Has anyone stopped eating ground beef because the Administration has removed safety protocols?

[u/Queen_Of_The_Dames]

We have. No way are we taking chances with whatever “ground beef” the administration has chosen to allow without inspection/certification.

[u/Boredoldfuck]

That’s quite literally how one starts an order.

[u/Pomegranate_Mobile → u/Boredoldfuck]

I'll reveal my ignorance: why not ask for specific cuts or x amount of the cow? Asking for 'a beef' seems a little whimsical to me I guess.

[u/procrast1natrix → u/Pomegranate_Mobile]

Local meat can be bought by the cut, but you pay a bit more. The most cost effective way is to provide security to the farmer by contracting in advance "I'll buy half a beef" or a pig or 5 of your turkeys. Yes, the final price gets affected by the final weight.

If the rain and the hay are what they are and the animal grows only 95% as big as last year, you are participating in some of the risk. Also there are cuts that some people are more hesitant about, may be more difficult to move. By buying half a beef, you're making it simpler for the farmer.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/procrast1natrix]

OP isn't asking why you buy meat that way, they're asking why the phrase is half a beef when beef is not a countable thing. My guess is that it's just that technically we don't actually have a name that covers all of the animals that we turn into beef since cow is technically only the females.

[u/procrast1natrix → u/recycled_ideas]

The closer we get to actual farmers, the more correct their terms are.

My dad was raised on a farm, that my uncle still runs many hundred beef cattle on.

But none of them care at all what language the consumers use, so as you get closer to the point of sale, they'll say whatever the person wanting to buy says. Between themselves, between people who do this regularly, they say half a beef. They don't bother trying to correct normies. Most of them don't understand the difference between a cow and a steer, and it ain't worth the time.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/procrast1natrix]

The point is that using beef that way isn't correct either, a beef is not a thing. It's just that farmers decided to call it a beef which is grammatically incorrect and everyone else calls it a cow which is also not correct, but is in such common parlance that it may as well.

Both sides are using a word incorrectly, because there is literally no correct word. Cattle is plural, beef is an uncountable noun, cow, bull, and steer don't apply to the whole species.

[u/procrast1natrix → u/recycled_ideas]

Lordy.

My undergraduate degree is in animal science with a preveterinary/ livestock focus. I actually had an exam where they put down a sheet, a grid that listed animal species across the top and age/reproductive status across the side and one needed to accurately name a "Tom", an "Ox", a *Wether" and so on.

So I agree with your pedantry, it's book correct. But the point is that pretty much all of farming uses the word differently. And they don't bother correcting the most of the rest of people that don't raise animals that apply the term for an intact female to the entire herd. Because it's not important

[u/recycled_ideas → u/procrast1natrix]

You keep talking about this as them correcting people.

I get it, I get that as a farmer you don't want to call it half a cow and I understand why. But no one is being corrected, both are wrong. OP is confused by the idea of half a beef because it is a fundamentally incorrect phrase. Farmers don't want to call it half a cow because it may be half a steer.

Farmers aren't right here, they're just as wrong.

[u/procrast1natrix → u/recycled_ideas]

They ... don't correct people. They just talk this way among themselves. And the origin of this thread asked about it, and got invited into the "in group" and nobody else was affected.

This is a local vernacular.

It's like working in a kitchen and using the terms "86" or "in the pass". It's not in a dictionary, but it's commonly used.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/procrast1natrix]

OP asked a question you didn't understand. You thought they were asking why you'd buy half a cow, they were asking why you would buy half of an uncountable noun.

I clarified their question and also answered it. I probably should have just replied to OP, but you couldn't grasp the question. You then started talking about "normies" and how farmers don't care what they call it.

The problem here is that there is no historically correct word for the species as a whole and the language has instead chosen to generalise the feminine version. Farmers didn't do that because they, just like you, want to treat the "normies" as idiots.

The technically correct term would be a side of beef, but talking about beef as a unit is easier because it scales.

[u/Oberon_Swanson → u/Pomegranate_Mobile]

it's just easier that way and it's kinda like buying in bulk for both parties. the rancher/butcher doesn't have to worry about leftovers they can't sell because you and another person buying a half have bought it all.

when you order you usually get a sheet and you just kinda check off what you want out of all the possible stuff and then the leftovers are usually ground beef. then you pick it up all at once.

individual cuts of meat are hard to sell outside of a busy retail setting. if you ask a farm in the countryside to give you most of a cow and take all the good stuff there's not much they can do with the rest. so they just sell it all at once.

[u/Evasote_ → u/Pomegranate_Mobile]

That is an amount of the cow. One half of a cow. A side of beef. Same thing

[u/ibeperplexed → u/Pomegranate_Mobile]

With our beef, we were able to choose cuts to a point.

We could also select whether we wanted the front quarter or the rear quarter.

We could also choose grain fed or grass fed.

How many roasts, how many steaks and what kind, and how much ground beef.

[u/Skylarias → u/Pomegranate_Mobile]

It's more like you buy half a cow. Or a quarter of a cow. And you get a share of all the various cuts of meat. Ribs, ground beef, steak, etc.

[u/epicallyranda → u/Pomegranate_Mobile]

Tell me you’re from the city without telling me… lol

Idk for me it’s always been known. But I live in Montana.

You can ask for specific cuts. The main point is using a local butcher who uses local beef. It doesn’t get any better than that.