The thing is Tink, they aren't blaming anyone for anything. They come into town, put some of the smaller business out..and rake in the money all the while treating the customers like they KNOW they have them under a barrel. Such a thoughtless company.

Haley, I believe SandySue is right, all meat sold in the US is USDA inspected, even if it comes from foreign countries. Here's a link to information on meat inspection.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/regulations...rams/index.asp

Hope this helps. This does not mean all meat is handled properly by every supplier. I agree, some stores carry better quality meats from better quality sources, and they handle it much better than others.

They only stamp the carcass.

Here our meat is processed and cut by one of 2 local meat markets. It's very good quality, fresh, and I've never heard anyone complain about it. The same 2 markets sell to most of the local groceries and have a retail sales area of their own. None of my meat is stamped.
My son used to work at one of them, and he said the business is USDA inspected, but no one is there on a daily basis checking things out.

My husband was a security guard at a much larger meat processing plant many years ago. He said that in the larger plants they do have full time USDA inspectors who supervise and check quality and storage and so on daily. So it sounds like the size of the business determines how often the place is inspected and if it's not stamped, it likely comes from a smaller plant.

wow that is scary, i thought when it was stamped USDA, it was inspected and made in the USA, i learned something today.... thanks ladies.... i'll still buy my meats at Giant Eagle or Fredrick town bucher shop... I hate Wal marts meats, they still look terrrible...

Oh, I agree with you about the Walmart meat. I don't trust them either. Like I said, USDA inspected is not a guarantee of quality, just that it hopefully meets some standard, if the inspector is doing his/her job.

We used to raise all our own beef. The slaughter house we used to process it was USDA inspected, and our own meat came back with a stamp on the edge of some of the steaks. That did not guarantee the quality, only that the animal looked healthy and the processing met certain health standards.

We knew how the animal had been treated though, what it's diet had been. We did not vaccinate our cattle at all, just fed them feed we mostly grew and made sure they were always well fed and watered. Now we, too, are at the mercy of the grocery. However, we eat very little beef or poultry for this reason. Don't want all the hormones and other junk in our diet.

my husband loves steaks, and now that it is summer time were cooking out on the grill more, hamburgers, hot dogs, etc. i always try to get the best angus hot dogs and good hamburgers, i use to buy the hebrew hot dogs but my husband hate them, he's not into natural foods like i like and buy also for Micah.
i miss going to a good butcher shop, it's so far away from us, when we use to go i would take a good $200.00 dollars with us and stock up for a couple of months. i would get good chicken, steaks, pork chops, you name it...

Hubby and I made the butcher shop run this past Saturday. Can't beat getting it cut the way you want it.

I wish we could make a run to our butcher shop its to far with the price of gas, i'll make one as soon as i get caught up with these credit cards,,,

I'm glad to see that it seems you and your hubby are working things out and staying together?!

Still alot of stuff to work out, but thanks for asking, he still sometimes says he leaving when he gets his company truck, but i don't think he'll leave Micah, so i'm dealing with things the way they are for now, if it was meant to be, then everything will fall into place i guess, i just pray alot and bite my tongue alot too. ;) I think now that his family is out of the picture, things are improving without them butting into our business! that was alot of our fights right there... we still argue, but not as much.... i'm trying to keep the peace, but our marriage is far from a couple marriage, there's no sex at all.. so that's driving me crazy, but my main concern right now is raising my son. so i'll focus on that for now.