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From the Mail Bag: "Cheep" Chicken Parts

“Dear Wenchypoo,
My local supermarket is always having a sale on chicken thighs and sometimes drum sticks. Whole packages can be bought for a couple of dollars. But besides frying them what can be made from them? Any help would be greatly appreciated.”

Dear Reader: Why are you messing around with bony, wasteful meat cuts? The only thing these are good for is pulling the NONwasteful meat off the WASTEful bones! In fact, I challenge you to do just that—boil some up and pull the meat off the bones, then weigh it. Compare the weight of the meat alone with the packaged weight with bone-in and calculate how much you overpaid for that little bit of meat.

The supermarkets put this stuff on sale for a reason: it’s unprofitable waste matter to the poultry producers! It’s also a customer draw, and apparently it worked on you.

If you want to make better use of your money, start buying boneless cuts—no waste means you get ALL MEAT for your money. While you’re at it, start re-thinking your holiday meat choices, because whole chickens, turkeys, and hams have the same effect—you wind up paying for lots of bones and hollow centers, not to mention ice, and none of it’s edible. It only serves to make the garbage hauling companies richer.

Here’s what the Nebraska State University Extension Office website has to say about boneless meats and waste.

Posted by Cute at 7:49 AM

Labels: financial (non-tax), food purchases