I bought a meat grinder

I bought a cheap as dirt plastic hand cranked one that has suction cups to hold it to the counter tap. It has mostly excellent reviews and it was cheap enough that if it turns out not to do the job, I won't feel too bad.

I've decided to start making beef heart. There's a place outside of Hattiesburg where they slaughter beef cattle. They use all the nasty bits to make sausage, but they will sell it if you ask for it. They charge almost nothing for tongue and kidneys (foods I like to make for myself) I bet their heart is cheap as well. These guys are real butchers with honing steels on their belts. Their knives are razor sharp. I bet if I ask them they will trim it or sinews and veins for me.

I think I can save on making dog food, too. My dogs all do well on a good quality kibble, but I have a mama dog and 8 puppies now. I want more choices than scrambled eggs and Alpo to put in their food. They will do well on the nasty bits that people turn their noses up at.

Good for you Liz. If you know anyone who hunts deer you could ask them to save you hearts. Venison is SO lean. My discus love it...

You can also grind up together, whatever different cuts of meats you choose, coupled with some vegetables you like, and add different herbs & spices to make fantastic meat balls, which all you need to do to complete them is to roll them up.

I can't look forward to exciting results before I use it. Despite the good reviews this thing must be junk. It cost next to nothing.https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It may be cheap, but they're making real strong plastics & acrylics these days, and that grinder looks like it would do a reasonable job - the write-up says it can do a lot of things, and you'd think that Amazon wouldn't carry it in inventory if it was just junk that fell apart upon first use. Although I may be wrong about that - who knows till you try it.

If it falls apart i will give it a withering review that will make folks think twice,

Well, if it doesn't work, I suggest one of the little food processors. They sell for $15 or so at WM. I have used mine to grind up/ finely chop up all kinds of foods. When I made beefheart for discus, long ago, I used my bigger one and it worked great and fast. Now I just have the small one and it works great too.
Barb

Liz. if your grinder doesn't work out let me know. I have a brand new hand crank all steel grinder i won in a raffle, It is yours if you need one no need to buy when this one is sitting on the shelf in the box.
Also my local butcher sells beef heart for $2.00 each if you don't have an outlet I could send you some I used to buy a dozen at a time and keep them in the freezer until I need them. also should have a few deer hearts again this year if you wish to try that also.
Tom,

I'm continually amazed at how nice people at this forum are to me. Tom, I'm not expecting much from this cheap piece of plastic, but I couldn't resist buying it. If (when) it disappoints me I'll be in touch. Thanks for your kind offer. Getting dirt cheap hearts should be no problem for me. The guy who butchers cows for people sells the "nasty bits" for next to nothing.

Tom's at it his benevolent best as usual! What a kind and thoughtful man!!

Yep.

The thing arrived this morning. The instructions seriously suck, but the gadget was easy enough to figure out as I went. It really is quite well designed. For the dirt cheap price it's is excellent.

After I assembled it I ran to the store and got some carrots to make juice from and a couple of center cut pork chops so I could see how it did with grinding lean meat. My advice to everyone is if you buy this thing don't grind carrots for juice. I did get a lovely glass of carrot juice but when it says to cut things into small pieces it's serious. I would say carrots require a fine chop. Still it was a lot of work for a glass of carrot juice. It's really not worth the effort unless you have a strong craving for it. I wont do it again, but I wanted to test it's limits and it did the job.

I cut the pork into 1" pieces and they were a piece of cake to grind. I don't see why beef heart wouldn't be just as easy.

Sounds like a good buy Liz :D
Pat