So I was talking to the Safeway Meat Dept manager yesterday.........

about the new "Rancher's Reserve" brand they have now. H2S and I have both commented how nice this new line of beef is and I took a minute to compliment our local SW's meat department on the tenderness and consistency of the line.

What he (the Meat Manager) told me is that they have a new method of slaughtering the beef they tested and are now using. Not sure I can get this explanation correct (maybe H2S can help here) but I'll try.

He said that instead of just slaughtering and hanging the carcass intact in the old style (we've all seen pics of the hanging carcasses in movies) they go through and break the long bones so the meat isn't "supported" as it ages and the weigh of the meat itself breaks down the long strands of ligament that make the meat tough. The "whole carcass" method allows the ligaments and muscle strands to actually shorten and toughen up as they age (kinda like rigor mortis).

Maybe more info than you want, but I found it fascinating. I had specifically asked him if they were using a commercial "needle punch" tenderizer method that H2S had thought might be the case and he told me no, then told me about this new aging process.

Anyway, my little food trivia for the weekend....

(herd ... yah ... sorry for the bad beef-post pun :) )

I've never heard (or herd) of not hanging beef in one fashion or another. Ya kinda hafta until you break it down. No other way to move a 1000 pound hunka meat around. In the usual slaughter process, after the kill, they hang the carcass to bleed it, skin it, inspect and grade it, and halve it. That's what you see in pictures of the classic beef slaughterhouse.

To the best of my knowledge, beef is not aged in whole carcass or half carcass form. It is broken down to **at least** primals, and often to sub primals (loin, rib, chuck, etc.). It is aged as cuts.

The explanation makes sense, however, when discussing the way meat left whole toughens ('kinda like rigor mortis'). And since this has been known forever, that's why they break the carcass so fast. To prevent this from happening.

So I'm a liddle confuddled ......

just a little neurotic here...............if they break the long bones and then leave the meat in contact with the broken parts, what is to prevent contact between bone marrow (BAD due to BSE risk) and the meat we later eat?

I SOOOOOO want to be able to raise and butcher my own beef some day.

shopping. You're correct though, that sounds like it would be a BSE risk BIGTIME!

now that would make me leery....

Don't think I want to buy beef with prions on the side!!!!