I just hope the ground stuff I buy has seen a cow at some point in its life, you know?