Your own beef-how'd it taste? UPDATE post 139

[moving_to_dc]

But what qualifies you, LauraKY, and others disputing Bluey, that YOU know more than she does??? I am going to ASSume that most of you ONLY know what you read off the 'net, or hear on TV, or read in some non-ag publication. Many of you likely have no idea WHAT it means to raise commercial cattle for the consumer. Bluey is at least involved in the industry - first hand knowledge.

Sometimes it IS better to listen to the producer rather than some person sitting in a cubicle, literally thousands of miles removed from the “source”, who thinks they know it all and is telling the world.

As for me, my family and I (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, EVERYONE) have ALL been educated/hold ag degrees from a major Midwest ag college - Kansas State. We have all worked in this “field” for 5 generations. I think we know how to get it done right.

Those of you that want grass FINISHED - go for it - and buy it from a small local producer, or pay a premium at the grocery store for what is questionably “grass finished”. But there is absolutely positively no way to support the current world population on grass finished alone. There is simply not enough grazing land to support the masses.

Now, if the world got over being a “disposable” society, and didn’t expect every store and restaurant to have endless supplies of every imaginable cut of meat, it might be a different story… But I do not see that day coming any time soon.

Nor do I see Rumensin being banned any time soon.

[LauraKY]

@moving to dc;7705635

But what qualifies you, LauraKY, and others disputing Bluey, that YOU know more than she does??? I am going to ASSume that most of you ONLY know what you read off the 'net, or hear on TV, or read in some non-ag publication. Many of you likely have no idea WHAT it means to raise commercial cattle for the consumer. Bluey is at least involved in the industry - first hand knowledge.

It’s not just about the livestock industry, it’s also about the medical consequences of the abuse of antibiotics. So yes, I’m going to take the advice of the medical community on this issue over the advice of a producer. Absolutely, 100%, I’m going to listen to the CDC about concerns about antibiotic resistance over that of a producer.

As far as grass vs grain finished, that’s the purchaser’s preference and there is no right or wrong. It’s an opinion.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=LauraKY;7705601]
Sure they take advice from those outside the fields of their specialty, but they don’t take it from a hospital tech/nursing assitant who reads industry magazines in their spare time. That’s the appropriate analogy in this situation.[/QUOTE]

That may be so in human medicine, but veterinarians taking care of beef cattle are consulting veterinarians.
They prepare treatment protocols but don’t check the herds daily or several times a day, as necessary, to look for possibly sick animals and treat each individual animal.

Veterinarians train the doctoring crews and supervise by checking the records and listening to what the ones treating have to say very carefully.
Vets do look the different herds/pens over occasionally, read the lab reports from what the doctoring crew send to the labs from blood, fecal, nasal and tracheal samples and from necropsies and that is how they can manage not being hands-on.

Many of those veterinarians would not be any good at picking the just starting to get sick cattle in a larger group.
It takes a trained person to do that consistently.
There are premiums for those cowboys that have herds/pens under their care that do exceptionally well.
Being a veterinarian or a cowboy would not be enough to be good at that, you need to have the experience and talent for that.

That is part of the important differences between human medicine and animal husbandry and taking care of those animals if and when they get sick.
A nurse may not diagnose and medicate the patients under her care.
With beef cattle, a vet is only needed in an individual basis when the caretaker is out of it’s depth, not for every little sniffle or mishap.

There are not enough vets around to treat the millions of such cattle, or pigs or chickens on an individual, every day basis.
Because of that, most caretakers are the ones that are trained to and do the every day diagnosing and medicating, unlike in human medicine, where the doctors are the ones with that responsibility.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=LauraKY;7705665]
It’s not just about the livestock industry, it’s also about the medical consequences of the abuse of antibiotics. So yes, I’m going to take the advice of the medical community on this issue over the advice of a producer. Absolutely, 100%, I’m going to listen to the CDC about concerns about antibiotic resistance over that of a producer.

As far as grass vs grain finished, that’s the purchaser’s preference and there is no right or wrong. It’s an opinion.[/QUOTE]

A doctor adding some perspective to what you question:

http://www.hpj.com/archives/2013/dec13/dec2/1122NIAARaymondDR1PIXsr.cfm#.U-Y6dihiFaU

This is not a simple topic and so you won’t get simple answers to it, sorry.

[cowboymom]

Right now I work at a grain elevator in central Montana; my boss, customers and neighbors are all ranchers raising the beef for the cattle industry. I’ve worked on ranches and for years we had a herd of Black Angus, still have a few cows.

I think there is a market for grass fed and if people want that they should be able to have it.

I think a slaughter house or even a small processor is not a happy place in the world and if someone is able and wants to avoid that for their dinner and their animals, they should be able to do that.

I also think that the industry needs to function for profit and maximum production to feed people and should be able to do that.

I do not think that most people understand the cattle industry, even at its most basic functioning.

None of the thousands of calves around me right now have had a bit of antibiotic unless they were sick when they were young. Nobody around here uses Ralgro or the growth hormones and none of the feed we use here has any abx in it. It’s when they get to the feed lot that that can change. I’m not a fan of the huge feedlots or highly intensive production methods but I think with some basic changes they would be acceptable IMO; that’s my spot on the fence.

[LauraKY]

Bluey, I agree you have a great deal of knowledge when it comes to the raising of beef for the table in the most efficient and least expensive method for the producer.

But we’re approaching the equivalent of a silent spring moment when it comes to the misuse of antibiotics in food animals…and a vet is not qualified to make that determination for humans. That’s all I’m saying. Right now there is a voluntary ban…but a legal ban is coming, I just hope it comes sooner rather than later.

[LauraKY]

Bluey, Dr. Richard Raymond was a rural family physician (not a researcher or infectious disease specialist) and is a shill for the ag industry and the drug industry and was a shill when he worked for the USDA. The CDC and WHO disagrees vehemently with his conclusions.

[TBROCKS]

I’m not a cattle rancher, just a hobby farmer wanting to fill my freezer with home grown beef.
I certainly acknowledge that Bluey and some others have vast knowledge of how big cattle farms are efficiently run and how large scale production farms finish their cattle,
But of course that has nothing at all to do with my situation.
And I stand firm with the rest of the health care industry: use of antibiotics for weight gain is a practice that needs to end.

[cowboymom]

This is a good article on ionophores and how they’re used and how they can be considered an antibiotic but by the same token can eliminate the use of a “true” antibiotic as well reduce the need for excessive feed. In some ways ionophores help the cause of those that are against antibiotic use! Good reading, good article!

http://www.cattletoday.com/archive/2002/November/CT242.shtml

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=LauraKY;7705704]
Bluey, Dr. Richard Raymond was a rural family physician (not a researcher or infectious disease specialist) and is a shill for the ag industry and the drug industry and was a shill when he worked for the USDA. The CDC and WHO disagrees vehemently with his conclusions.[/QUOTE]

That is just the first hit I found, there are many others that I assume even you would not object to.

Here is more:

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/cattle-news/Update-on-FDA-antibiotics-policy-270979061.html

As everyone can see, these topics are not new, is science at work, as it should.
The more is learned, the better management becomes.
The same in human medicine, where some antibiotics now are being restricted more and more, as the need is seen for that.

The process of using what we have responsibly works like that in all we do, not just with antibiotics.

[CrazyGuineaPigLady]

I feel like this thread jinxed me because I had my first dry and bland steak in more than a year a few weeks ago. :lol: Our grill seems to be crapping out so I’ll blame it on that until I know otherwise. Ground from the same farm is still good and I’ve invented some interesting ways to use it in place of steaks and roasts when we need a beef fix.

[WorkingDrive]

I don’t eat a whole lot of meat, but I’ll throw my hat in the ring on this one.

I prefer grain-finished beef. That being said, we also buy all of our meat local. There is a fellow who raises his own beef cattle (Bald-faced Hereford.) If I wanted I could see my steer being born, see him grazing out on quality pasture, and then see him grain-finished. If I really wanted to, I could watch the farmer slaughter and butcher him, wrap parts in paper, and put them in my cooler when I pick them up. No hormones are used to beef them up (pun intended, trying to lighten the thread up,) and I know where the steer was from start to finish.

Contrary to some rural farmers in our area, our fellow practices humane animal husbandry and makes the “trip” to slaughter as painless and relaxed as possible. Not only is it nice to the animal, but when you stress an animal out that you intend to eat, toxins are released which set the meat off.

This man has a USDA approved facility on his property so the cattle get moved from pasture to finishing pen to slaughter barn. The end. There are no transport trucks, no unknowns, etc.

I do not prefer grass-fed. Charlie decided he would try a grass-fed steer since a customer asked for half a steer, but it had to be grass-fed. Charlie had trouble selling parts from the other half because the lean-ness also meant less marbling, the meat was, indeed, tougher (think of a limited fat athlete with a hard body versus a not limited fat layperson with a fluffy body.) I also did not prefer the unable-to-describe flavor of grass-fed beef. If you like wheat grass and a jaw muscle work out, you’d probably like grass-fed beef

[Lady_Eboshi]

Taste is only part of the equation. A lot of us “Paleo” geeks seek out true grass-fed meat not so much for the taste (though I prefer it) but for the fact that like natural game, it has the proper ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 fatty acids that we purportedly evolved to require.

IOW, grass fed beef is giving you more of what you need from meat, and less of what you don’t. Our diet in general today is heavily skewed toward Omega 6, in part precisely because nearly all livestock ingest enormous quantities of corn and soybean products. Too much Omega 6 leads to a chronic low-grade inflammatory state in the body, which has been implicated as associated with the increase in the metabolic-related cluster of diseases (autoimmune, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc.)

To me, Omega 3 rich fat just tastes completely and totally different; best way to describe it is like silk on your tongue! The commercial stuff I can just about choke down. I go with the poster a few pages ago who says finish one cow on grass, the other on grain and see which you prefer this time!

[danceronice]

From a cooking perspective, I like the chicken breast/chicken thigh analogy. I’ve never paid attention to the beef I buy and I doubt I’ll start, but if grass fed=chicken breast analogy is accurate, good to know I won’t like it. The breast is bland and needs lots of help to taste good, the thigh and leg don’t.

And yellow, rancid-smelling/tasting fat is something in the storage or processing unless they got into something really weird to eat. I’d probably not eat it at all.

(All I’ll get into on the antibiotics is I worry far less about ag antibiotics than I do about doctors prescribing them for everything–I know far too many people who want them for any head cold whether they’ve been cultured to see if it’s bacterial or not and are given them, and I had the hospital want me on freakin’ CIPRO for stepping on a nail. All I wanted was a tetanus shot, which I did get. Insult to injury, I told them I don’t handle it well at all, they wrote it anyway, and sure enough, two days in the side effects were bad enough I quit taking it. From now on unless I’m running an actual fever that won’t drop or have a serious infection I’m just not filling the scrip.)

[Foxtrot_s]

We have raised beef, but not on a commercial scale. As much as being grass fed or grain finished, whether medicated or on steroids, it is the age, the breed, the timing, the butchering, the ageing, skill is required at every stage…and then the cooking…mmmm.

I took out a bison steak for tonight, actually.

[Aces_N_Eights]

Staying on the original topic, there are other factors other than just grass vs. grain finished beef. (grain rationed fed beef is usually to clean the beef in a finishing yard as many feedlots feed a variety of things for gain, like carrots, potatoes, sugar beets, etc that change the flavor and color of beef)

AGING. Hardly any one hangs and ages beef anymore especially the tasteless beef that you get in the grocery store! Living on a good sized ranch we don’t buy our beef we slaughter our own, sometimes it is a older cow or a nice young steer, finishing is matter of cleaning the meat and help marble. Hanging and aging makes a difference in the flavor.

Also any one that has butchered any animal that had been killed or died while it was wound up or on the muscle is something horrible no matter the age, breed, or ration it was on. Gamey and tough, blech!

[foggybok]

Here is Mr Moo, grass fed, hormone free and tasty as can be…

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/386439_355288791153796_654836034_n.jpg?oh=7ad3d6e4e9e6b5e9a2152c20fee9d991&oe=54C23D38&gda=1417892742_5b589dd51495590cce32da9be9a3e880

his major disadvantage was his breed, he was a Holstein. but he actually finished quite nicely…

His fat tended towards yellow, and that is typical of grass fed or older cattle… the marrow fat was quite yellow (and the marrow was delicious!)

It does taste different, stronger than grain finished.

he was quite tender, and even the poor cuts cooked up nice in a nice slow roast…

The only bad thing about him was that some of the short ribs had a rumeny taste/smell. I think that was due to the way he was processed…

As posted above, breed, age, diet, processing and packing all lay into the taste

[TBROCKS]

[QUOTE=Aces N Eights;7770801]
Staying on the original topic, there are other factors other than just grass vs. grain finished beef. (grain rationed fed beef is usually to clean the beef in a finishing yard as many feedlots feed a variety of things for gain, like carrots, potatoes, sugar beets, etc that change the flavor and color of beef)

AGING. Hardly any one hangs and ages beef anymore especially the tasteless beef that you get in the grocery store! Living on a good sized ranch we don’t buy our beef we slaughter our own, sometimes it is a older cow or a nice young steer, finishing is matter of cleaning the meat and help marble. Hanging and aging makes a difference in the flavor.

Also any one that has butchered any animal that had been killed or died while it was wound up or on the muscle is something horrible no matter the age, breed, or ration it was on. Gamey and tough, blech![/QUOTE]

Butcher day is scheduled for this week. And yes, our processor does indeed age.

[TBROCKS]

Resurrecting this to let everyone know the beef is DELICIOUS! Tender, rich, flavorful, everything I was hoping for. Wonderful marbling, too. The fat is white, not yellow. The only problem is good lord, there’s so much of it! I didn’t have a reference point for how much beef 300lb actually looks like in a freezer and holy cow. Anyway, once we go through it all, we’re going to do it again.

[SmartAlex]

Great update!

Yeah, that’s what I hate about getting a side of beef… I get so tired of trying to think up ways to use beef. And that’s after I give my mother the tongue, the heart, the tail and half the liver… :lol: