Thanks guys, sorry, been out and about the last coupla days.

lol Lard on toast?, mate, can feel my arteries hardening just thinking about. I VAGUELY remember my gran (RIP) saying stuff like that. She lived thru to her mid 90's, so can be all bad.

Going by what youse are saying it's a choice thing over current quality. Could always just be this area too. We avoid the butcher cause of a coupla bad experiences with snags.

I guess it comes down to just taking it on the chin and realising it's just getting more and more expensive.

Of course, an alternative solution is to reduce the amount of meat in your diet. Vegies are pretty expensive at the moment, but growing your own can be a good option - even in a suburban backyard.

yeah, as a kid in 1950s margarine was only just invented and tasted horrible. Most people used butter on toast but there was no such thing as cooking oil [and there's no way my dad would allow any "wog" stuff like olive oil in house, albeit he probably never heard of it].

One simply had a "dripping tin" in the pantry into which all liquids from roasts, chops etc were emptied and recycled, and it was when the butter ran out that we were allowed to use the dripping on toast, hence my love of it, cept I now grind chilli and black pepper on it

Both parents died at 65 but it appears that was because they became paranoid with health and were eating beef from cows which only fed on sunflowers etc [an experiment by a Maquarie St specialist], and for reasons unknown most of those in his target group got cancer [and he got struck off].

A lot of my cooking is curry so I use ghee [clarified butter] if I can get it, but for spag bol etc I use Olive Oil.

As well as more vegies, making casserole and other meat dishes go further through adding lentils is another good idea. They're generally economical and are rich sources of protein.

As far as the dripping goes, it would have been a lot healthier than the margarine and butter blends of today which contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (transfats), implicated in many degenerative conditions.