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M.Odom-grain-fed beef better than grass-fed ?
On 23 May 2004 23:09:18 GMT, (Nancree) wrote:
>To Michael Odom et al:
>About grass-fed beef you said:
>
>"D and I had friends over for dinner last night. I grilled T-bone
>steaks. We got a quarter of a grass-fed steer last week from our egg
>lady. It's wonderful. Everybody should get some grass-fed beef."
>
>I'm not making any pronouncements here, but I had always heard, from experts,
>that Grain-fed is much better than Grass-fed beef. The experts I refer to are
>major ranchers in Imperial County, California. We visited them, and their ranch
>is huge, don't know how many square miles, but we drove many miles to get
>there. It is big enough to have it's own grass landing-strip and hangar for
>their plane. They serve whole beef roasts the way you and I would serve
>hamburgers. They refuse to eat grass-fed beef because of the flavor. This is
>their business. They have hundreds and hundreds of cattle.
> They are "real" ranchers, to put it mildly. I would like to hear from you on
>this , Michael. When you say "grass-fed" , what is the alternative to that?
> Again, I'm not being argumentative, just really want to know.
> Nancree
>
Aside from a couple of ad hominems (circumstantial) there have been
some reasonable responses to your query, which I take in the best
spirit.
I'm far from any kind of expert on the topic, but from what I've read,
I think the bovine digestive system did not evolve to consume large
quantities of corn. It makes their gut ulcerate, in sufficient
quantities, which leads to the habitual use of antibiotics. And
that's a bad idea for the rest of us since it culls the bacterial herd
(so to speak) and makes resistant infectious strains more likely.
Also, the corn fed to cattle in the USA is usually fertilized with
petroleum-derived chemicals. As one writer has pointed out, grain
feeding replaces a solar nutritional system with a fossil fuel system.
Perhaps this is mistaken, I'm not sure.
There are real economic reasons for feeding grain to cattle, though.
It's a less expensive way to raise them and finish them, and everybody
wants more for their dollar. Factory farming on the scale of some of
today's big beef producers would not be possible without grain feeding
the animals. You get more calories per ton of grain than you do with
hay. I've read that it simply wouldn't be possible to haul enough hay
to a big feedlot to replace the caloric intake a diet of corn
provides. Corn has more energy in it, regardless of the animal's gut.
Cheap beef demands such measures.
However, I live in a tiny town in Texas where there are alternatives
to factory farmed meat. It's one of the few benefits I enjoy in this
benighted location. I buy free range eggs from a decent family who
live outside town. I can get free range chickens from another family
hereabouts. The eggs and chicken are very flavorful. The yolks of
the eggs are nearly orange and taste richer than factory eggs.
I've eaten pastured chicken, pork, lamb and beef from local producers,
and I prefer the flavor of the locally pastured stuff to factory
product in every case. In the end it's a matter of flavor. So far,
my grass-fed beef tastes better -- stronger, a little wilder, beefier
-- than the beef I've had from the local market. It reminds me of the
meat I've had in Europe. Some people might not like that taste, but I
do.
modom
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