Meat grinder question

[Snowwolfe]

I love everything about my Lem 1.5 hp grinder, with the exception of the “guard” in the tray.
Been thinking of cutting it off to make it easier to feed.
But before I get the cut off wheel out and regret my decision was wondering if any of you removed the guard?
If you did, did you regret it?
Or did you cut it out and like the end result?
It is just the wife and I at home and neither one of us have hands small enough to fit inside the neck.

PS: Forget the idea. I just had my wife try to slide her hand inside the throat and she could. The guard will stay

 

[TaperPin]

I would make double sure nobody that will be around the grinder can come close to getting a finger tip in here. As a 14 year old working in a grocery store, I walked around the corner of the meat department and came face to face with the teenage girl using the grinder, missing fingers up to the knuckles. The plunger wasn’t pushing a small piece that was almost into the auger - she pushed her hand in to flick it and it grabbed a fingertip and pulled her fingers in. The auger pulls the fingers off, rather than cutting, and I’ll always remember the tendons hanging off her knuckles. Surgeons had to take her whole hand off.

The guy who delivers saw blades and grinder knives, said the same thing happened to a guy in a different town with the next size up grinder and it took his arm to the shoulder.