Below is an article about beef grading. I spent a short time working as a meat cutter long ago. It’s always been quite a surprize to me how little the public knows about the beef they buy.
“Beef”
Beef is graded as whole carcasses in two ways:
quality grades - for tenderness, juiciness, and flavor; and
yield grades - for the amount of usable lean meat on the carcass. There are eight quality grades for beef. Quality grades are based on the amount of marbling (flecks of fat within the lean), color, and maturity.
Quality Grades: Prime grade is produced from young, well-fed beef cattle. It has abundant marbling and is generally sold in restaurants and hotels. Prime roasts and steaks are excellent for dry-heat cooking (broiling, roasting, or grilling).
Choice grade is high quality, but has less marbling than Prime. Choice roasts and steaks from the loin and rib will be very tender, juicy, and flavorful and are, like Prime, suited to dry-heat cooking. Many of the less tender cuts, such as those from the rump, round, and blade chuck, can also be cooked with dry heat if not overcooked. Such cuts will be most tender if “braised” — roasted, or simmered with a small amount of liquid in a tightly covered pan.
Select grade is very uniform in quality and normally leaner than the higher grades. It is fairly tender, but, because it has less marbling, it may lack some of the juiciness and flavor of the higher grades. Only the tender cuts (loin, rib, sirloin) should be cooked with dry heat. Other cuts should be marinated before cooking or braised to obtain maximum tenderness and flavor.
Standard and Commercial grades – are frequently sold as ungraded or as “store brand” meat.
Utility, Cutter, and Canner grades are seldom, if ever, sold at retail but are used instead to make ground beef and processed products.
Yield grades range from “1” to “5” and indicate the amount of usable meat from a carcass. Yield grade 1 is the highest grade and denotes the greatest ratio of lean to fat; yield grade 5 is the lowest yield ratio. Yield grade is most useful when purchasing a side or carcass of beef for the freezer.
I highlighted the end, coz that’s in where the secret lies;
Prime, Choice, and Select grades have five subdivisions, rated as 1-5 (‘1’ being the best).
In most states here, 1 & 2’s are only sold to restaurants. In fact, it is a law in most states for the protection of the restaurant industry. Yet even without such laws, the beef industry caters to the policy.
So now ya’ know why you can’t buy a sirlion steak that ya’ can make into a sandwich like the restaurants do.