In Chapter 6, Francie's mother Katie tells Francie to never buy ground meat off the plate at the butcher's shop for two reasons.  First, the butcher leaves scraps of meat on the plate, so it gets hard and dry after it's been sitting on the plate all day.  Second, the meat on the plate may not even be beef.  Katie tells Francie to closely watch the butcher when she goes to buy meat for the family because the butcher likes to get rid of the scraps and is happy to cheat poor families into buying poor grades of meat.  Katie demands that her family be treated with respect and feels that they do not deserve to simply get the garbage scraps of meat from the butcher's plate.