The great importance of meat as food lies in its high protein content. Protein is body building material. It forms one-fifth of our food requirements. Half of the protein requirement is furnished by meat. In lean meat the solid protein is very nearly in the pure form.

Meat is delicately constructed with small cells of tissue holding the flavory juices. These cells are held together by a connective tissue. In the cheaper cuts of meat, the cells or fibers holding the juices are long and the connective tissue thick. In the structure of the expensive steaks and loin cuts, the cells are short and the connective tissue thin. It is this difference in structure that makes it necessary to use entirely different methods of cooking for the tender cuts and for the cheaper ones. The same result—a tender, flavory, nutritious cut of meat—may be obtained with the cheaper cut as with the expensive loin cuts, if the proper method of cooking is employed.

One so often hears the remark, “I wish someone would invent a new animal.” The housewife is tired of ordering beef, mutton, pork or veal day after day. Too often she orders only the roasts, steaks or chops from these typical animals and then complains because her meat bill is high. This idea of lack of variety in fresh meats is all because of the unsound and uninteresting habit of buying the same cuts over and over again.

For every loin of beef there are several other cuts besides the extra portions, such as heart, liver, kidney, brain, etc. In these lie possibilities for many distinctive dishes and interesting flavors.

While there are not so many cuts of pork and lamb, there are great possibilities for variety in the preparation.

Nine out of ten home managers have believed for years, as do some even now, that the more expensive and most tender cuts of meat must naturally be most nutritious and that the cheaper, long fibered cuts are to be discarded or left for the butcher to dispose of, not realizing that their purchase of the tender cuts only, forces prices of these cuts high enough to cover the cost of the carcass. We are grateful that our leading dietitians of today are teaching women the truth: that the cheaper cuts of meat are exactly as nutritious as the tenderer cuts, if not more so, because the blood is drawn to the parts in which the muscles are constantly used, thus continually rebuilding the tissue.

In a dressed beef carcass of 700 pounds there are about 200 pounds of prime meat. The loin of the hind quarter, composed of sirloin, porterhouse, and club steaks, and the prime ribs of the fore quarter, are the commercial cuts most tender and easily prepared, and so are most in demand. Your butcher orders the cuts you demand. If you neglect the cheaper cuts and extra meat portions, he will not order them, and the expense of their production will be distributed over the cuts in demand.

An economically sound buying campaign would be a resolution by the housewives to use in its regular order every cut on a side of meat before reordering a cut. One of the extra meat portions could well be every third meat purchase.

In order to secure the most satisfactory cuts of meat, marketing should be done in person. Before this can be done with any degree of satisfaction, the buyer should be familiar with the various cuts of beef, pork and mutton.

The meal is planned around the meat dish, as a rule; so it is most important to select the main meat dish with greatest care.

When buying beef, see that it is bright red in color, streaked with fat—and firm. The streaks of fat add to the food value and make a more flavory steak or roast. Veal is pink in color, but less firm. Mutton flesh is firm and dull red in color, the fat hard and white or slightly yellow. Pork is dark pink in color and the fat is less firm than beef or mutton.

The modern system of refrigeration has made world-wide distribution of fresh meat possible. Refrigerator cars, iced en route in such a manner that the contents are kept always in a current of cold air, make it possible to carry the products of the packing house to remote parts of the country and deliver them in sound condition.

The housewife in turn may have such products by being discriminating in her marketing, skillful in her cooking and careful in her serving.

By a knowledge of all the cuts of meat, the housewife can keep down her meat expenditures. She should also have her recipe file well stocked with tested recipes for the wide variety of popular meat dishes to be made with the less expensive cuts.

For those who do not include meat in their diet, there is a wide variety of non-meat protein foods to choose from. Eggs, cheese, milk, and beans will give the necessary protein for a complete diet.