Why Is There So Much Ground Beef in the World? (Special Feature)

[0] Hey there, Stephen Dubner.

[1] This is a special episode of our live podcast.

[2] Tell Me Something I Don't Know.

[3] You'll learn about the hidden side of ground beef, why it's good to let teenagers sleep in, and how to name a brand.

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[6] Hope you enjoy.

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[13] Why do I read?

[14] Why do I have conversations?

[15] Why do I travel?

[16] Why do I have to go to school?

[17] Why do I pay attention?

[18] Why do I pay attention?

[19] Because I want to be abused.

[20] Because I want to get outside my comfort zone.

[21] But mostly.

[22] Mostly.

[23] Mostly because...

[24] Because I want to find out stuff.

[25] Find out stuff.

[26] Because I want you to tell me something I don't know.

[27] Good evening.

[28] I'm Stephen Dubner, and this is Tell Me Something I Don't Know recorded live tonight at Joe's Pub in New York City.

[29] We have got a crowd.

[30] full of smart people, and we will bring them on stage to tell us something interesting or puzzling, maybe even amazing.

[31] If it all goes as planned, we'll all be a bit smarter by the time we're through.

[32] Joining me tonight as co -host is the Atlantic Contributing Editor and CBS This Morning Saturday co -anchor Alex Wagner.

[33] It is a pleasure to be here.

[34] Aloha, Stephen.

[35] Aloha.

[36] Alex, let's see what we know about you so far.

[37] We know that you grew up in Washington, D .C. in what I would call a professionally democratic household.

[38] We know that besides co -hosting CBS this morning Saturday, you co -host the Radio Atlantic podcast, and you co -habit and co -parent a new baby with your husband Sam Cass, who's a former White House chef for President Obama.

[39] We also know, Alex, that you worked for George Clooney's anti -genocide organizations, and that Vogue magazine called you delightfully profane, so I'm looking forward to that.

[40] and Alex Wagner, why don't you...

[41] This is an explicit podcast, is it not?

[42] You know, we have to pay...

[43] You know that little red E with a square?

[44] You know how much that cost to put that on iTunes?

[45] Well, a fucking lot.

[46] Okay.

[47] You're welcome, Stephen.

[48] Let's just be passing the hat for the E rating.

[49] Yep.

[50] So Alex Wagner, why don't we begin by you telling something we don't know about you, please?

[51] In second grade, everyone, all the kids in the class had drawn pictures of what they wanted to be when they grew up.

[52] My mom and dad, professional Democrats, as you call them, said, oh, and what does Alex want to be?

[53] Surely it's president of the United States or astronaut.

[54] And my second grade teacher looked and said, well, actually, your daughter said she liked to be a makeup artist.

[55] Oh, what happened there?

[56] Why didn't you become that?

[57] You know, I learned that I hate makeup, as it turns out, which is why television is a weird profession for me. Alex Wagner, very happy to have you here tonight.

[58] Happy to be here.

[59] Let's explain how it works.

[60] guests will come on stage to tell us some interesting fact or idea or story about a topic of their choosing, then Alex and I will hear them out, we'll ask some questions, and then our live audience will vote for a winner.

[61] The vote is based on three simple criteria.

[62] Number one, did they tell us something we truly did not know?

[63] Number two, was it worth knowing?

[64] And number three, was it demonstrably true, since truth is kind of sort of important?

[65] We've got on stage tonight a real, live human fact -checker, please welcome the much -beloved A .J. Jacobs.

[66] AJ is the author of five wonderful books, including the forthcoming It's All Relative Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree.

[67] AJ, can you give us a fun fact from the new book?

[68] Well, Stephen, as you may know, most of us have Neanderthal ancestors.

[69] Speak to yourself.

[70] Are you denied?

[71] Don't deny it.

[72] Be proud.

[73] The Neanderthals and Homo sapiens mixed it up.

[74] way back when.

[75] So your great, great, great, times 15 ,000 or so, grandma and grandpa were a Neanderthal.

[76] And my favorite fact about grandma and grandpa Neanderthal is they're not as dumb as you think.

[77] Don't believe the stereotypes.

[78] In fact, according to scientists, Neanderthals they likely have the gift of speech and apparently had a high -pitched, raspy voice like Julia Child.

[79] That's literally the description, like Could Julia Child have actually been a Neanderthal?

[80] That's a good question.

[81] I'm just asking for a friend.

[82] We've got to get her DNA.

[83] Well, AJ, thanks for Neanderthal facts.

[84] Thanks for being here tonight.

[85] I'm excited to play our little game show together.

[86] Let's start.

[87] Would you please welcome our first guest?

[88] Her name is Sam Garwin.

[89] Hey, Sam, what do you do?

[90] I am a butcher and the CEO of Fleischer's craft butchery here in New York City.

[91] Excellent.

[92] All right, Sam, so I'm ready.

[93] So are Alex Wagner?

[94] and A .J. Jacobs, what do you know that's worth knowing that you think we don't know?

[95] Well, I have a hypothetical.

[96] You're looking to shop at a whole animal butcher shop.

[97] Maybe it's Fleischer's.

[98] Maybe it's one of the other butcher shops we have in New York.

[99] You walk in to this whole animal butcher shop and you're in the mood for beef.

[100] Which cut do you think the butcher really, really wants you to stock up your refrigerator with?

[101] So which cut does, should we assume it's something either very expensive or something from maybe a body part that not a lot of people want to put in their mouths?

[102] I can't confirm or deny your assumptions.

[103] You can't, yeah.

[104] No. And we're assuming this is a cow.

[105] This is, yeah, beef.

[106] We're talking beef right now.

[107] Now, let me ask you said a whole animal butcher shop.

[108] Is that what you called it?

[109] So that's a thing?

[110] And what does that mean?

[111] Yeah, well, you know, in the 50s when when farms were told to really get big or get out, there is a shift in the way butcher shops operated.

[112] So it used to be that a butcher shop would work with farmers and people would have rails where the whole animals came in and then they'd be broken down.

[113] And now there are very few number of butcher shops or even companies that operate that way.

[114] But a whole animal butcher shop would be considered an operation that really goes direct to the farm and purchases from the farmer in units of whole animals and that's how the farmer sells.

[115] And the bigger distribution system then is, I want 1 ,000 pounds of X and zero pounds of Y. Correct.

[116] Let me just, what's the shelf life for a cow carcass?

[117] Interestingly, the longer you leave something as a whole piece, the longer you can go without actually turning it into something else.

[118] So that's what dry aging is.

[119] Yeah, can you explain?

[120] I've always wondered about that, because if I hang up a chicken breast, the way that you hang up, don't do that.

[121] Don't do that.

[122] And are there other meats or, I guess, pork, right?

[123] You dry -aged pork, or you...

[124] There are some people in the culinary world who are playing around with aging pork and aging lamb.

[125] In my experience, in the butcher shops that I have worked in, it's not a good idea.

[126] They're crazy?

[127] It doesn't age the same way, and I honestly don't know the science behind it, but it gets kind of like tacky and slimy and smells weird.

[128] So, ideally, when you're properly dry -aging something, you put it in refrigeration that also has really, really great airflow.

[129] And And if you're getting very fancy about it, you might have salt or you might actually put a bacterial culture into the walk -in refrigerator where you have that, just like you might do it with a cheese or something like that, kind of like a starter culture.

[130] And it can sit there forever?

[131] Not forever.

[132] The oldest piece of meat I have ever had the questionable pleasure of eating was 365 days old.

[133] All right.

[134] Okay, so the question was, what kind of meat or what cut in a whole animal butcher shop we think the butcher would most likely want us to buy, right?

[135] Okay, so why don't you tell us the answer because we're not getting there?

[136] So the answer is ground beef, which is really not glamorous to most people.

[137] But when you are a whole animal butcher shop or a whole animal company, there's this concept of carcass balancing.

[138] And actually the entire...

[139] Carcass balancing?

[140] That's a phrase that we use.

[141] Balancing.

[142] It sounds like a Cirque de Soleil move.

[143] Yes.

[144] So does this mean that they direct cows to gain more weight in certain spots and others before they kill them?

[145] Or this happens after the killing?

[146] This is an after the killing thing.

[147] I mean, there definitely are people who focus on genetics.

[148] But actually, the entire meat industry is trying to carcass balance.

[149] Because if you think about it, on a single cow, there's only so many steaks.

[150] So you're talking like 16 ribyes, 10 New York strips, two whole tenderloins, two flanks, two skirts.

[151] It's basically two of every steak except for the hangar.

[152] There's only one hanger.

[153] And then the rest is brazing cuts, roasts, and ground beef.

[154] So if you're sourcing an entire animal for your butcher shop, you actually have to move those parts kind of in equilibrium.

[155] You have to make sure that you're using up the ground beef at the same rate that you are moving steaks.

[156] Otherwise, you're going to end up with a big pile of ground beef, and that's when it's time to have a freezer sale or make chili.

[157] Dare I ask, when we talk about ground beef, does that come from specific parts of the animal?

[158] It depends.

[159] I mean, the most basic way to think about ground beef is just the lean to fat ratio, but it could come from any muscle on the animal.

[160] So, for example, the shank meat, your calf muscle, very, very tough.

[161] So there's a trade -off always between how much a muscle has been used and how tough it's going to be, but the tougher it is also the more flavor it's going to have.

[162] So that's the reason that, you know, a tenderloin's great.

[163] You can cook it in five minutes.

[164] You can cut it with a fork.

[165] But it's never going to have the same flavor as a pot roast, which you have to cook low and slow for six hours.

[166] There's also little bits and pieces that you can't turn into a steak.

[167] Some of us are steak.

[168] Some of us are ground beef.

[169] But we all belong in this world.

[170] You call it a cow?

[171] Well, a cow technically is a female.

[172] We would call it a beef animal maybe.

[173] You call it a beef animal?

[174] I don't know.

[175] I don't know.

[176] Once it's dead, it's beef.

[177] Once it's dead, it's beef.

[178] We would call it a beef.

[179] Like, honestly, you might say a beef or something like that.

[180] So you get 16 rib -eyes, you said, right?

[181] Right.

[182] So just like humans, you have ribs, and so that's where the ribyes come from.

[183] So if you cut them by hand in between each rib, you end up with eight of them per side.

[184] If you cut them on a bandsaw and you cut them to a specific thickness, you could get a few more or a few less.

[185] So here's my question.

[186] I can understand that ground beef is less expensive than steaks because there's apparently a lot of it, right?

[187] and also people may prefer steaks, but if there are 16 at least ribies in a beef and there are only like two flanks, two skirts, and one hanger, I know those have gotten more expensive lately.

[188] They've become more in demand lately, but for a long time those were really cheap.

[189] Why would ribbyes be relatively more abundant than those and yet also relatively more expensive, at least in the past?

[190] Right.

[191] So there's a couple of reasons for that.

[192] One is that these days a lot of ribies are dry -aged.

[193] It's one of the few pieces of meat that you can do that with because you dry age of the whole rack of ribs.

[194] Then if you cut some off the edges, you're still left with a decent piece of meat and it's aged.

[195] There's another piece of it, which is how many bone -in cuts there are.

[196] So, yeah, there are tons of steaks.

[197] And these days you can get more and more cuts from the shoulder, which we love to do at our butcher shops.

[198] But there's not very many that have bones in them that you can then put on the grill.

[199] To that end, how many pounds of ground beef do you get from the average?

[200] Cowarded cow.

[201] At least 200.

[202] Whoa.

[203] Wowzer.

[204] No wonder you're trying to shovel it out the door.

[205] That's a lot of burger.

[206] Now, is this why when you go to kind of farm -to -tabley restaurants, you see a lot of grass -fed burger and not a lot of grass -fed steak?

[207] Absolutely.

[208] So there really is no boxed meat supply chain right now for pasture -raised animals.

[209] There's pretty much if you want a pasture -raised animal, you have to either get it directly from the farmer or seek out one of these small butcher shops.

[210] So if you're a restaurant, it's the same deal.

[211] Either you go directly to the farmer and then you're on the hook for balancing the carcass, which nobody wants to do with a notable exception of Gramercy Tavern here in New York City.

[212] They actually buy whole animals and spread it to their different restaurants or?

[213] No, they use it all in house.

[214] They use it all at Gramer C. They special the stakes.

[215] So you will never see a steak listed on their menu because each server has different stakes that they...

[216] No way.

[217] Yes.

[218] Each server in the restaurant can offer a different part of the beef that night.

[219] That is pretty good.

[220] So, okay, so if you're eating there, what do you ask for?

[221] What's your favorite part of the beef?

[222] Well, you can't ask for it.

[223] You don't get to choose.

[224] If you get the server who has the hangar steak, you can order that.

[225] Oh, I see.

[226] You get the server.

[227] Well, let's say you know which server has which.

[228] I'm just asking you personally, as the butcher.

[229] Basically, that was a terrible way of asking you.

[230] What's your favorite kind of beef to eat, Sam?

[231] Well, as a butcher at a whole animal shop, my answer has to be that Different cuts are good for different things, so I have no true favorite, but I am a big fan of the flat iron steak, which is a cut from the shoulder.

[232] The point is that it is both tender and flavorful, and it's really thin, so it cooks super quickly, and I love it.

[233] You can dry age all of the cow, right?

[234] And to that end, why don't more people dry age other parts of the cow?

[235] So a lot of small butcher shops will hang their carcasses for one to two weeks before doing anything to it.

[236] And that helps firm up the meat because as it's hanging there, water will start to evaporate.

[237] And when the water evaporates, the flavor concentrates a little bit, and then it also improves the texture.

[238] And so there's no reason you can't.

[239] But if you think about the big industrial beef operations, it's pennies that they're trying to get.

[240] So they actually are motivated very much to keep their weights up.

[241] So they want it to be as wet as possible.

[242] And so they've kind of invented this term of wet aging, which is when you take, yeah, it doesn't sound as good, where you take a cut of meat and as soon as you can, you vacuum seal it.

[243] And that way any, this is a really attractive word, but any purge that comes off of it is kept in the bag, and then the customer pays for that.

[244] Be a good name for a punk band, though, beef purge.

[245] Isn't that just to imagine?

[246] It's so fascinating for you to bring your beefy knowledge to us.

[247] AJ now, you've heard a lot from Sam about carcass balancing.

[248] Is there anything that you need to flag or anything more you'd like to tell us?

[249] Yeah, just a couple of quick things.

[250] First, I looked it up.

[251] The gender -neutral noun is bovine.

[252] That covers cow or bull, or a cow who identifies as a bull.

[253] So you want to be safe.

[254] Hopefully, this imbalance will not be a problem in a few years because several teams of scientists are working on something called clean meat, cultured meat.

[255] But you take a cell from a cow and you create a hamburger or a steak and it's actually coming quite soon in the next few years.

[256] And the amazing thing about this, you don't have to be restricted to cows or pigs.

[257] You could have rhinos, giraffes, humans, ethical cannibalism.

[258] And another business idea, celebrity meat.

[259] So like a fantastic.

[260] Neanderthal burgers for everyone.

[261] Sam Garwin, thank you so much for playing.

[262] Tell me something I know.

[263] Would you please welcome our next guest, Marco Hafner.

[264] All right, Marco, where are you from?

[265] What do you do?

[266] I'm a senior economist at Rand Europe, which is the European affiliate of the RAND Corporation.

[267] Rand, right, which is kind of like the CIA.

[268] Kind of.

[269] Yeah.

[270] And you live where?

[271] I live in London, but originally I'm from Switzerland.

[272] Uh -huh.

[273] And why are you in New York?

[274] I'm just visiting, yes.

[275] Extra for you, Stephen.

[276] It's the first time, actually, yes, for me in New York.

[277] So you're just another Swiss guy that works for a British branch of the CIA who comes to New York for his first and only time to be on a podcast.

[278] What do you have to tell us tonight, Marco?

[279] So my question today is, across the U .S., the majority of middle and high schools started 80 and more earlier.

[280] So what would be their impact on the economy if schools would start later?

[281] Hmm.

[282] Impact on the economy of schools were to start later.

[283] I'm assuming we're talking about the parents of children who are going to school later and sort of how they would affect the economy.

[284] Not necessarily, no. Interesting.

[285] Now, we know I've heard, and I have teenagers, so I hear it directly from them, that teenagers need more sleep because it's an intense physiological developmental stage, not an intense emotional developmental stage.

[286] clarify but intense physiological um so presumably does it have something to do with that yes you go to the right direction something to do with sleep and i'm assuming that sleep patterns establish and adolescents have a long -term effect on productivity in adult years we're getting there very swiss answer yeah that's not how we do things here marcoe We just come out and say whatever we're thinking, even if it's not based on fact.

[287] That's not what I meant.

[288] All right, Alex, let's start with this.

[289] Let's narrow it down.

[290] We think it's positive or negative?

[291] I'm assuming it's positive if school started later just because that's sort of where the trend is going in education, right?

[292] Here's what I'm thinking, though.

[293] Let's say you get the teenagers up really early, and you get them off to school early get them home by two if you get them in bed by eight then they can't be out doing mayhem and destroying the economy or buying things so that could have an adverse effect on the economy Marco I think Alex and I have reached an impasse here and we'd love you to use your crafty Swiss knowledge to bring us out of it so you may have heard or you experience yourself that teenager have different sleep wake cycles compared to adults or young children So based on that, to accommodate the different sleep wake cycles, major medical organizations recommend that middle and high schools don't start before 8 .30m.

[294] in the morning.

[295] And beyond the health benefits of that, actually late at the school start time could have a very beneficial effect on the economy.

[296] So our own research shows that if nationwide schools would start at 8