Advantages of Grass Fed Beef
Many of you are ordering from Bastrop Cattle Company for the first time, and for several it is your first taste of grass fed beef. It definitely tastes different from the feedlot beef sold in the grocery store. There are a number of reasons for this - and they are all good reasons!
Sarah amidst the bountiful spring grass
Grass is what cattle eat naturally. It is the optimal food for their bodies and their digestive systems. I often marvel at cows. They eat something that the vast majority of mammals on the planet cannot. Grass is pretty much worthless to anyone who doesn’t have the digestive system to handle it. But cows basically take sunlight and turn it into calories. Along the way, they do us some favors.
All the nutrition that they pull out of grass - the vitamins and minerals - is passed on to us. This is not the case with feedlot fed beef. The feeds used in the feedlots (crushed corn, soy, and an amalgamation of things you don’t want to know about) don’t impart the vital vitamins and minerals found in grass. And whatever is carried in the animals with them into the feedlots is usually lost by the time they are moved onto the processing plants. Think couch potatoes on steroids.
Grass eating cows are higher in omega-3 fatty acids - about twice as high as the amount found in grain fed beef. These omega-3s are predominantly alpha-linolenic acid. You will receive more omega-3s from eating salmon, but grass eating cows are certainly more nutritious. And, and it is a big and - grass fed beef has no antibiotics, steroids or growth enhancers.
There is one more thing to consider. With all that cows do for us, we need to do something for them. Cows deserve to live with respect and comfort. Big pastures of grass that allow them to roam and move is the least we can give them. Feedlots are constructed to limit movement. The idea behind feedlotting is to put close to 500 pounds on a steer or heifer in 120 days or less. Running and jumping is not conducive to weight gain. Grain feeding forces fast weight gain, but is it really humane to force an animal to eat something it would not naturally eat in a confined area?
We have a symbiotic relationship with our domesticated animals. This entails an obligation on our part to them, and to the land they graze on. They deserve a good, healthy and happy life right up to that one last day. They deserve my respect and appreciation, and my obligation.
One last thought. The thing I love about grass fed is when you eat it, you are tasting meat. Real meat. So much of the meat in the stores is like the mass produced vegetables - no taste. You can season feedlot beef, but most of the time, you are tasting all the fat. Fat is easy to season, but it masks what you are really eating. Grass fed animals roam as they eat. Movement makes flavor. Health makes flavor. Happy animals, eating what they are supposed to eat have a wonderful flavor - like a vine ripened tomato!
-Pati Jacobs
Owner, Bastrop Cattle Company
Sources:
A review of fatty acid profiles and antioxidant content in grass-fed and grain-fed beef
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2846864/