About Meat Picker

Meat Picker started with a simple problem: standing at the meat counter, staring at three similar-looking steaks, and having no reliable way to tell which one actually fit the meal we were cooking. Fat content matters — for calories, for cooking method, for how the steak turns out — but "eyeballing marbling" is hard, especially under bad store lighting.

So we built a small tool that uses your phone camera to analyze the color of a cut and match it to a leanness preference you set. It's not a lab test — it's a fast, visual sanity check that turns experienced-butcher intuition into something anyone can do in five seconds.

How it works

  1. Pick the meat type and cut you're shopping for.
  2. Set your leanness target on the slider.
  3. Snap up to three photos of cuts side by side.
  4. We analyze average color in each photo and highlight the closest match.

All analysis happens in your browser. Photos never leave your device. See our privacy policy for details.

Who's behind it

Meat Picker is built by a small team of home cooks and web engineers who got tired of guessing. We rely on published USDA data, cuts charts from the North American Meat Institute, and food-science references (Modernist Cuisine, McGee's On Food and Cooking) when writing the guides. If we get something wrong, tell us — we fix it fast.

Editorial standards

  • Cooking temperatures follow USDA and FDA safe-minimum guidance.
  • Nutrition figures come from the USDA FoodData Central database.
  • Guides are reviewed and updated at least once a year.
  • We do not accept payment to feature specific brands or cuts.

Get in touch

Feedback, corrections, or partnership ideas: contact us.