What Beef Makes the Grade?

Seems like I've lost my sense of humor of late. So I thought I'd start off with a bad cooking joke my brother told me yesterday. What is orange and sounds like parrot? Give up, it's a carrot. I know, I know that's really bad.
Now to more important things. I've been talking about different grades of beef. I've found this fascinating because I didn't know anything really about it. So I've done a little investigating and I thought I'd share it.
Here in the good ole US of A we have the good ole USDA that grades our beef. Now I found out this a voluntary thing, but it's good as a promotional tool for the beef growers, as much as it is a quality check for the buyers.
Some things to keep in mind about grading, I know this is obvious but I'll say it anyway, the higher the grade the higher the price. The growers pay for the grading; isn't that interesting. The ranchers and packers pay the USDA. Of course they pass the price on to the wholesalers who pass it on to the grocers who pass it on to us. You might call this the beef graders food chain. Anyway, a lot of the beef sold in the US is sold as ungraded.
With that in mind let's talk about the grades. Most of us know about Prime, Choice and Select. But there's also, Standard, Commercial, Utility, Cutter and Canner. We'll talk about these more later. For now though, let's focus on the top 3.
As I said, Prime grade beef is the most expensive. It's made from well fed young cattle. Also, it has a lot of marbling, is tender and has a lot of flavor when you cook it. Of course when you over cook anything it's going to lose some flavor, but with Prime you stand a better chance of getting away with it. Prime makes up a very small amount of beef sold. You'll mainly find it in really fine restraints or in specialty shoppes. So for most of us Prime is not going to be commonly cooked at home. Watch out for marketing like "prime buy" or "select choice," when you're shopping and check the labeling so you know what grade of beef it really is. Real Prime beef won't need much if any marinade to cook a tender and flavorful meal. Next time will look at Choice.