Appreciating the Subtle Differences of Ground Beef

Grades of Ground Beef

We've all been at the store and wondered "What's the difference between all of these packages of ground beef?". You've thought "Why is ground beef so expensive?  Why does one package cost $1.29 per pound and the next is $2.29 pound?".  I mean regular, ground chuck or ground round.  It can all get pretty confusing for the average beef consumer. 

A lot of the difference in ground beef boils down to one word and that word is fat.  The percentage of fat in ground beef does vary and it is chiefly responsible for the difference in price.  Use the following information as a general guide when deciding which grade of ground beef is best for you. 

Regular Ground Beef:  23 percent fat

Ground Chuck:  16 percent fat

Ground Round:  10 percent fat

By far the most expensive package of ground beef is ground round.  With only ten percent fat, ground round may be the healthiest form of ground beef that you can buy.  Also, less of the meat's weight will be lost as you cook it.  All that fat cooks out of the meat and gets thrown away.  Ground chuck is a good option for the health conscious consumer that only occasionally eats ground beef.  It has significantly less fat than regular ground beef and is more reasonably priced than ground round.  Finally, there's the good old fashioned regular ground beef.  Regular ground beef has been around for a long time and enjoyed popularity when the world wasn't so worried about things like saturated fat and cholesterol.  Nowadays, regular ground beef is popular with consumers who may not be as educated about healthy eating or just can't afford the more expensive grades of ground beef.

With a basic and more through understanding of the differences in ground beef, you, the consumer, can make smarter and healthier choices for yourself and the ones you love.