Grass-fed: The Traditional Beef

My family comes from a long line of farmers and I remember many days of my childhood that I spent on my grandparents’ family farm.  It was a stereotypical old fashioned farm that was 100 acres where they raised about 20 to 30 beef cattle at a time.  The cattle were free to graze on the open pastures and were fed a diet of grass and hay in the winter. They were only given cow feed, a mixture of ground corn and dried grasses, in the winter or when there was a drought and grass could not grow quick enough to keep up with each cow’s appetite.  When I got to eat the beef produced from the farm I always noticed a significant taste difference between my family’s grass-fed beef and what we could get at the supermarket. 

                     

Unfortunately, in this 1950’s traditional farms like my grandparent’s family farm started disappearing in favor of the larger commercial farms. The industries started mass producing corn and many other products, along with cows. The main difference is that cows on a commercial farm are fed mostly corn all of their lives. Cows need to be fed corn for a small percentage of their diet to get certain nutrients but commercial farms have been feeding cows large amounts of corn makes them grow faster. In a study conducted by Quan Li, Jill McCluskey, Thomas Wahl, and Philip Wandschneider, they state that Cow-calf producers would raise their cattle to a weight of approximately 700 pounds and then sell them to a feedlot, where they would be fed grain until they reached a market weight of approximately 1000 pounds, a procedure commonly referred to as ‘finishing.’ 

Currently in the United States, the vast majority of beef is grain-fed in feedlots for at least 90 days. Factory farms have been using these methods to raise animal fat, and therefore productivity, since the 1950’s.The farms may also keep the cows confined in small places and this obviously make them bigger and meatier, and therefore they can be slaughtered at a younger age and the larger amount of meat makes them more profitable to the meat processing companies. This practice takes a serious toll on their health, especially when they are not allowed to graze out on pastures and get exercise. Corn also has a large impact on how the cow’s digestive system processes the food and how the overall health of the cow is impacted. When fed large amounts of corn e-coli cells are created in the process of the digestive system trying to break down the corn and grain. E-coli can sometimes make it to the consumer and cause food poisoning. The other health problem with corn-fed beef is that since they are mostly fed corn, the cows don’t get to graze so they don’t get any exercise. 

                                                        

            Because of these health problems and the high price of corn, most of the other countries in the world that raise cows feed them grass instead of corn because of all the benefits of using grass such as better quality of meat. These countries also still raise cows on grass because it’s a tradition and has been used as long as cows have been raised. Many people who are looking to lose weight benefit from eating grass-fed beef. An article written by Jo Johnson states that if you eat a typical amount of beef (66.5 pounds a year), switching to grass-fed beef will save you 17,733 calories a year—without requiring any willpower or change in eating habits.  If everything else in your diet remains constant, you'll lose about six pounds a year.  If all Americans switched to grass-fed meat, our national epidemic of obesity would begin to diminish. High omega-3 acid levels are mostly found in seafood, certain nuts and seeds, and in animals raised on pasture. Grass-fed beef has two to six times more omega-3 fatty acids than does feed-lot beef, a significant difference.

                                                              
                           

How we get people to start eating more grass-fed beef? The first problem for the consumer is cost. Many people will pay a premium for better tasting beef, but others on a tight budget will most likely still go for the cheaper food. One of the ways many consumers cut down the cost is that they cut out the middle man, the grocery store. Buying grass-fed beef straight from the farmer will greatly cut down on costs. The more people start buying straight from traditional farms, the more farms will appear because starting a traditional farm is financially justified. Once more farms appear the cost will start going down even more. 

While buying straight from the farm will help, one of the big problems with grass-fed beef is that it cannot produce enough to meet consumer demands. One way to fix this problem would be if consumers reduced food waste. Nearly half of the food produced is wasted. Another fix may be looking at other choices to fill in the deficit left by the lower production numbers of grass-fed beef. A good choice may be venison, or deer meat, which is a lot like beef except much leaner and more plentiful because of the overpopulation of deer. 

 Either way the problem is fixed, the only way that grass-fed beef farms will be able to get started at all is with the help of the consumer. Once traditional farms can survive, they will start appearing more and the quality of beef will increase dramatically.