Buying meat at Sam's Club????

[Orchidflower]

Since I am trying to get leaner in 2010, I want to purchase meat with so little fat as possible--at the cheapest rate possible. I read that bison meat was good for you, and that Sams' Club sells it; however, it must be strictly in the Colorado area as I do not see it for sale on their website (darn!).
Sam's does, however, have lean burgers and turkey burgers freeze wrapped at a decent price. But I don't have a clue as to the quality of their meat.

Has anyone here purchased alot of meat from Sam's Club and is it any good? Good quality or poor?
How are Sam's steaks, filets, eye of round beef cuts? And what about their fish products like talapia, shrimp and so forth?
What do you think of Sam's pricing for their meats? Cheap or not?

I "think" you can purchase this at Sam's stores, but, if not, they will ship directly to you for a price I see. Probably an extra $20 or so for 10 lbs. I imagine. Since I haven't purchased the card to get into their stores and shop (in other words, I have not joined their cult), I haven't been able to go see for myself yet.

 

[Cruisinthru]

I have not bought meat at Sam's, but I had a co-worker a few years ago that thought they had the best meat. He and his wife bought all their meat there. They particularly liked the beef.

 

[Rustic23]

We buy steaks, ribs, brisket, and roast at Sams. We do not buy ground beef in packages. We buy forzen shrimp, salmon, talapia, and crab cakes. Never had a complaint. The closest Sams is about an hour away, and we have thought about canceling the card. Last year they sent us a re-up notice that said we saved between $500 and $600 shopping there. I figure even if they were way off, we most likely saved the $40 fee. We normally make a Sams run when we are going to Houston or Dallas, so we go about once a month. DW buys a lot of her clothes there.

 

[Moemg]

. Since I haven't purchased the card to get into their stores and shop (in other words, I have not joined their cult), I haven't been able to go see for myself yet.

If you search the Internet you can usually find a free one day pass for Sam's club . They are supposed to charge you 10% more but they rarely do . I only go to Sam's Club for things for parties so I always go on the One day pass . My daughter calls it cheap . I call it smart especially if I can score free food when I'm shopping.

 

[Glo]

We buy most of our meat at Sam's. The quality is wonderful and I can't say they're "cheap", but the prices are reasonable. A lot of the time, they'll have in-store specials on meat that are a very good bargain. I buy salmon there as well; its not cheap but its a good value. So far, they don't sell fish from China and that's a plus for me as I don't buy any food products from China.

 

[deepc]

It doesn't have to come from China to get you sick. Sam's Club and other discounters purchase meat from immensely large producers; Cargill has been the source of several Sam's Club meat recalls over the past two years. Meat starts to decompose the instant the animal is dead. Do you want Sam's club and their highly paid employees to be the guardian of your health (think E. Coli, Salmonella, and a wide variety of food-borne illnesses.)

There is a cost incurred for the low-priced food purchased at these warehouses, far beyond the savings any individual accrues. I'm not a veggie, but if you want to get lean there's easier and less expensive ways to do so than buying cheap meat from these places. If nothing else, try a local butcher (if the big box hasn't run them out of business.)

 

[cardude]

It doesn't have to come from China to get you sick. Sam's Club and other discounters purchase meat from immensely large producers; Cargill has been the source of several Sam's Club meat recalls over the past two years. Meat starts to decompose the instant the animal is dead. Do you want Sam's club and their highly paid employees to be the guardian of your health (think E. Coli, Salmonella, and a wide variety of food-borne illnesses.)

There is a cost incurred for the low-priced food purchased at these warehouses, far beyond the savings any individual accrues. I'm not a veggie, but if you want to get lean there's easier and less expensive ways to do so than buying cheap meat from these places. If nothing else, try a local butcher (if the big box hasn't run them out of business.) Today 05:37 PM

I've eaten the meat there for years and never had problems. Sounds like someone has an axe to grind maybe?

 

[ziggy29]

Do you want Sam's club and their highly paid employees to be the guardian of your health (think E. Coli, Salmonella, and a wide variety of food-borne illnesses.)

I'd say the primary "guardian" is the person who cooks the meat to make sure they haven't undercooked it.

 

[Texas Proud]

We buy a lot of meat at Sam's.... from what my sister told me, it is a grade level above what you can buy at the local grocery at the same price... (can't remember if Choice is the lower or Select... but the higher one is sold at sams..)

The burgers with low fat are good... you actually have a problem cooking them as there is not enough fat to cook well, but if you make sure they are fully cooked, they are good..

We also buy their chicken, fish etc. NO COMPLAINTS...


Now, we do not buy this ourselves, but the company where I work buys soda etc... and their diet soda is 'old' a lot of the time... once, the only diet coke was already two months past the drink by date... we have always gotten a refund, so now I go and buy and check out the date...

 

[73ss454]

We get all our meat there and it's always of the highest quality. Lobster tails are a good deal also at $14.88 a lb.. Great large Shrimp and Scallops also.

 

[samclem]

After reading several stories about the current goings-on in the meat business, I now only buy meat at stores with real butchers who actually see the side of beef and do the cutting. That goes doubly for ground meat. There are many producers now that get their meat from all over the world, and standards vary a lot. Many of the big processors tested the incoming meat for ecoli and other nastiness in past years, but no longer do because suppliers refuse to sell meat to the processors that test (it isn't legally required and it drives up costs due to rejections, need to purge supply lines, etc). I don't know if Sams stores have butchers, my guess is that they do not and that they depend on a central Sams cutting facility or a vendor.

This is far from a scientific, authoritative study. I'm just a little more comfortable if the work is done in the store.

 

[NW-Bound]

Talk about beef, isn't beef "aging" simply a controlled decomposing process?

And though I wonder about the quality of meat we are getting, we buy meat from all different market chains and have not gotten sick yet (knock on wood!).

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think one can find a local butcher in metropolitan areas. And how does a small butcher test his supply for quality?

It seems to me ground beef would be the type to be leery about. The contamination of big steaks or roast cuts would be on the surface, which would be sanitized by high cooking temperatures, while the center is still OK even when rare. Non?

 

[Goonie]

After reading several stories about the current goings-on in the meat business, I now only buy meat at stores with real butchers who actually see the side of beef and do the cutting. That goes doubly for ground meat............I'm just a little more comfortable if the work is done in the store.

We don't have a Sam's anywhere near here, and I don't drive long distances to buy stuff that I can get close to home. Of course, then again, I don't shop at SprawlMart either, and since they and Sam's are related...I wouldn't shop at Sam's if it was close by.....but that's a whole other story.

Like samclem, I prefer to buy meat at stores where they actually have real butchers 'in store' doing the cutting.....and grinding the burger. I really prefer to buy meat at our local butcher shop a few blocks from home....best meat I've ever found anywhere! BTW....for Christmas, my Mom got me a gift certificate for that butcher shop!!! Mom's are GREAT!

 

[RAE]

We don't have a Sam's anywhere near here, and I don't drive long distances to buy stuff that I can get close to home. Of course, then again, I don't shop at SprawlMart either, and since they and Sam's are related...I wouldn't shop at Sam's if it was close by.....but that's a whole other story.

Like samclem, I prefer to buy meat at stores where they actually have real butchers 'in store' doing the cutting.....and grinding the burger.

Yep, I agree 100% with Goonie and Samclem. No meat purchases for me from the mega-stores where you have no idea where it came from or how it was handled. Too many horror stories in recent years about the meat industry. I buy most of my chickens from a friend who raises them on her farm (free-range). Don't eat a lot of beef, but what I do eat comes from the local butcher. We harvest a couple of deer every year at our property and butcher/grind it ourselves, and that is our main source of red meat. It's lean, healthy meat, and I know where it came from and how it was handled.

 

[73ss454]

When I go to Sams to buy my meats I press a bell as in any other butcher and a guy comes out to great me. They have the same type window as most butchers, maybe even more so. I don't know what you'd call them if they weren't butchers because they cut all my meat to order and even make my hamburgers with the meat I choose, all as I watch them from a few feet away. Just give them the thicknesses of the T Bones and Porterhouses and they cut them right in front of me.

I haven't had one problem with anything I've ever bought there. Now on the other hand when I first moved in the area I'm now living I went to a private butcher and I had to bring one thing back that was bad at twice the price.

 

[CoolChange]

I have actually done quite a bit of work in the U.S. meat industry (beef and pork, specifically) over the last couple of years. For what it's worth (probably not much, anonymous posting and all that), I feel much safer buying my meat at Sam's (or Costco) than at a local market, butcher shop, etc. And, I am more than satisfied with their price/quality (value) proposition.

I am eating less meat than I used to for health reasons; so, when I do eat meat, I really want to enjoy it. Now, I actually buy meat (and a few other items) at Sam's more because of the quality than the price.

 

[FUEGO]

Orchidflower, you can also just walk into sam's, and tell the door guard that you just want to look around to see if you want to join. They'll probably let you in at that point, or direct you to customer service who will usually give you a free pass to shop that day (that may carry the 10% non-member surcharge). It's a little bit of a hassle, but you could probably do this every time you shopped there. Or do my trick and say you are picking something up from their cafe. I used to get in free all the time, but recently I just pull out my old expired card and flash it.

 

[CCdaCE]

I've had mixed results. Sam's have excellent shrimp. Excellent in taste. Better in price than the local 5 store grocery chain.

The pork shoulder/butt/whatever-it-was I bought to combine/grind with venison last year plugged my grinder with an odd orangish-hazed fat. And, it wasn't dirt cheap, either. It's one thing if you're buying 0.80/lb. meat, but when it's still $1.79, or whatever, I expect better. I'd bought a 10 lb. pre-ground tube of pork at Sam's before with better results.

Don't usually buy burger or steaks there. Local butcher has the market cornered in the sirloin dept., IMO.

-CC

 

[Westernskies]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think one can find a local butcher in metropolitan areas.

Midwestern Meats at Greenfield and Main in East Mesa....

I was just in there picking up a prime rib for Christmas Dinner- and got sucked into the inescapable vortex of their bakery next door...

 

[Orchidflower]

Seems most here seem to like Sam's meats. I'll try it on your recommendation then, and, while I'm there, I want to see if all their fish is from China (no thanks!) or Vietnam like I seem to be finding lately in all the stores in this region for some reason.

By the way, right after Xmas on the 26th and even today there are some good sales on at Omaha Steaks, too. I know their quality is good from friends who used to only buy Omaha's meats. I got a package from them on the 26th with a mix of 32 pieces of steaks, porkchops, and burgers for a phenomenal price of $59 plus shipping. I considered it a steal. If anyone is interested, they have sales going now and the offers seem to change daily.

 

[happy2bretired]

... while I'm there, I want to see if all their fish is from China (no thanks!) or Vietnam like I seem to be finding lately in all the stores in this region for some reason.

I few weeks ago, I bought some frozen fish, (not froms Sam's) thinking I would select a healthy protein. It sat in my freezer for a few weeks before I decided to try some. Finally I looked more closely at the package. FARM RAISED IN CHINA. I promptly threw the entire package away.

 

[Glo]

Sam's Club does not have fish from China; mostly its from South America.

 

[Orchidflower]

I'm guessing South American fish is safe? Never having read anything about fish from there...well, I'm assuming.