SOMETHING STRANGE IS HAPPENING WITH MEAT — AND IT'S ABOUT TO GET WORSE

Something strange is happening with meat — and the data is more alarming than the headlines are letting on.
Wheat was last month. Dairy before that. This is the most serious "Something Strange" video I've made, because this time it's not one problem in one category. It's multiple compounding crises hitting beef, chicken, and turkey simultaneously.
Here's everything I'm seeing, where the data comes from, and what I'm personally doing about it right now.
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Transcript

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Every time I sit down to make one of these videos, I genuinely wish that I was wrong. I wish that I was being alarmist, you know. I wish that the thing that I'm tracking, the things that I'm tracking, would sort themselves out in three months and everything would be fine. And we could just go, oh, it wasn't that bad, you know. But that's not the case. Because what is happening right now with meat, specifically beef, but also some poultry, chicken, turkey, uh, in the United States, this is this is not a blip. This is not just a little hiccup, you know, on on our radar. It really isn't. It's not a bad quarter, and it's not just, you know, a headline that gets covered, and you know, we're all fine. That's not what this is. What's happening right now with meat in the United States is structural, and it has been building for literal years, and most people have no idea how deep this problem really is. Most people believe in the meat fairy, you know, they want meat, so they go to the grocery store and there's meat. They have no concept of everything that happens up to that point, they have no concept of how it's being affected from so many different directions right now. So, today that is what we're going to do. Yes, we are. Uh, I'm gonna walk you through exactly what I'm seeing, uh, what the data says because that's important. I will give you sources and because that's always the point of these videos, you know, what we can actually do about it right now before it gets worse. Because it's gonna get worse. But if we can get just even a little bit ahead of it, it takes some of that pressure off. This is not fear mongering, this is just math. So let's get started. Now, you know, last month we talked about wheat and the issues that's having, and dairy and the issues that's having. Produce, fresh produce is going to be impacted significantly as soon as our growing season here in the United States is over because it's gonna be coming in from other countries. If it comes in from other countries, it's going to be more expensive because of tariffs and because of shipping costs and you know numerous other factors that just are not going to get reversed quickly. But meat is different from those. Meat is definitely different from all of those, and it's probably one of the longest-running issues uh that we've been dealing with, but it's getting worse, and I think we need to be aware of the fact that it is, and then why? Because, like with wheat and with dairy, the story was mostly about price, you know, and some supply tightening. There's going to be some supply tightening, but with meat, and I mean beef specifically, we are talking about a supply crisis that has multiple compounding causes. It's not just one thing, it's getting hit from all sides. And what we don't understand is that it has already permanently removed processing capacity from the country. The government's own forecasters are not projecting any kind of resolve until at least 2028. And you know, the government is rarely right about anything. And I have been saying since the minute I started on this that I'm looking at 29 before we start seeing a little more impact to us, you know, as far as things coming back, but the prices are never going to go back down again. It just supply is going to be more available. But you know, there was a new development in the last week or so. Um, and I'll get to that in a few minutes. I really think this is one of the most serious videos that I've made in a long time, and I want you to know that going in. I think it's important. So to kick it off, let me start with a number because I think it's the most important thing that I'm going to say in this entire video, and I want it to hit the right way. 72% let that sink in. 72% ground beef prices have increased 72% since 2020. Not seven, not 17, 72% in five years. And before you say, you know, okay, but everything's gone up after 2020, it's just inflation, you know. Yeah, that's true. Everything has gone up since 2020. That is inflation, but the overall food inflation rate over that same time period is roughly 25 to 28 percent. Ground beef has more than doubled the rate of general food inflation. Ground beef. And it's rising at nearly six times the rate of overall food price increases right now. Six times. 72%. Math is painful anymore. So now, just as a little uh, you know, let's track this backwards, and I want you to remember these are national averages. Okay, so it may be cheaper where you are, it may be more expensive where you are, but as a national average from coast to coast, top to bottom, okay, this is what it averages out to. In early 2025, ground beef was running 550 to 580 a pound. By January of 2026, it had jumped to 670 to 680 a pound. That's a nice little jump, right? More recent data from February of this year put the average national cost at around 785 per pound. That's like six months, you know? And broader retail data tracking all fresh beef, not just ground beef, was approaching $10 a pound by March. That's how just wow, you know, now yes, I can go to the store, I have gone to the store, and I have purchased beef for less. But I'm here in Michigan, and I know that people in California or people in Washington state or people in Arizona are paying more for their beef than I am here. This was a national average. And please remember, these are not my numbers. I'm not just pulling them out of the air going, hey, let's throw this number there. These are USDA and Bureau of Labor Statistic numbers. These are the same agencies the federal government uses to track the economy. Okay, these are their numbers that I'm giving you. I am not making this up, I'm just reading the reports. Now, when you see a number like 72%, the natural question is why? What is actually happening? And the answer is not simple because there isn't one cause. There are several causes that are all hitting at the same time. And when I walk you through them, I think you'll understand why I said this problem doesn't resolve until 2028 at the earliest, my prediction 2029. So let's go through them one by one. Now, the first cause, uh, the one that underlies, you know, literally everything else, is the size of the U.S. cattle herd. And I've mentioned this multiple times, you know, over the last six months or so. As of January 2026, the United States has 86.2 million head of cattle and calves. That is the smallest national herd in 75 years. We've not had this few cattle in this country since 1951. But we have three times as many people. The beef cow herd specifically, because there's dairy cows and there's beef cows, okay. The cows that produce the calves that eventually become the beef that you buy, yeah, sits at 27.6 million head, the lowest since 1961. Now, here's what you need to understand about cattle, because this is where a lot of people make, you know, kind of a wrong assumption because we just don't know. We don't know what we don't know because we have been trained to believe in the meat fairy. They think, okay, the herd is small, we need more cattle. Ranchers will just breed more, right? You know, just put a cow seed out and let's see what happens. Uh, the problem is solved in a year or two, right? No, it's not. Cattle biology doesn't work that way. A beef cow has a gestation period of nine months. A calf then takes roughly 18 to 24 months to reach market weight. So you're looking at almost three years there. So from the moment a rancher decides to expand the herd, the earliest that decision shows up as beef in the grocery store is almost two to three years later, often longer. And critically, if you want to really get into the nitty-gritty of it, okay, before ranchers could grow their herds, they have to stop selling cows. That's how they make money, by the way. They have to hold back the females, the heifers, to become breeding stock instead of going to slaughter. Which means in the short term, herd expansion actually reduces the supply of beef even further before it adds to it. The American Farm Bureau Federation has analyzed this, uh, and their conclusion is it's honestly it's pretty stark. There is little opportunity for meaningful herd expansion until at least 2028. That is not a worst-case scenario. That is the mainstream agricultural industry forecast, and it's been this bad for a reason. The cattle cycle, uh, a normal boom and bust, you know, of herd sizes, has been in a contraction phase for eight years now. Because, yeah, it's been that long since we started hearing about ranchers having to sell off their cattle because they can't afford to feed them. Driven by a lot of ranchers deciding that it just doesn't pencil out anymore to expand, or in some cases, to even continue at all. This is the foundation of everything that I'm going to tell you today. Fewer cattle means less beef. Less beef means higher prices. You guys know supply and demand. And you cannot fix this quickly because that's not the way it works. No matter how much political will or money gets thrown at it, the biology does not speed up. Now, everything else that I'm about to describe is happening on top of that foundation. That I just went through, that's the foundation, okay? We have just laid the foundation. Now there's all kinds of other stuff, which is why I said this is the most serious video, you know, as far as the food stuff goes that that I have made. It really is. There's so much stuff, just so much. So the supply, that's cause number one. Cause number two has become much more mainstream in discussion uh recently. This is the one that most people hadn't heard of, like at all. You know, again, meat fairy. Why would I pay attention, you know? And this has caused me the most concern right now because it just got worse. You know, just just this last week or two, it just got significantly worse because we've been knowing, at least anybody here has known that okay, we have a supply and demand issue that we're gonna be facing, okay? But now you have that supply and demand, the lowest headcount in you know, many, many, many years. But now, hey, let's talk about the screw worm. Why not? New World Screw World. What a name, first of all. Now, we are not importing from Mexico, our largest importer of beef, okay? We have not been importing from them. Doors have been closed because they are fighting screw worm with their herds. This is just a mess. It's an absolute mess. It's a parasitic fly for anybody that's interested, specifically its larva, that burrows into the living tissue of warm-blooded animals. Livestock, horses, deer. It was eradicated from the United States in 1966. It's been gone for 60 years. Some fool opened the door, you know. It was eliminated as far south as Panama by the year 2000. It has not been a resident pest on U.S. soil for decades. Now, since 2022, it has been moving north again. Yeah. Through Central America, through Mexico, slowly and steadily closing the distance. By late 2025, the biological barrier that had held it in Panama for decades collapsed. It reached just 70 miles south of the US-Mexico border. That's how close it got. Now, yeah. On July 9th of 2025, the United States closed the border to cattle, bison, and horses from Mexico. That border has remained closed since then. But here is what that closure means in practical terms. The United States normally imports approximately 1.3 to 1.5 million head of cattle from Mexico every single year. Every single year. These are predominantly feeder cattle. Younger animals that go to into U.S. feedlots get raised to market weight and then become beef on your shelf. That's that's how the meat ferry works, okay? The entire flow stopped overnight. Imagine having your faucet on full force, and then all of a sudden nothing is coming out of it, but you're expected to keep drinking. It doesn't work. These aren't just any cattle. Much of the imported Mexican cattle were specifically used for lean beef trimmings, the blend that goes into ground beef, uh, so that the closure didn't just tighten overall beef supply. Mm-mm. No, it specifically targeted the supply of affordable ground beef because you know, ground beef has been the affordable staple for forever, you know, the thing most American families rely on the most. Now, as of February this year, 2026, feedlot inventories were down 2% year over year. Tyson Foods, the largest meat company in the country, projected an adjusted operating loss of between 400 to 600 million dollars for its beef segment in 2026. At the company's uh Amarillo, Texas plant, they cut to a single shift. Their massive facility in Lexington, Nebraska, which processed 5,000 cattle per day, nearly 5% of the U.S. daily beef slaughter, they closed it permanently. In January of this year, 3,200 people lost their jobs. Now, Tyson described it as right-sizing their beef business. What it actually means is there aren't enough cattle to run through a plant that size. So they shut it down. And unlike past disruptions, this one is permanent. That place is not opening back up again. They stripped plants bare when they closed in the past. Those facilities don't come back. That's not the way that it works. So we have now permanently reduced our beef processing plants. And I under I get it. I get it. There's not enough coming through. We can't even support the one shift that we have. It doesn't make financial sense, even though I'm sure nobody in the higher ups of Tyson are suffering in any way, shape, or form. But we have now permanently removed seven to nine percent of total U.S. beef processing capacity. It's a lot. Okay, so here is where I said it just got worse, you know, just just a little while ago. On June 4th of this year, so that's 11 days ago, uh, the USDA confirmed a case of New World Screw Worm in Zavala County, South Texas. The screw worm has crossed the border. It's officially back on U.S. soil for the first time in a very long time. The USDA Agricultural Secretary moved quickly, uh, quarantine zone established, movement controls in place, sterile fly dispersal expedited in the region. You know, they are saying now that there is no reason to believe that this will result in establishment of the pest in the U.S. And they are actively managing it. Just gives you the warm fuzzies, doesn't it? Now I want to be fair here. The response has been fast. Okay, so I'll give them credit for that one. And the surveillance is very serious because this is very, very serious. This may well be contained, except another case cropped up. So there's more now to the whole thing. This is going to be very difficult to completely contain, but we can hope, you know. But here's here's what I know the border closure that has been cutting off 1.3 million head of cattle per year. That one, that closure exists precisely because of this threat. That's why that closure was implemented. The economic calculation is the cost of the border closure is enormous. I can I can't even imagine, but it is far less than the cost of a domestic screw worm infestation. The USDA's own estimate is that a domestic infestation could cost the livestock industry billions of dollars annually. So even if this specific case is contained, and I genuinely hope that it is, I mean, we got to start burning our bingo cards, it tells you that the border closure that is strangling our beef supply is not ending soon. Nope. This fight is going to continue for quite some time. Now I want to step back from beef for a moment, uh, because I know that some of you are thinking, you know, okay, Lise, great. You know, so beef is a mess. We'll just eat more chicken, more turkey. And I hear you. I've thought of that too. I really have. But I need to tell you something about that chicken and that turkey that I don't think is being uh pushed out there enough. So most people, literally, most people do not know anything about it. See, chicken and turkey, they're also under pressure for completely different reasons. So let's hit chicken first. Don't hit your chickens. You know what I mean, okay? The poultry industry has been dealing with fertility issues in broiler chicken breeding flocks, meaning that the chickens used to produce the next generation of meat birds aren't producing as reliably as they were. Experts at Texas AM who track this specifically have flagged this as a concern that could noticeably affect consumers. Production is expected to slow from the first quarter of 2026, and compounding that bird flu, it didn't go anywhere, it remains active. Ongoing threats are what they're calling it. Research shows that even an increase of one million infected birds in a week can drive chicken prices up 15 and a half percent. We already eat a lot of chicken, you know. So they're producing less, they're not as fertile, and then bird flu comes and wipes out entire barns on top of the beef. And what I want you to just because it has not been mainstream, just because it has not, you know, been right in your face. Consistently. Bird flu is not a news story from 2022. It's still happening. It never fully stopped. Turkey is, if anything, in worse shape, which is gonna make Thanksgiving a lot of fun. The U.S. turkey flock is at a 40-year low. Not 75 years like cattle, but 40 years, which is still a significant historical low. That's huge. In 2025, approximately 3 million turkeys died from highly pathogenic avian influenza. More than double the total in 2024. 110 individual outbreaks hit commercial turkey farms. Wholesale turkey prices surged more than 75% in a single year. The USDA projected only 4.8 billion pounds of turkey production down 5% from 2024. Now I don't know about you all, but I track those holiday turkey prices, right? They're nowhere near where they used to be in the last five years. They have not been going as low. So this, while it shouldn't be a big surprise to us because we've kind of seen it already, it has the potential to get much worse. So here's the picture that I'm painting that I really want you to see clearly, okay, after all this, you know, gloom. Beef, historic low cattle herd, historic low, 1.3 million feeder cattle cut off from Mexico, major processing capacity permanently closed, prices up 72% in five years. Chicken, there's fertility concerns in breeding flocks, ongoing bird flu threat, and production slowing. Turkey, 40-year low flock, bird flu devastation, wholesale prices up 75% in one year. These are three of the primary proteins that most American families depend on. All three are under pressure at the same time right now. That, that right there, that's the strange thing happening with meat. It's not one problem in one category, it is multiple compounding problems across the entire protein category at exactly the same time. Most people, if they're good at what they do, managing, you know, grocery stores, they already know this. This is not a surprise to them. Walmart and Kroger are both internally reporting what they're calling a consumer trade-down effect. Consumer, it's a nice little term. People are changing what they buy because they can't afford what they used to buy. And I know that's true. A lot of you have already said you've been priced out of beef for a very long time. That is not a marginal shift. This is super important. This is a signal that something fundamental has changed and it's something that we should be paying a lot more attention to and making a lot more noise about. These four companies control the vast majority of U.S. beef processing capacity. The allegation is essentially that these companies have been using their market dominance to suppress prices paid to cattle ranchers while raising prices to consumers. There's a long history of tension in this space. Long history of tension. Ranchers have been arguing for years that the spread between what they get for the cattle and what the consumers pay at the store is too wide and it's being manipulated. I am not going to take a political side on the antitrust question because that is not what this channel is about. Okay. What I will say is this whether the investigation ultimately finds wrongdoing or not, the fact is that this investigation is happening, tells you that the government itself has looked at this situation and concluded that the supply problem is serious enough to warrant action at the highest level. The administration has also quadrupled Argentina's beef import quota, trying to bring in more beef from South America to ease the pressure on American consumers. Argentina's quota now accounts for approximately 5% of U.S. beef imports or about 1% of total U.S. consumption. 1% that's a bandage on a gaping wound. And here's the thing that I want you to notice when a presidential administration is doing antitrust investigations and expanding import quotas and trying to do something about the food supply when an administration is that's when you know the problem is real. It's documented, it's being taken seriously at the highest levels. This is not a fringe concern, which is why it amazes me that we are not hearing more about this. Because it's not fringe. This is extremely important. This is not a you know prepper fantasy, it's not some post-apocalyptic book that somebody put out. This is official United States government policy in response to an official United States government documented supply crisis. I just want to be crystal clear about that. So now let's talk about what this means for your household because that's where the buck stops, theoretically, right? That's the whole point, actually. I've given you a lot of really heavy information that's a lot to think about. And I I understand, I really do. But I want to leave you with things that you can actually do because I think that is important. I am not a doom and gloomer, you know. I am giving you the problems, I'm giving you why the problems, but now let's find ways to have some solutions to make it not as painful on our households, because that I think is probably the most important part. First, I need you to understand that beef prices are not coming down. They are not coming down, and rarely, rarely after an emergency type thing do they ever go back to where we started. So beef prices are not gonna go back down. Not this year, not next year, probably not until 28, 29, or later. And honestly, I don't think they're gonna go down. In my opinion, the supply will be better, but the prices are not gonna go down. Because I do believe that the middlemen are still gonna have everything jacked up and they're gonna be making a huge profit while the ranchers are gonna be going out of business. And then big farm is gonna come in and take it all over. That's my opinion for what it's worth. But okay, so I digress. Now, prices are not going back down. That was the crux of it. Okay, if ranchers begin rebuilding herds now, those cattle finally reach market somewhere in 28, 29. Anyone who tells you beef is going to get cheap again in the near term is not looking at the same data. As a matter of fact, I don't know what they are looking at other than a fairy tale. That doesn't mean you can't ever eat beef again. That's not what I'm saying. It means you plan for it differently, a lot differently, if it's something that you use regularly. You shop for it strategically, and if you're going to be eating beef, which most families are, you know, you think about locking in today's price instead of paying tomorrow's price, because that's what food preservation is all about. That's what pantry preparedness is all about. Locking in today's price as much as we can. Second, this is a protein crisis, not just a beef crisis, you know? When beef gets expensive, people switch to chicken. When chicken gets more expensive, people switch to turkey. When turkey is also under pressure, and it is, okay, then the whole protein category gets stressed together because quite a lot, quite a lot of people don't eat pork for whatever reasons. So, well, if you are a pork eater, I mean we do, we eat pork, then you know, we can at least relieve some of it, you know, by with the pork, because a lot of recipes and stuff are interchangeable as far as the protein. That means you need more than one answer when all of that is under pressure, though. You need protein depth in your pantry, not just a backup plan that is also stressed. Third, right now, ground beef is still your best buying opportunity uh in the beef category. You can still get the best prices on ground beef compared to other cuts, okay? And the window on that opportunity that's narrowing. That's it's gonna start getting really, really narrow. Ground beef runs cheaper per pound than the whole cuts, you know. So if you're looking at a roast or if you're looking at steaks, those are significantly more than ground beef. If you can find it on sale in bulk, the smartest thing that you can do is buy more than you need right now and preserve it. And that is exactly where I want to talk to you about two things that genuinely changed how I handled this in my own kitchen. The first is vacuum sealing, because if you're going to freeze things, having them vacuum sealed makes them safer in your freezer, less likely to get freezer burned, less likely to be wasted. Which at some point or another, everybody has had something in their freezer go to waste because it got buried, they forgot about it, or it got freezer burned. And that's no fun, and especially at today's prices, that's painful. And so when I find a good price on any kind of meat, uh, which is harder and harder to find lately, you know, but it still happens. Uh, I buy as much as my budget allows, as much as I can when I find it, and then I vacuum seal it in portions and it goes into my freezer. Vacuum seal it first, then throw it in the freezer because that way it doesn't go bad. You know, it stays good, it stays usable and flavorful longer. Vacuum sealing extends freezer life dramatically. It's it's really a game changer. Because if you remember, mom and grandma, they came home from the store and took that package, whatever it was, and threw it right into the freezer. And then sometimes it would have freezer burn because that's not meant for long-term storage. The air still gets to it, everything still gets to it, and so it ruins the meat after a while, you know? Unsealed ground beef, not vacuum sealed, right? Unsealed ground beef. You're looking at uh maybe three to four months before it starts going bad in your freezer. That's in the store packaging that you bring home because it's not vacuum sealed, it's not airtight. Whereas when you vacuum seal something, you're looking at a year to a year and a half of good quality while it sits in your freezer. And that matters when you're buying a head. That's the kind of thing you want to make sure that you're doing. Just going out and buying it is not the best idea because you need to make sure that when you buy it, you have a way to preserve it so that you're not wasting the money, so that you do have it in the future. And the longer life that you can get out of it, the better. So definitely, you guys have seen me. I use my chamber vac, my weevac chamber vac, my weavac chamber vac. Um, and I vacuum seal all of the meats that go into our freezer. It has made a night and day difference to what I do and do not lose anymore because all the air is out of there. It's good for a nice long time. I use that chamber vac almost daily anymore. Between my freeze-dried things in jars, between vacuum sealing my meats, between vacuum sealing my vegetables for the freezer. I'm using it all the time. I even vacuum seal soups that I cannot can, like my cabbage soup. I'll vacuum seal those in bags, and they're fantastic for a quick, easy dinner. That vacuum sealer has paid for itself 10 times over in food preservation that is not difficult, that you don't have to be afraid of, you know, for the people that are afraid of pressure canners. There, there's it's a really great way to make sure that you're not wasting money when you put it in the freezer. And the bags matter too. I use their bags also because they're the most economical ones that I have found with the greatest selection. You can actually buy boxes that have two separate sizes in them. You can buy them on the roll, you can buy them where they're already pre-cut, you know. They really are a fantastic bag, and the ones that I use absolutely the most for just vacuum sealing. I, of course, will have a link in the pinned comment and in the description box below. Um, but you can always visit thestackedpantry.com, www.thestackedpantry.com, and look for the vacuum sealing section, and that information is right there. Whether it's bags or whether it's an entire system, you cannot go wrong with these. You really can't. You will save money in the long term. This will save you money by having this. Now, the other piece of my meat strategy, you guys know, is pressure canning. Pressure canning meat is the way to make meat shelf stable. And it's easy, it is not dangerous. I mean, obviously, there's some it's hot, okay, but pressure canners do not blow up anymore. Your car is more dangerous than a pressure canner. All you have to do is follow the process and trust the process. It's when you go off doing crazy stuff like let's can cheesecake or let's can bread, that's when you have to worry about botulism, okay? Follow the the guides, follow the instructions for canning meat, and you have absolutely no worries at all. It is not difficult. And anybody that I have helped learn how to pressure can meat, please throw something in the comment section to encourage people that are afraid of it because it's so important to be able to put up shelf stable food, and it's the best way to make sure that even if there's a power outage, you don't lose said food. Okay. A pressure canner is cheaper than a generator, my friends. Just saying. Now I only use four jars lids, they are the only lids that I have used since 2020. They showed up for us when no other company did. They came through with a great product that was a great price point. We weren't being charged too much. They have great customer service. I am wildly happy with them. I still am. I'm not going to bring them to you if I don't believe in them. I believe in this company. I believe in its people and I believe in its product. Absolutely adore all of them. I have a link down below. You can save 10% by using my code. Uh, and like I said, great product. And the pressure canners are back in stock. So if you've been looking for a pressure canner, it's the one that sits on my stove all the time anymore. It is one of three brands that I recommend. It is a great pressure canner, highly recommend. And they made improvements to it, and the 10% works on that too. Let me put together a full action plan for you because I don't want you to leave this video feeling heavy and depressed and you know, all this information and you know, uh light on direction. No, I'm gonna give you direction. I really am. I want to help you navigate this, I want to help you get as stocked up as you can because anything you put up today takes pressure off of tomorrow, and that keeps compounding as today becomes tomorrow. It really does. It is a huge help, and it is something that I think is going to help a lot of people, I hope, navigate the chaos that we're walking into. So here's what I am personally doing, and what I recommend you consider doing based on everything that we've talked about today. I mean, everything. Number one, buy ground beef when you find it at the lowest price that you've seen in your area. Now, here that would be under $450. Okay, under five bucks, under $450, depending on the ground beef. So it's getting harder to find at that price. And in some areas, they haven't seen that in a very long time. Um, but it does still happen. Okay, so base it on the lowest price that you have seen in your area because it's going to be different. Sales, warehouse stores, certain butcher shops, okay, certain days of the week when markdowns happen, manager specials, that kind of thing. When you find it, buy more than you need for this particular week. Buy some to put up specifically. 10 pounds, 20 pounds if your budget allows, then preserve it. Whether that's vacuum sealing it for the freezer or pressure canning it for the shelf. Okay, preserve it one way or the other. Number two, diversify your protein base. That's gonna be important as we move forward. We need to learn how to diversify our protein base because the status quo is not gonna stat us anymore, and it's definitely not gonna quo. If your pantry protein strategy is 90% beef right now, you know, that's a vulnerability that makes you very, very vulnerable. Add canned tuna, canned salmon, canned chicken, you know, dried beans and lentils, they're very good for you. Hello, and then freeze-dried protein options, also. Um, Thrivalist, hi, my name's Lisa. Thrivalist, okay. I let them do the heavy lifting as far as the meat goes because I want to get other stuff freeze-dried. So I let them do the heavy lifting. They also have the equipment to ensure that it's still good in 20 years. I don't totally trust mylar bags here at home. I read a lot. I read a lot, a lot, a lot, in case you didn't notice. And a lot of home freeze dryers don't seem to have a whole lot of success in long-term mylar bag storage. A, you can't see it, you don't know for sure. And so I put everything in glass jars. That's my battle against that. Okay. But Thrivalist, they have a system, they have a system, it's in a can, and it's good to last 25 plus years. It is phenomenal meat, it is really, really good. So, right now I know that they have their chicken in stock, so I would check that out. Again, the link is every place that I said, but you want to diversify your protein. If at all possible, you want to get a little bit of all of it, okay, and learn how to use it. Because if beef becomes unavailable or you get completely priced out of it, they are what keeps your dinner functional. They are what keeps your dinner table functional, is being able to pivot and having diversity in your protein that allows you to pivot. Number three, uh, get comfortable with less expensive cuts of beef, which to me is not a hardship. I don't understand it. You know, I but there are some people that are like, no, I only eat this, that's it, okay, fine. So yeah, if that's the case, you need to start getting more comfortable with less expensive cuts of beef, chuck roast, short ribs. I've never been good at short ribs, brisket, which I've never considered remarkably inexpensive, but I guess comparatively it is, and now I'm on the hunt for brisket. These cuts are typically cheaper than ground beef because they require more preparation to make them happen. But when you pressure cook them or slow cook them, they are extraordinary, just so good. Okay. So learning to work with the whole animal that makes a huge difference. Honoring and respecting the fact that that was a living thing and making sure that you're not wasting it, that is the responsible thing to do. Not just for, you know, the most convenient product, it's a skill that saves real money right now. Real money. Number four, pay attention to chicken prices. At your store, and this is a really lousy time of year for this because grilling season chicken prices are always elevated in the summer, at least where I'm at, they're always elevated. So it's something to still track in, you know, if you can remember the best prices that you ran across, you know, in the last year, and then track them as they go through. Hopefully, the prices will start coming down uh towards the end of summer, but I don't think they're ever going to go back to like they were a couple of years ago, obviously. The fertility and the bird flu concerns that I mentioned aren't causing the same visible crisis as beef yet. Yet, that's the key word, but they're developing, it's going to happen. And so the way to make sure that you're on top of this is to pay attention to what the prices are telling you, which I like I said, it's going to be a little challenging, you know, due to summer. If you see chicken at a good price, jump on it, okay? Treat it the same way that you're treating beef because buying a head and vacuum sealing or canning it, oh yeah, you know, ugly chicken. Um, whole chickens especially tend to run cheaper per pound, which is nice. You just have to learn how to cut that, you know, cut the bones out. Uh, then they're absolutely worth pressure canning. Absolutely. So you can use the whole chicken, you can use the light meat, the dark meat, you can can all of that together. There's raw pack, which is what we call ugly chicken here at Sutton's Days, or there is hot pack, which is where it's par cooked, and then you put it in a broth and and can it that way. Both are great, they're absolutely great. There's nothing wrong with it. Obviously, the raw pack is much easier, but uh, you know, chicken, keep an eye on the prices, super important. Number five. And this one you may or may not want to do, and I really hope that you do want to do it. We need to track the screw worm situation. We need to make sure that we are on it, that we are paying attention to it, even when it's not being spoon-fed to us through whatever news source we have. Okay, now I am not saying panic. Goodness gracious, we have so many other things we should be panicking about. If the June 4th detection in South Texas is contained, okay, the border closure situation may eventually ease. It might. And if it does, the beef supply will begin to improve. Once we can open the borders for Mexico, the beef supply is going to improve. If the screw worm establishes itself domestically, that situation will get much worse. It's gonna get much worse. Either way, it's worth paying attention to. If you have time to play games on the computer, then you have time to see where we're at with screw worm. Okay, it takes very little time. I'll follow up uh here as it develops, you know, a little bit here, a little bit there. I'm not gonna, you know, doom gloom you all the way, but I want to make sure that we know what's going on, but it's important to keep track of it because we're gonna need to learn how to pivot really, really hard. Here is the bigger thing that I want to say before we close, okay? The families who are going to navigate this the best, they are not the ones who bought the most, they are not the ones who spent the most. Just so you know. They are the ones who acted thoughtfully and early. And you don't have to buy or spend the most in order to act thoughtfully and early. They looked at the information, they made calm decisions, no panic buying, they built flexibility into their food supply. That's what I'm doing. I hope that's what you are doing. Okay, that is what this channel is all about. That's what it's always been about. Pantry preparedness is a way to ensure that we have food to feed our families moving forward. Not to stave off all economic increases, but to know that we have that buffer so that today we are eating at yesterday's price, and tomorrow we'll eat at today's price. We're always going to be eating for less money than the average person out there. That gives us a foot up on being able to navigate all of the chaos that is hitting us. This is not the end of the world. This is not the great famine. Okay, the shelves are not going to be emptied, so we need to take a step back, take a deep breath. I'm just here to tell you what I'm seeing and what we can do to navigate it. You're already doing that by watching this, and that matters. And I thank you for being here with me. I know this was a heavy video. You guys, it's it's just as heavy on me. It really is, which is why I was a little quiet last week, because it gets to be a lot. It just gets to be a lot where some days I don't want to sit with it anymore, you know, and I need to take a break. So I know that it's heavy and I know how it's impacting you, okay. The things I'm watching, they're serious. They really are serious. But I really want you to hear me on this. I really do. You are not powerless in this situation, not even close. Not even close. You have information that most people don't have. I have just given you information that most people don't have, and a conversation with the general public will verify that. You have the tools, your pantry, your vacuum sealer, your pressure canner, you know, and your knowledge. And your knowledge is going to take you far. And you have time right now before the next wave hits. We have time. That gap, that gap between when you act and when most people realize you should act is a whole game. We could be sitting back having margaritas watching the game by the time they figure it out. Because we know now and we're acting now. At least I hope we are. That is what preparedness is about. It's not a bunker. I'm not your bunker, bro. Okay. I am here to teach you pantry preparedness so that you can get prepared to make sure that you and yours have what you need moving forward. We're just ahead a little. That's all. We're just ahead a little on purpose and with intention. You've got this. You really do. So until next time, everybody, be safe. Keep stacking it to the rafters, my friends.