What's In Your Corned Beef?

With plenty of people looking to cook a corned beef sometime this weekend, Thursday, or next weekend to fete St. Patrick, it's worth giving some consideration to the ingredients we find in the corned beef being sold in our local natural foods stores, some of which might not be considered so "natural." Here's what you'll find in the three places I visit most often:

Both Sprouts and Sunflower are offering Harris Ranch corned beef at very appealing prices, but this is what you'll see on the front of the package: "cured with water, salt, sodium phosphates, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrite, flavorings."

The Whole Foods Market Made corned beef has "beef seasonings (sea salt, garlic, clove, paprika, soybean oil,) pickling spice (black pepper, mustard seed, red pepper, allspice, dill, bay, cloves)."

Notice a bit of difference there? But then there's also the difference in price, the perennial dilemma. The Harris Ranch corned beef is $3.99 a pound at Sprouts and just $2.99 a pound at Sunflower, while Whole Foods' house-made corned beef is $6.99 a pound. Personally, for something I'll only make once a year, I'll spring for the best.