Thoughts on the Meat Grinder Attachment

I am excited to announce the arrival of a new addition to Artie's family.... the meat grinder!

While we received the shredder and slicer attachment as a wedding present, the meat grinder is the first accessory we have chosen to invest in. (I say 'first' knowing I will eventually get another.... makes for a good x-mas present ;) ) We got the meat grinder for two key reasons:

1. The grinder will allow us to grind our own meat, giving us control over the type and quality of meat that gets ground. No more store-bought ground beef, chicken and turkey for us! Joey worked for a meat company one summer and part of his job was to set aside the meat to be used for the ground product - The experience of assigning mostly fat, grizzly tissue, and not-so-great-looking meat to the grinding vat had tainted his image of ground meat and he is happy to be gaining control over this aspect of food prep. 
2. Our dog - until recently she was on a raw meat diet. That is until the inconvenience of storing and defrosting whole cow/chicken/pig lung, liver and kidney became a little too much to handle. We would like to return her to a partial raw meat diet, at least, and feel the grinder will help us with the convenience factor. For those of you who are curious, there are many benefits to a raw meat diet for dogs (maybe one day I will post about it) but as far as I am concerned... if the only benefits I saw from the diet was a reduction in the amount of shedding and less-rancid smelling farts from my beloved pet I would be extremely happy. But theres more to it then that.

Look for many great ground meat recipes to come!!