I’ve been hearing a lot lately about grass fed beef. Apparently most cattle in this is fed corn and it’s bad for the cattle and bad for us. IIRC, corn is a type of grass, so isn’t all cattle grass fed?
Grain is only a small portion of the plant. Grass fed means grazing on live grass, on open ranges. It also means much less fat content. And while some think that will make the folks who eat the meat healthier, it doesn’t really make much difference to the cattle, who are going to die either way.
However, if you raise buffalo on grass, you can provide meat with less intensive methods, since buffalo are more able to convert rough food sources than cows.
Tris
If I can recall what I read in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, corn is not natural food for cattle, and in fact, makes them sick. They’re given medicine to force them to accept the corn, but in reality, they are grass-eaters.
Someone with a more elegant and knowledgeable grasp on the issues will, I hope, expand on this.
I think it’s kind of strange that this “grass fed” distinction is what it is, kind of like it’s some special new organic technique for raising cattle or something.
Regular folks who raise cattle (in areas where grass is of sufficient abundance) have grass-fed, fairly free-roaming cattle, and they just get grain as a supplement, or just a while before butchering (sorry, grain does make the meat more tender and flavorful!).
It’s the big feedlots that are confining them and stuffing them with grain and antibiotics, etc. that have given us cheap hamburger at a greater hidden cost.
Sure, I’ll expand on it. It’s nearly completely false. I suppose you could make a case for corn not being a “natural” food for cattle, given that it’s a New World plant and cows are Old World animals, but that’s about it. You certainly don’t need to do anything to convince them to eat it.
The antibiotics that feedlot animals are pumped full of are purely to prevent infectious diseases, which would be devastating in the crowded feedlots. I do believe there are all manner of regulations with regards to how long after an injection you have to wait before animals are slaughtered, etc. The graver danger here is developing antibiotic-resistant bovine diseases.
What can potentially make the cows sick has nothing to do with corn, but has to do with insufficient fiber in their diet. They’re ruminants, they are supposed to have lots of plant fiber rotting in their guts forming cud to chew, and methane to fart. Purely grain-fed cows can develop issues because of this. But any feedlot is going to be feeding supplements besides the corn, if they’re not feeding hay. Think about it. Their business depends on animals gaining weight at the best possible rate. Unhealthy animals will not pack on the pounds. It’s in nobody’s interest to have a lot full of cows with health problems. The cows are going to be fed according to the best current nutritional science, although granted that nutrition will be delivered at the lowest possible cost. That is capitalism in action.
Oy. This again.
There is no such thing as a cow raised on grain.
All cows are raised on grass. They spend the majority of their lives in pastures or on open range, grazing (with maybe an occasional molasses-and-grain range cube or some cracked corn as a supplement).
Only at the end of their lives are cows rounded up, put in fattening pens (or taken to feed lots) and fed a grain-heavy diet in anticipation of slaughter. (The reason for this is to add some fat to the meat, which tenderizes it. That’s why you look for “marbled” meat - meat with streaks of fat in it - in the supermarket.)
It would be wildly expensive (and unprofitable) to try to raise a cow exclusively on grain.
At 600 pounds, or 6 months of age, give or take, most beeves are weaned, put in feedlots and kept there until they reach slaughter weight at about 14 - 16 months.
Here is an interesting article:
Rancher selling grass fed beef
I think that I am going to need a cite for that. I have driven though a good chunk of the Western US, and I have seen a lot of cows and steers that look to be at least 1000 lbs casually munching on the grass.
It’s just marketing. Note the actual distinction is that he’s selling grass-finished beef, meaning that (as with all other cows) his are raised on grass but (unlike other cows) they aren’t rounded up and fattened on grain before slaughter. Just keeps feeding them grass. That’s going to be some pretty tough beef.
The fun part of this marketing strategy is that he not only saves himself the cost of feeding his cattle grain, but I’ll bet “Grass Fed!” beef sells for a ridiculously higher price than other beef at your local Whole Foods. There’s a sucker born every minute.
I love the rancher’s spin on the toughness of grass-finished beef:
<== Here’s what you’ll look like trying to chew that jerky.
Actually if you buy the whole cow it isn’t too bad. They are quoting $582/lb. for 320-380 lbs. Assuming this beef is choice or better, that is a pretty good deal.
The individual cuts are way more expensive, along the lines of what you will pay for grass fed beef at Whole Paycheck.
The gravest danger this poses is the dramatic increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria in the environment, and the increase in antibiotic resistant human pathogens. Scientists have been warning against the misuse of antibiotics since antibiotics were discovered, but farmers are still pumping 80% of the antibiotics used in the US into cows that are not sick.
We bought an eighth of a carcass of grass fed (locally raised/slaughtered) beef last year, and while definitely less marbled than I would look for in a store, the cuts were (on average) as tender as any corn finished you can get around here in a supermarket. The cost: we paid $4.70/lb for the meat - a quarter to a third was hambuger, with the rest split between steaks and roasts. Of course, this was purchased directly from the rancher, but more and more around here are doing that (there’s been a big ‘local foods’ movement in this area the past decade).
I’m going to need some help on this, and I beg your patience with my thin material. A few years ago, after one of the big E. coli ground beef recalls, a TV news show spoke of a possible way to get away from our E. coli problems. It had to do with feeding cattle hay instead of grain in their last couple of weeks.
A little background: Of the many E. coli strains found in cattle, only one or two strains will make humans sick. Also, E. coli is found only in the gut and the poop of the beast. In the quick disassembly of a carcass, there’s a balance between speed and the care needed to neatly separate the poopy part from the meaty part. That’s where contamination happens.
Now, according to the news story, the poopy parts of two batches of slaughtered cattle were tested for the presence of the dangerous strain of E. coli. That strain was plentiful in the grain-finished cattle, and nearly absent in the hay-finished cattle. Note the “nearly.” Various bacteria compete in the gut for dominance. The bad strain was only able to thrive and flourish on an all grain diet, they said.
Now, does any of this ring a bell with you folks who, unlike me, know a lot about cattle, bacteria, and/or meat? Is there someting to it, or is it, uh, bullshit?
$221,160 for the whole cow? I’m in the wrong business.
Just for some background, on the whole corn-fed cow thing, Michael Pollan gives an overview of the life of your typical modern Black Angus beef:
So, born March 13, weaned in October. In November, the beef is in a pen (not yet at the feedlot) each day eating six pounds of corn mixed with seven pounds of ground alfalfa hay, soon switched to 14 pounds of corn and 6 pounds of hay. January 4, it goes to Kansas (the feedlot), where it is fed 32 pounds of feed (25 of them corn) every day. In June, it is slaughtered at 14 months of age, having spent almost its entire non-nursing life, maybe with the exception of a couple of weeks in October immediately after weaning, eating a diet that is more corn than not (by weight).
And Asknott, there’s this:
:smack: I forgot the decimal point. $5**.**82
Better?
Interesting article, toadspittle. If the picture presented there is typical of today’s beef production (and I would like to see statistics confirming that), the industry has changed since I knew it as a lad.
That article makes me think of my dad. He was a hard man in a lot of ways, and not one to be overly sentimental about the animals he was raising. But even he refused to eat veal, on the principle that a calf should be allowed to grow to adulthood in the open air of a pasture. Dad is gone, but I’m sure he wouldn’t approve of a straight-to-the-feedlot system. I don’t either.
On the other hand, there should be a happy medium between the feedlot model and the “grass-finished” model. There should be a model in which growth hormones are eliminated, cattle are raised to maturity on grass (as they typically were when my family was farming) and then fattened on corn for a few weeks before slaughter. It should not be a stark choice between “grass only” and “corn-fed beef mill.”
Having said all that, it should be borne in mind that even in the system described in the article, not all calves are going straight to the feedlot. Those are primarily males, with the females (or large portion of them) and a few bulls being raised to adulthood in pastures and kept as breeding stock. Many cows (females, mostly) live to decrepitude in pastures.
My grandmother had a very small farm (actually more farmlike) with two cows, two pigs, a horse and a lot of chicken. I was always surprised by what the animals ate. For instance she was in Texas and we had ant mounds and the cows used to graze but they would always go out to the ant mounds and eat the ants. I guess they liked the protein. The cows were fed hay too. I think a lot of bascially herbivores will eat insects too if given the opportunity. The chickens clearly perferred worms to their chicken feed.
It doesn’t make them carnivores really, but I think when we try to control animal’s natural diets that it’s hard to. As for cows, they will eat corn without being forced. Cows just put anything in their mouth and then spit out what they don’t like. At least these cows did and as animals go they had a pretty good life. The cows were for milk until they got too old then Granny made pot pies out of them.
Cows love corn. Just so we’re clear on that point. 
Mmm! Fire-ant milk! 