Cow-Pooling: Buying Beef in Mega-Bulk

If you prefer to keep the image of meat — say, a juicy hamburger — safely separated from the image of an actual animal — say, a 1,200-lb. castrated bull — then cow-pooling is not for you. Jean Edwards is clearly not squeamish about knowing precisely where her steaks come from. In 2007, she and her husband James, a corrections officer in Vermont, went in with another family to buy a side of grass-fed beef directly from a farmer. The Edwardses wanted naturally raised meat but couldn't afford natural-food-store prices. Not only did cow-pooling prove to be cost-effective but also the meat from Mike Bowen's 900-acre North Hollow Farms, in central Vermont, was so tasty — compared with beef raised on corn in an industrial feedlot — that in the years since, Edwards has purchased an entire side just for her family. On a recent evening, the 43-year-old mother of five loaded her minivan with 250 lb. of beef, butchered and vacuum-packed to her specifications. "Not only am I buying a freezerful of meat, which gives me a kind of secure feeling," she says, "I'm dealing directly with the farmer, which is almost inspirational." At a time when many family incomes are falling, the pressure is on to give up expensive foods like organic produce and grass-fed beef. But thanks to the Internet, cow-pooling is an increasingly popular way to get high-quality non-factory-farm meat without paying about $16 per lb. for a strip steak — the usual price at the Whole Foods Markets of the world...Time

I know a bunch of you are grinnin'. A side of beef is mega-bulk?