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

>From: (Nancree)

>When you say "grass-fed" , what is the alternative to that?
> Again, I'm not being argumentative, just really want to know.

I'm sure Michael will respond, but I am offering in the interim some links to
sites that will answer the question you ask.

http://www.americangrassfedbeef.com/...ganic-beef.asp

http://chetday.com/grassfedbeefhoax.htm

http://www.backtonaturebeef.com/Test%20Results.htm

Interesting reading.

Ellen

"Nancree" > wrote in message
...
> 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
>
>

There's nothing to know - it's a matter of preference. Also, I am sure there
is good grass fed beef and bad. There are many appealing aspects to grass
fed beef, particuarly environmental, but that does not necessarily mean it
tastes better! Try for yourself and see what you think.


--
Peter Aitken

Remove the crap from my email address before using.

"SportKite1" > wrote in message
...
> I'm sure Michael will respond, but I am offering in the interim some links
to
> sites that will answer the question you ask.
>
> http://www.americangrassfedbeef.com/...ganic-beef.asp
>
> http://chetday.com/grassfedbeefhoax.htm
>
> http://www.backtonaturebeef.com/Test%20Results.htm
>
> Interesting reading.
>
> Ellen
>
Interesting, thank you. There really is a lot of slippery prose surrounding
exactly what is meant by "grass fed" and "organic". I've been buying what I
hope is grass fed, organic meat for some time for health reasons, (my wife
was having chemo which depressed her immune system) but to be honest I
prefer the taste of grain fed beef. Nonetheless I'll continue with the
"organic"; what goes on in the feed lots sounds pretty horrifying.

Here's Niman Ranch beef site, which grain-feeds their beef. Wondering how this
fits Michael Odom's explanation of grass-fed beef.
Again, I'm not arguing. Just looking for the answer.
Nancree

http://www.nimanranch.com/ourStory/ourBeef.htm

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
>

Well, my guess is that ranchers in Imperial county have to sell what
they have. Given that they live in a desert, natural grass is
probably not in the cards. So they clearly have a need to prosper
based on something other than local native grassland. I doubt that I
would be thrilled at the taste of young beef raised on jimson weed,
chamisa, and sand either. Thankfully, much of the country has other,
and better choices of pasture. If you look, you can find them. Since
we are, beyond doubt, heavily subsidizing the raising of your
rancher's beef in the desert, he could be a bit more gracious, in my
opinion.

The best beef I have ever eaten was raised in western South Dakota, on
natural grass, without a lot of chemical assistance. It was a bit
older than beef is typically sent to market because the owner was not
trying to maximize his profits. It was also dry aged, a process that
would cost the commercial processor a lot and also probably be, at
best, lost on 95% of his buyers.

Second best was in Argentina. Also grass fed.

Still, I do not turn down a good, rare, 2" thick ribeye, even if I do
not know the pedigree.

YMMV,

Cheers,

"Nancree" > wrote in message
...
> 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
>
I grew up eating grass fed beef. My uncle had a farm in Wisconsin. Had
dairy cows. The land was too poor and too far north to grow corn.
Buying corn cost too much. They had free range hogs and chickens too.
The hogs had about a 2 acre pen.

Grocery store meat or even Moose was better than the grass fed beef.
The free range pork was tough.

There is a reason that the growers feed all that corn to the cows.

del cecchi
>

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
>
>


My father-in-law has a small herd of beef cattle (as opposed to dairy
cattle) on a hilltop pasture in Alabama. They follow him around like
puppies when he is up there -- even the bull.

I don't think he feeds them anything but hay and mineral blocks, and
maybe a little molasses. They have plenty of fresh grass to eat. The
steaks he gives us are the best I've ever eaten. They are marbled as
well as any grain-fed beef, with a big rind of fat around the outside
and little flecks of fat throughout the muscle. He has a small herd on
100 acres of land as a hobby. He makes money at it because he has very
little invested in each animal. I don't think pasture feeding really
good beef scales very well to large operations. OTOH, grain is a lot
more nutritionally dense and allows the rancher to maintain a lot more
animals in a small space. (have you ever driven past a feed lot?)

Grain-fed beef is different than pasture-fed beef, but I don't think you
can really say one is better than the other. I do prefer eating beef
that was raised in what I think is a more humane enviroment, but I'm not
really that picky about it.

I believe a lot of beef is raise on pasture, then when the animals get
to the right size are sent to a feed lot for "finishing" (fatten them
up) That's not a bad way to do it if your pasture is not fertile enough
to get the cattle fat.

I used to know this stuff (had a roommate in college that was an ag
major) but that was a long time ago and I'm losing the details...

Best regards,
Bob

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

On Mon, 24 May 2004 00:55:18 -0500, Michael Odom
> wrote:

>
> 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.

I know diddly about raising cattle, but what makes sense to
me is to range feed them to maturity and then finish them
with grain.... but please, not with "protein enhanced"
grain.

My mother used to raise sheep, which meant I got free lamb
every year. It was (and still is) the BEST lamb I've ever
eaten. She let her sheep graze, but they were fed
(unadulterated) alfalfa twice a day too. Unfortunately,
lambs cost her more to raise than she ever got back when she
sold them... and that's why it was a hobby, not a business.



Practice safe eating - always use condiments

On Mon, 24 May 2004 02:59:21 GMT, B.Server
> wrote:

>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
>>
>
>Well, my guess is that ranchers in Imperial county have to sell what
>they have. Given that they live in a desert, natural grass is
>probably not in the cards. So they clearly have a need to prosper
>based on something other than local native grassland. I doubt that I
>would be thrilled at the taste of young beef raised on jimson weed,
>chamisa, and sand either. Thankfully, much of the country has other,
>and better choices of pasture. If you look, you can find them. Since
>we are, beyond doubt, heavily subsidizing the raising of your
>rancher's beef in the desert, he could be a bit more gracious, in my
>opinion.

I know Imperial Valley is a big producer of Sudan grass, so they do
have feed options.

Also if you ever have a chance to get some Imperial sweet onions they
are really good.

I especially like driving through the valley at onion harvesting time,
and also when they start cutting the alfalfa, oh, the smells
m-m-m-m-m-m-



Koko

A Yuman being on the net
(posting from San Diego)