The meat case can feel like a maze of tough decisions, especially when you’re trying to navigate budget constraints while securing quality for your family. Professional butchers, the people who handle, cut, and inspect meat all day long, have developed strong opinions about which cuts deserve your hard-earned money. They’ve witnessed how meat quality varies, how different cuts perform under various cooking methods, and most importantly, they know the tricks some retailers use to move questionable inventory.
Think of it this way: if someone who works with meat professionally refuses to buy certain cuts for their own dinner table, shouldn’t that raise some red flags? These industry insiders have shared their candid thoughts about seven specific meat cuts that consistently fail to deliver on quality, value, or safety. So let’s get started.
Ground Meat From Grocery Store Counters
Food safety experts warn against purchasing ground meat products, particularly ground beef and chicken, from grocery store butcher counters. The bulk of these products come pre-ground from large meat processing facilities, where contamination risks are significantly higher. This contamination danger has led to widespread recalls affecting vast geographic regions, making it a serious food safety concern.
By purchasing ground beef and poultry from specialty butchers, you can both reduce contamination risk and ensure freshness and quality. Specialty butchers source their meat from smaller vendors, so they know how the animals are raised, how the meat is processed, and exactly what goes into each ground blend. Quality butchers usually grind their own meat using trimmings of premium muscles, allowing them to control the quality and fat content.
Eye of Round Steak
Food experts widely consider eye of round to be one of the most challenging cuts of meat to prepare well. Eye of round steak is easy to find at most grocery stores and butcher shops, but many people avoid it because it’s very tough. It’s one of the toughest cuts of beef because it comes from the rear part of the cow, where muscles get a lot of use, making the meat leaner and tougher than other cuts.
Round is the worst cut of steak out there, thanks to its toughness and utter lack of flavor, though it’s inexpensive. The bottom round includes the eye of round, which is nigh-on tasteless, tougher than expected, and absolutely not worth your money, no matter how cheap it comes.
Pre-Seasoned and Pre-Marinated Meat
Industry insiders claim that stores mask disgusting issues in meat by marinating it to hide unpleasant smells. One chef recalls a shocking experience when a butcher’s helper said they would cut up bad-smelling porterhouse and marinate it for resale in the shop. Many suspect that preseasoned meat at counters is rotten and has been seasoned with onions to make it smell edible.
Pre-marinated meat often involves a steep markup, with reviewers paying almost four times the price for what they would have paid if they’d bought a bottle of marinade and done it themselves. Supermarkets frequently use pre-marinating as a way to sell meat that’s getting too old. These marinades are often full of sugar and preservatives that kill the natural taste of the meat.
Whole Tenderloin
Many professional chefs criticize tenderloin for being flavorless and having no texture, questioning why people are willing to pay premium prices for it. The main problem seems to be that while the cut is as tender as its name suggests, its price tag and flavor simply don’t match.
With a vast variety of amazingly delicious meat cuts at arm’s reach, why would you bother picking the one with barely any taste? Professional butchers consistently point out that numerous other cuts offer superior flavor profiles at more reasonable price points. The tenderloin’s reputation comes from its tenderness alone, not from any remarkable flavor characteristics that justify the premium pricing.
Pre-Cut Stew Meat and Cubed Cuts
Pre-cut meat is commonly and steeply marked up, with consumers paying for the labor spent on deboning, cutting, and fat-trimming, not to mention any additional seasonings or marinades which add weight and cost. Recent market data shows that whole chickens typically cost significantly less per pound than individual cuts like chicken breasts, breast tenders, and wings.
While it may not be convenient to cut up your own stew meat, the time spent more than pays for itself at the register. It’s healthier and cheaper to buy whole meats and butcher them at home. Professional butchers recommend learning basic knife skills rather than paying the substantial markup for convenience cuts.
Bacon from Butcher Shops
The thing about bacon is that the stripes of fatty pork belly you probably crave are readily available anywhere groceries are sold, and even specialty varieties like Canadian bacon or Italian pancetta can be found at well-equipped supermarkets. Walmart’s bacon-themed selection is eye-watering. The ubiquity of quality bacon options makes specialty butcher shop bacon an unnecessary expense.
Unlike other specialty cuts where butchers provide superior quality or unique varieties, bacon doesn’t benefit significantly from the butcher shop treatment. The curing and smoking processes that create great bacon happen at specialized facilities rather than individual butcher shops. You’re often paying a premium for the same product you can find at your local grocery store.
Blade Steak
If you are going to grill a blade steak, the best thing you can do is slice out the line of gristle inside the meat first, which prevents one edge of the steak from becoming over-tough. If you fail to remove the gristle ahead of time and cook blade steak any higher than medium, your jaw muscles won’t appreciate it. Blade steak is one choice that might not be appreciated by younger members of the household.
The complexity of properly preparing blade steak makes it a poor choice for most home cooks. The gristle running through the center requires careful removal before cooking, and the narrow temperature window for achieving tenderness makes it a risky purchase. When butchered and cooked to the proper temperature, blade steak can be tender, but the margin for error is simply too small. Professional butchers prefer recommending cuts that deliver consistent results without requiring advanced techniques.
