What happened to the meat? Seriously.

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Has anyone else noticed that in the past several months, the quality of meat and seafood products have gone significantly downhill, while the prices have skyrocketed?

I've noticed a lot of fat, and raw edges sort of rough cut in the meat packs. Also it doesn't seem to taste the same. For instance, the chicken is rough cut and yellow and fatty, the hamburger seems squishier and the flavor is "off", the bacon is cut super thin and is fattier, the lunchmeat is wet and fatty, shrimp that's supposed to be tail off has tiny disgusting pieces of shell still on it. etc.

I don't know what it is, but to my daughter and I, meat suddenly looks and tastes kind of nasty now. And it's been giving both of us stomach aches.

I don't know if I even want to eat meat anymore, because it's sometimes so gross and expensive.

I've even noticed it in vegetables too, like it's hard to buy kale that isn't somewhat wilted, and bagged greens often have pieces of woody stem in them.

What caused it?

Are we the only ones who have noticed? If not, what change have you seen?

Are there any meat products you've noticed are still in good quality and low priced?

Please, I don't want to hear from the "Go Vegan"/ "meat is murder" cheerleaders that seem to get passionate about any post of this type. Although you guys are awesome, it's not the purpose of the post.

 

[Metalhead]

COVID has screwed up a lot of things, and this is one of them.

 

[FreeDiver]

Please, I don't want to hear from the "Go Vegan"/ "meat is murder" cheerleaders that seem to get passionate about any post of this type. Although you guys are awesome, it's not the purpose of the post.

What about eating meat can also increase you carbon footprint?

 

[SusanLR]

I haven't noticed a decline in quality, but, the prices keep going up and some pre-packaged meat
products are decreased in the amount with higher prices.

Restaurants here have gone down in quality though. And a lot of meat dishes I used to get
there aren't even on the menu anymore.

 

[oregano]

Covid really hit the meat processing plants hard. There are fewer animals because ranchers killed a lot of their herds in 2020 since they couldn't sell them, cause a lot of the people who work at the processing plants got covid. Everything is in short supply now, and it will likely last for several years at least. Some are saying that shortages are permanent.

 

[watersprite]

I circumvent those problems by going to buy vegetables, meat and cheese, dairy goods, locally.

Last week I got: 4 big winter squashes, large bag of onions, large bag of garlic, small bag of shallots, whole brussel sprout stalk, & small bags of kale, spinach, chard, carrots, potatoes, and a chicken for $52.

 

[Unclewolverine]

May be your location too, supply chains are breaking and grocery transport may be scarce in your area. Our meat quality is fine but prices are way up.

 

[Mary Terry]

I circumvent those problems by going to buy vegetables, meat and cheese, dairy goods, locally.

Last week I got: 4 big winter squashes, large bag of onions, large bag of garlic, small bag of shallots, whole brussel sprout stalk, & small bags of kale, spinach, chard, carrots, potatoes, and a chicken for $52.

That's my philosophy, too. If I can't grow or harvest it, I try to buy it locally. We are eating our homegrown fresh kale, chard, turnip greens, mustard greens, collard greens, radishes, lettuce and herbs, our frozen green beans, various kinds of peas, blueberries and blackberries from summer, supplemented with hubby's venison, whole chickens from a local small scale poultry producer, lamb, beef and pork from a local butcher who sources only local ingredients. I just found a fisherman on the Gulf Coast who delivers fresh seafood once a week to our house. I order online from what he has available and he delivers the next day. I also frequent local farmers markets and usually make our own bread. Not sure if our way of getting food is cheaper than big box store grocery shopping but I'm sure we eat better.

BTW, @Yeshuasdaughter, I recently read that the disgusting yellow fat distributed through poultry is actually a chicken disease called "striping", deemed harmless to humans by the government powers that be, but it sure is off-putting to say the least! Chickens should not contain "fat" like that. Ugh.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I enjoy buying local or bagging a doe for the freezer. There are butchers here who are busy during deer season. Also, in Frankfort, near me, there is a lot of commercial fishing and catches are sold at the Smokehouse . . . everything from fresh lake perch, walleye, whitefish, lake trout and salmon to tasty smoked fish. They closed for the season yesterday, but I put up 5 lbs of fish for later and some smoked trout to make with penne in a light tomato sauce. Every summer the butchers here bid on livestock from 4H fairs and at my local store there are the ribbons displayed above the meat locker.

(added) I also grow veggies. I roasted and pulped about 15 lbs of sauce tomatoes, fermented some hot sauce from chilis I grew, and have about 40 head of red german garlic.

I feel fortunate living among such bounty.

 

[watersprite]

@Mary Terry Good to know about the disease causing that yellow fat in chickens. A nurse who grew up on a chicken tanch and is a friend calls those cancer-chickens.
Suggestion from her was to only buy whole chickens and reject those with gobs of that fat.

 

[Suzette]

I am very lucky to be here in Mexico. Over the Summer, when we were in Colorado we had sticker shock for sure! In Colorado bacon was up to $8.00 for 12 oz. Here we pay 8.00 a kilo. We are also on the export road so we get all the goods being shipped to the states but at lower prices and there is a lot of locally produced fruit and veg too.
Ground beef is 7.00 a kilo.
But our prices have gone up too. Some prices have increased by 1/3 from 2 years ago.

 

[Aspychata]

Agree here. Things have lost their flavors. I know that medicines and certain sicknesses can derail our tastebuds. Maybe try a tongue cleaner which scrapes off the tongue, and see if that improves anything.

The sad thing about being older, is our tastebuds become less discriminating, in fact they sorta shut down. So a lot of older people lose the motivation to eat. I witnessed this with my dear grandmother.

Food supplies are very different these days. Covid has been a game changer on so many different levels. American commercialism is no longer what we once knew. I go to Walmart and see empty shelves on a regular basis at one Walmart.

 

[Judge]

Frankly nothing seems to be the same in this industry since the cyber attack on the largest beef supplier in the world, JBS last May.

JBS: FBI says Russia-linked group hacked meat supplier

 

[Magna]

Other than buying the occasional pre-packaged cured meat, I don't buy any other kind of meat at the store. There is a semi-local organic farm operated by a husband and wife (she's the actual farmer and he has an outside job and helps her when he can) that's about an hour away from where I live. They raise beef cattle and hogs, grass fed, free range and 100% organic. I buy my meat from them and they deliver it closer to my area at a meeting point. The meat itself is processed and packaged at a local inspected facility before it's delivered to me. I haven't purchased meat in a store in a few years.

 

[Judge]

I haven't purchased meat in a store in a few years.

Agreed. Buying meat through large retailers in particular can be risky business. Something once confided to me by a Walmart insider. Confirmed through a few very public scandals. And that was long before the pandemic.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Agreed. Buying meat through large retailers in particular can be risky business. Something once confided to me by a Walmart insider. Confirmed though a few very public scandals. And that was long before the pandemic.

So much depends on the USDA inspectors in the plant. It used to be that for serious health infractions an inspector walking off would shut down the operation until things were corrected. Then came anti-regulation conservatives under the first Bush who hated that inspectors would harm throughput over issues of public health. So, they strongarmed the USDA into ensuring that the inspectors could not correct health violations and cannot stop the line even if they observe carcasses smeared with feces. Conservatives want a caveat emptor society, and that is what we are getting

 

[Judge]

So much depends on the USDA inspectors in the plant. It used to be that for serious health infractions an inspector walking off would shut down the operation until things were corrected. Then came anti-regulation conservatives under the first Bush who hated that inspectors would harm throughput over issues of public health. So, they strongarmed the USDA into ensuring that the inspectors could not correct health violations and cannot stop the line even if they observes carcasses smeared with feces. Conservatives want a caveat emptor society, and that is what we are getting

Even with strict regulation food processors manage to still try to cut corners to cut costs. Something I periodically observed as an underwriter overseeing products liability.

Where more often than not, when caught there was some sort of exchange between the insurer, the agent and the policyholder resulting in a continuation of coverage. Whether I professionally agreed or not.

Leaving us all at risk given an unending greed factor that transcends the food processing industry. Author Upton Sinclair was an early visionary. After all, it truly is a "jungle" out there.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Things have lost their flavors.

Sometimes it is deliberate and driven by consumers. Remember how Red Delicious apples became bland and mealy because consumers wanted pure red apples? And then marbling in steaks became a health scare. For lean cuts with a lot of flavor I like skirt steals or flank steaks. Or better yet, I buy bison when I can, but it is so lean it is like venison where you need to cook it low and slow.

 

[Au Naturel]

Supply chain failures. Everything has a supply chain.

Have you noticed that fuel prices have also shot upward? That adds to the cost of food. Animal feed got more expensive. COVID-19 cases in meatpacking plants caused long-term slowdowns due to fewer workers and distancing between workers. Transportation of everything, including meat, is taking a lot longer than it once did. (We have shipping container ships waiting outside LA harbor that waited for months before offloading.) Plus the Justice Department has filed price-fixing lawsuits against prominent meat-packing plants.

There's no single cause for rising prices and lowered quality but most of it is related to the long-term economic impacts of COVID.

 

[Magna]

Supply chain failures. Everything has a supply chain.

Have you noticed that fuel prices have also shot upward? That adds to the cost of food. Animal feed got more expensive. COVID-19 cases in meatpacking plants caused long-term slowdowns due to fewer workers and distancing between workers. Transportation of everything, including meat, is taking a lot longer than it once did. (We have shipping container ships waiting outside LA harbor that waited for months before offloading.) Plus the Justice Department has filed price-fixing lawsuits against prominent meat-packing plants.

There's no single cause for rising prices and lowered quality but most of it is related to the long-term economic impacts of COVID.

It does seem like it's a "perfect storm" of issues that have come together to impact supply chains and shortages. Bottom line: It's the responsibility of federal, state and local governments to ensure that problems like this get fixed. It's likely the various levels of leadership will play the "blame game", but working quickly and diligently to fix the issues must be priority; anything less is unacceptable. We as citizenry have a responsibility as well; it would be unacceptable for us (ie citizenry) to shrug our shoulders and just keeping saying gawrsh and hyuck and not place blame squarely where is needs to be: leadership. Holding leadership accountable is our job. We'll see what happens.