I usually have an aversion to canned meats. Intellectually I know that the meat is, in fact, what it says it is on the label… yet, every single time I open a can of chicken, beef, or tuna, it smells like cat food. Years ago, I tried the Costco canned roast beef and, once you got it into a pan and heated up, it was delicious. I mean, really good. So I grabbed a bunch and, naturally, Costco stopped selling it. It has been, no lie, probably five or six years since I’ve seen canned roast beef at Costco.

Now, one thing I have noticed about other canned beef products is that virtually none of them are made-in-USA. Invariably they are from Brazil or Argentina or some other south American country. And while I’m sure (eyeroll) that their quality control standards are first rate, I think I’d rather stuff my face with American beef rather than something some gaucho carved up and processed through a semi-Third World processing plant.

Anyway…..

Up at Costco today and beheld this:

Let’s do some math.

4-12 oz. cans at 9.69 means each can is $2.42. Each can is 12 oz. so that comes out to $3.20~ per pound. Now, I know what you’re going to say – “But Commander, part of that 12 oz. is water weight from the broth its packaged in.” You are correct, sir. However, this is $3.20 per pound of cooked beef, whereas the pricing youre comparing your meat counter purchase to is for raw beef. We all agree that a quarter-pound burger patty ain’t 4 oz. once we’re done cooking it, right? So, to my way of thinking, I’m guessing that the post-cooked weight of the canned beef with its broth is probably pretty close to what the pre-cooked weight of the actual raw beef would be. So, I’m reasonably comfortable with saying its $3.20/#. With that said, $3.20/# is actually a decent deal these days.

But, even at a dollar a pound it’s no bargain if it tastes horrible enough that you won’t eat it. So, let’s cook up some rice, throw the contents of the can into a pan, heat it up, add in some soy sauce or chili paste, serve it over some rice, and see if it’s worth going long on.

So, lets grab a can of the Kirkland stuff and compare a few things. These cans are pull-tops whereas the Kirklands were not. I prefer non-pull-top because if that pre-scored seam on the can takes a hit from something it can let go pretty easily. But, this can be mitigated with proper packing and storage.

Opening the can and…….merciful Crom, it always looks like dog food. There was some congealed fat floating in there, which is good, and the meat appeared to not be heavy in the gristle or undesirable-parts department.

WHY!? WHY DOES IT ALWAYS LOOK LIKE DOG FOOD!?!?

Ok, I’ll be honest…I held my breath until it was in the pan and on the flame. Once it got some heat under it I added some chopped onion and soy sauce. Shoulda skipped the soy sauce. More on that later.

I ran it over high heat to make sure it was heated all the way through and to reduce some of the broth. There was a very strong ‘well done beef’ smell from the pan. I cooked up half a cup of rice and added the contents of the pan.

How was it? Good. But salty. The meat was wonderfully tender and this would go really nicely in a soup, stew, or bourguignon. As it was, just the rice, onions, beef, and soy sauce worked out just fine. A meal that you could do pretty easily and quickly in a power outage or shelter-in-place situation.

Comparing the nutritional label data between this and the Kirkland roast beef showed something interesting. The Kirkland is listed as four servings per can, this stuff says six. What that means is that when you figure that out as RDA per can, you get this:

Kirkland = 32% of your RDA of sodium, per can
Butterfield = 72% of your RDA of sodium, per can

So, yeah….it wasn’t just the soy sauce that made it taste salty. But, if you really think that when the end of the world gets here you need to watch your salt intake…well…clearly you’re priorities need some review. After a long day of sweating through your cammies as you hang looters and man roadblocks, stress over the mutant zombie biker gangs, and generally lead a pretty physical and stressful life….you’ll welcome that little bit of extra salt. But if it really, really matters to you…just cut the sodium in half. How? Eat half as much. Problem solved.

Another odd thing. look at those nutritional labels. Both of them show a serving size as being the same – 2 oz./56gram. And both cans are 12 oz. But the Kirkland says there are 4 servings per can, whereas the Butterfield says six. The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that the Kirkland numbers are net of any liquid. Or maybe it’s bad math. But if it really is true that both are the same 2 oz. per serving, once of them is packing 50% more sodium per serving than the other. You go figure it out.

Final verdict? Worth it. It comes out cheaper than the Kirkland stuff Costco was selling ten years ago. Texture and taste seem fine and it cooks up quite nicely. I approve of it enough that I went back to Costco and bought a case of it. (Because I’m sure as heck not gonna buy a case of something without trying it out first.) If you really wanna go nuts…a can of this stuff, a bottle of soy sauce or other seasoning), and a vacuum sealed bag of minute rice would store literally indefinitely in just about any environ and give you a hot meal that you could fix over a sterno stove.

So…an addition to the food stockpile. But a yummy enough one that keeping it rotated shouldn’t be a problem.
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