OT Speaking of butchering.....and heart problems

Seeing as how there questions about butchering and a post about heart problems.......this is from a fow news artical....

Joel Salatin is co-owner of Polyface Farms and author of half a dozen books on sustainable farming.

The problem: Cattle evolved to eat grass, not grains. But farmers today feed their animals corn and soybeans, which fatten up the animals faster for slaughter. But more money for cattle farmers (and lower prices at the grocery store) means a lot less nutrition for us. A recent comprehensive study conducted by the USDA and researchers from Clemson University found that compared with corn-fed beef, grass-fed beef is higher in beta-carotene, vitamin E, omega-3s, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), calcium, magnesium, and potassium; lower in inflammatory omega-6s; and lower in saturated fats that have been linked to heart disease. "We need to respect the fact that cows are herbivores, and that does not mean feeding them corn and chicken manure," says Salatin.

The solution: Buy grass-fed beef, which can be found at specialty grocers, farmers' markets, and nationally at Whole Foods. It's usually labeled because it demands a premium, but if you don't see it, ask your butcher.

Budget tip: Cuts on the bone are cheaper because processors charge extra for deboning. You can also buy direct from a local farmer, which can be as cheap as $5 per pound. To find a farmer near you, search eatwild.com.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/12/01/7-foods-should-never-eat/#ixzz1fo1THQ1k


Rick

So.....the two subjects are related because stuff like that attacking the way I make a living is going to give me a heart attack some day then?

Don't know but could be......I'm not taking sides on this here, I do feed my beef a little grain but only about 1 pound a day per animal. They come for the treat and that makes it easy to watch em for a few minutes.

There is good money in grass fed and market demand is going up because of studies like the one mentioned in the artical.

Now if the studies are correct....whats that say about a guy who is all about the money with little or no reguard about putting out a safe product or peoples health?

Rick

I'm in the cattle business, but for my own use, I eat only grassfed beef. I had a heart attack two years ago and have been going to a naturopath ever since.

He told me the opposite of what the cardiologist told me and that is that we need the protein and other compounds found in meat, but to eat only grassfed beef to maximize the good stuff and minimize the bad. The cardiologist said to stay away from beef completely or it will kill me.

Hard to be a beef producer and not be able to eat your own produce but grassfed seems like a good trade off. Lucky for me, I have the option and can raise the critter myself.

I have my reservations about the matter. First corn is eaten by herbivores. Corn is eaten by vegitarians for crying out loud, so how can eating beef that differs only from "Healthy Beef" in that it also contains corn in any way less healthy? Corn is healthy eating, even without the beef. If there is a health issue with any beef, I have serious doubts that it would be corn!

The way I see it,it's propoganda put out by the animal rights nuts who want an end to animal agriculture entirely. And how do you do that? A little at a time. You start by raising the price out of sight and cutting supply by at least half by requiring at least twice the acres to finish an animal. In time,you wean Americans off meat. Throw in the wackjobs who think that some so called "monoculture" of corn and beans to feed livestock is destroying the planet and you get a bunch of nuts getting my blood pressure up.

Ridge, my friend, I raised goats, and plan to do so in the near future. I fed them corn. Corn is all natural. Am I missing something, because I feel corn is about as healthy a food there is, for man or beast?

I really do respect you folks, but, with all the drugs that some farms use in their beef, do any of you really think that corn is a problem?

I don't have anything against grass-fed beef. But I'm a little cautious of the source of that information; the Fox article is actually a reprint from the Rodale Press magazine "Prevention". Recall that Rodale was the guy who said "I'm gonna live to be a 100" and then dropped dead on the Dick Cavett Show.

And they kind of don't mention that corn is a grass (yea, I know they're talking about grain vs. forage, but still...)
Corn taxonomy

Then let's consider that corn is technically a grass plant. And when you study up on this whole "grass fed" crap,you'll find that these wack jobs feed corn silage. Somehow,that's OK,but when you remove the cob from the plant,grind it up and feed it to them that way,you're defying nature,poisoning the entire population and destroying the planet.

As far as your comment about antibiotics,dammed if you ain't gettin my dander up now. Do you know what it costs to pull an animal from the herd and treat it even once,much less over and over? Just more lies from the HSUS types.

Grassfed is good Deer and goat meat is better because neither will marble no fat in the meat at all.I eat mostly deer meat because its healthy and its Free except for the $1 or so for a bullet.Actually guys that hunt my place give me all I can use which is at least one chest freezer full a year,wife makes burger,roasts and cube steak.BTW I've known Joel Salatin since he was a teenager,smart fellow.

OH boy I wasn't trying to stir up anything like this but was only trying to share the news artical......but

1 Corn is not a vegetable it is a grain, look it up.

2 We have been told by years that corn fed beef is better by beef producers and meat packers who are interested if growing their animals a fast as possible to maximize their [b:fc40357b1f]profits[/b:fc40357b1f]. Kinda in the same boat as the pro GMO crowd. Grain fed cows is kinda new.....people didn't grain animals very much until after the very early 1900s. While cows and other critters will eat grain they did not do so for many centuries because the grains were just not there. They evolved as mentioned a herbivores eating grass and leaves like most other herbivores.

3 With as many universities that have conducted studies on this and reached the same conclusions that are not saying don't eat meat but eat meat that is healthier for you I fail to see how the animal rights crew involved, they want the studies to say meat is bad for you don't eat it. These studies are saying that grass fed is better for you. [b:fc40357b1f]Where are the studies saying that grain fed is a healthier product?[/b:fc40357b1f]

Rick

RR, my dad use to watch a show called Manswers, which linked hormones giving to cattle to an increase on average of one cup size in women over twenty years. As a straight man, I can't argue that is all bad, either. I can say that corn can't be what's wrong with beef. I'm actually with the beef industry in my suspicions that the government and special interest are trying to make hay out of manure. I do have my suspicions against the beef industry, also. Mainly in the manner in which toxins are addressed. Ever noticed that every epidemic of food posin, such as seminallia, results in some veggie or produce being recalled? None of these posions are carried in vegitables etc. I think the meat producers are behind the constant recalls of pepper, peanuts, tomatoes etc for being contaminated. I doubt that every single seminalla case is from the stuff that doesn't carry it. On the issue of wheter corn is a problem in the beef, I think that commercial beef growers are being unfairly maligned.

I grew up on deer, elk and grassfat beef, it's good, I 've been a full time cattle rancher for the past 30 years.
But I want my beef grain fed,I love those thick fat steaks, yuuummmm good.
P.S. Daughter and son-in-law have a feed-lot.

(quoted from post at 18:32:18 12/06/11) Then let's consider that corn is technically a grass plant. And when you study up on this whole "grass fed" crap,you'll find that these wack jobs feed corn silage. Somehow,that's OK,but when you remove the cob from the plant,grind it up and feed it to them that way,you're defying nature,poisoning the entire population and destroying the planet.

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Once corn is shelled it's a grain just like wheat, rye and oats. It isn't that corn is bad for em it's the fats the animals grow from eating corn thats bad for humans. And no problems with the meds in animals as long as it's not steroids and the animal is held back long enough for the meds to clear their systems. That the basic difference between sustainable farming and organic. Sustainable means that if you have to treat an animal you can. Just like you can if there is no other way spray weeds, you just try to minimize it. Animals on pasture not feedlots, free range animals too.

Rick

I am in the group that feels anti-bios and artificial growth hormones are much more suspect than "anything grown from earth".
Beef full of drugs probably isn't healthy regardless what it's fed.
All that is assuming beef is bought. I feel much better growing it myself be it grass fed or grain fed.
Don't be fooled by food labeled all natrual,organic,or a host of other catchy words. Greedy marketers will try anything to sale thier product at inflated prices.

i raise my cattle on pasture and hay when i can but during the drought i been feeding them anything that'll hold still long enuff for them to chew on...its been my experience that grassfat cattle will hold their weight better in trying times than grainfed will...i got ahold of some cottonseed hull cubes awhile back and they were rated at 41% protien...sure made them rib lines vanish in a hurry but came back soon after cubes ran out.

You'd better get more source for your whole "hormone" thing than some stupid TV show. First off,steers are the only ones to receive HORMONES,and then it's not automatic. The implant is a one time thing. It's estrogen because when you castrate a bull,they stop producing testosterone,so they grow slower. Using the estrogen implant get's growth back somewhere near normal. It's a single implant,which is about half the size of a pencil eraser,is hard as a rock and is placed between the skin and cartilage of the ear,is good for 400 days,which is longer than it takes to finish a steer anyway.
Now here's where you're totally misinformed and where I can't remember the numbers,but you would have to eat some tens of thousands of pounds of steer beef from implanted animals to get the same amount of estrogen that a woman gets from a single birth control pill. Now add in the fact that soybeans contain estrogen,and the anti meat crowd is all for eating the he11 out of them,you can see my frustration with all the misinformed garbage circulating out there.

You can look at it this way too. As more people are told lean meats only or become concerned with what they are eating and thier health, demand for grain raise beef will go down and demand for grass raised will go up. Where is that going to put you 10 or 15 years down the road?


And I'm not claiming that the studies are 100% correct. But any business to include farming has to be flexible to meet customer demand. Go and research different studies from different colleges and med schools. Maybe it's time to start thinking instead of not wanting anything to change. Cause the world is changing, always has, always will.

Some other studies say don't eat margarine, eat real butter. Don't use hydrogenated oils or Crisco, that limited lard is better for you or olive oil. New studies are telling the vegans that not eating meat isn't healthy and they are citing retarded physical growth and weak bones as examples of an all veggie diet.

All these newer studies are saying is that some farming practices are not necessarily good for the consumer, only good for the agri businesses and farmers pockets.

Rick

Alright Oldtanker, I could see where in theory corn could make for a fater cow, but do you feel that the difference makes the corn fed cow appriciably less healthy than one that doesn't eat corn? In my opinion the difference is marginal. By nature beef from cows is fattier than from deer or even goats. I don't see how raising cows without corn will result in beef that is comparatively lean with animals like deer or goats.

Bob it's not that the cow isn't healthy.....it's the extra fats in the meat that isn't so healthy for humans. Go look up the UMD studies on the amounts and types of fats from grain fed to grass fed. Also look at the studies in proteins and fats on both pasture raise and feed lot beef both being fed grain.

Rick

RRlund, First, I think you & I are on the same side. I think we both are saying that corn fed beef can't be a problem. I read some of your post that weren't to me, and you don't seem to be arguing against corn, and neither am I. Second, I only mentioned the television show for levity. Of course that show isn't some scientific research. On that note, Ild think the hormones would be more prevalent in dairy than beef, but that's not part of this, anyway. Thirdly, no other med that animals recieve should come up as problems. I would think, though, I don't know if it is required, a period of time should follow a medication that would allow the drug to have passed through the animal, anyway. I don't know if slaughterhouses use animals immediately after they recieve a medication that would appear in the meat, hence, other than hormones, I can't imagine how any other medicine would impact the quality of meat. Fourthly, I'm not sure I understand why you suggest that silage is a bad thing. Could you elaborate on that?

We are agreed on the corn is not bad, right?

Around here hunters see to it that the deer are corn fed. Guess that would make deer meat not so good for human consumption.

(quoted from post at 19:34:55 12/06/11) Around here hunters see to it that the deer are corn fed. Guess that would make deer meat not so good for human consumption.

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Don't know, deer I think are far more active than cows so may burn off some of it rather than turning it into fat. I've gutted more than one deer with a belly full of corn but have yet to see marbled deer meat. Besides that deer are eating corn for what? A month or so a year where cows are fed corn from weaning to butcher.

Rick

Corn is a grass.

Yes but the seed of that grass becomes a grain called corn. The plant itself is a grass.

Rick

Wow!! What made you think this was a good idea?? To quote Larry the Cable Guy; "That's like yelling WalMart sucks in a trailer court!!"

If you want to eat grass fed beef and enjoy it, more power to ya. My buddy that feeds steers has a pasture he calls Ft Knox. It's where he makes all his money selling grass fed freezer beef.

His freezer and ours are full of the corn fed beef he raises on a larger scale.

It's all a matter of preference or desire, if you want it to taste better, it will.

All I know is, I like them corn fed.

Eat less beef and more deer.

jimmy

The fat is still not intertwined in the meat so it wouldn't matter

This is a debate that will get more "air time" as the years go by and the more studies are done on this subject.

There is a difference in grain fed vs grass fed in the finished animal. The grass fed animal (keep in mind this is how they were fed 100 years ago out on the prairie) will have a more yellow fat on its carcass than the grain fed beef. That is the omega three fatty acids (the ones that are good for you) and beta carotene because of what the animal has eaten. The grain fed beef carcass will have a much whiter fat. Grain fed beef will gain weight faster. There is no doubt about it.

The real problem for me in the grain vs grass is what is in the feed? (Dabes alluded to this down below). It is just what is in the grain or grass being fed to the animal? There are many studies out now that directly link the chemicals being sprayed onto our crops (including grass and corn) to ADHD in our children and type 2 diabetes in adults.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/05/17/pesticides.adhd/index.html

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2008/2008-01-25-04.html

I mean think about it. If you spray something onto the plant and it gets absorbed by the soil or the plant, it ends up in the plant and eventually in the animal and the person eating the plant or animal.

Whatever you choose to eat is up to you. You can eat just candy the rest of your life if you like, or you can attempt to eat healthy.

oops double post. sorry

Tim how so? I'm not saying meat is bad don't eat meat on a farm related board.....I'm saying you can grow, sell or consume meat that is better for you by simply changing how your meat is fed. I'm on a diet from my doctor, older guy, not for heart issues but to drop about 30 pounds so I can get a new knee (I'm 6'5" 280, he wants me under 250). His instructions "you can eat all of the lean meat you want and veggies, cut out the patatos, noodles and bread".


Traditional farmer.....not intertwined? There is no marbeling visable in my pasture raised grass fed beef with a little grain treat animals. Yet the beef I see in stores has visable marbeling.....and yer going to tell me that isn't fat?

But I can see that there are some people here who have yelled in the past about companies not caring about the consumer, only bottom line.....well some of this stuff is supported by multiple studies from different colleges and universaties.....maybe it's time to prove that we do care about what we are sending to market and are not like others....not saying change or fight change.....instead of watching "trick my what" and "Harvest" spend a little time looking at the research and make up your own mind.

Rick

I'm not saying silage is a bad thing. It's about 50-60% of the diet in my feedlot. I'm talking about the hypocrocy of the grass fed crowd. The grain from the whole plant harvest is in the silage. I don't get why these nut jobs think that's different than feeding the grain seperate. I mix my grain and silage and feed it in the bunk. What would the difference be if I had just chopped corn with a higher grain content? Or if some grass fed nut did?
As far as the dairy thing,that does seem to be where a higher percent of antibiotic positives come from. There was a huge flap right near here just a month or two ago over that. A 10,000 cow herd was shipping a lot of positive cows. The State came down hard on them over it. They complained that they would have had to have hired a dozen full time vets to rectify the situation. Well.....seems to me they've surpassed their management ability. The law is the law and there are withdrawl periods on these drugs that have to be followed and observed. I don't feel the least bit sorry for them. They're in over their heads and need to get their act together. They're hurting the reputation of MY product that I make a living from.

(quoted from post at 08:46:10 12/07/11) I'm not saying silage is a bad thing. It's about 50-60% of the diet in my feedlot. I'm talking about the hypocrocy of the grass fed crowd. The grain from the whole plant harvest is in the silage. I don't get why these nut jobs think that's different than feeding the grain seperate. I mix my grain and silage and feed it in the bunk. What would the difference be if I had just chopped corn with a higher grain content? Or if some grass fed nut did?
As far as the dairy thing,that does seem to be where a higher percent of antibiotic positives come from. There was a huge flap right near here just a month or two ago over that. A 10,000 cow herd was shipping a lot of positive cows. The State came down hard on them over it. They complained that they would have had to have hired a dozen full time vets to rectify the situation. Well.....seems to me they've surpassed their management ability. The law is the law and there are withdrawl periods on these drugs that have to be followed and observed. I don't feel the least bit sorry for them. They're in over their heads and need to get their act together. They're hurting the reputation of MY product that I make a living from.

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Maybe you should read the studies, ream more than one, could be you could put out a better product???? There is more and more about this stuff in the news so people are becoming aware of it. It will affect future markets if it stays in the news. That's going to affect your bottom line. Part of the loop holes built into the laws on grass and pasture fed is that it only has to be for 30 days each. Those loopholes were put in there just for the big growers and feedlot operations. The folks doing true grass fed and pasture raised are working hard to close those loopholes right now.

Rick

let me give you sort of a background on the grass vs corn fed deal. Grass fed beef was the norm for many many years, and in fact was what created the industry in the US.And you have to remember the US is the main consumer of beef ,goat or sheep are the primary sources of protein in most of the world even today.Cattle from the west raised on native grass were shipped east by the jillions. These were very often the old longhorned breeds. And were not sold at the railheads so much by the pound as by the head. These were pretty much uniform cattle by size and weight accross the board so this was a good system.
Along about the turn of the century or a little before though.Packing houses in the east (ARMOUR in fact) developed refrigeration to the point where live cattle did not need to be shipped east. Refrigerated rail cars made it possible to slaughter in the west and ship only beef east. This pretty much ended the native cows as king simply because they would dress out about 70% bone hanging weight. English cattle breeds,such as shorthorn,hereford,and angus would typicaly dress out 60% or less hanging weight( its as easy to ship meat as bone) and they became the standard. These cattle were naturally fatter cattle being from their northern climes,and they were easy to fatten on native pasture that very often was higher in protien than even the best improved pasture. They became the norm very quickly and most folks Preffered the extra fat ,and tenderness it gave.
The problems arose with these cattle when it was found that they were not of a consistant taste. A steak from one might be good and tender,and they next have a totally different taste. This of course was found to be because of the rather narrow variety of plants,and grasses of the plains that became available to cattle as the seasons changed. The bundleflower,tick clovers and things would grow very rapidly spring and fall,but then would go dormant with the heat and cold. But while the gamma grasses,buffalo grass and such made up for it as far as feed.they also gave a different taste. This sort of made a different culture emerge. Instead of grass fed or corn fed it was summer beef or winter beef. Consumers would buy lots of beef at one season and then buy pork or something of the nature simply because the quality and taste wasnt there. To make the quality consistant accross the board slaughter houses started running cattle into feedlots,and feeding them for a period of time on a more or less straight diet of corn simply to make the TASTE consistant. Since the vast majority of the folks in the east were immigrants from europe this type of beef and its taste was what they were used to because after years the the cattle there were raised more or less this way,they were put on pastures in spring and brought in during the winter to be fed,where many of them died and were butchered. And this simply became the norm and the standard for cattle raised in the US.
BUT your question leads us back to grass fed beef. And heres the skinny. All these problems still remain as far as consistant quality goes.IF you want to raise grass fed cattle,and eat grass fed beef. You will get a more consistant,better product if you are raising them on a improved type of pasture if your raising the english breeds. If you are raising them on native pasture you probably will be much more satisfied if you stay with the more lean cattle such as longhorn,brahma etc. Or you pull them off native pasture and put them on to an improved pasture for a few weeks. The problem is not in the marbling itself,it adds moisture of course which makes a more tender cut of meat,but the fact that the fat and marbling to a very large extent takes on the flavor of the food the cows being fed.To make it consistant you either have to use a lean cut with few of the different flavorings, or a consistent feed for a period of time to flavor the extra marbling.
As far as fat content goes,grass fed longhorn is very close to venison, and often is leaner than buffalo. Longhorn cattle are very easy to raise,can live about anywhere. The biggest problem with them,and the largest drawback is that they naturally require special handling equipment.And they do much better on a large area,simply because they dont like to be crowded together as much as some.Thirty head of herefords will lay down right next to each other,the same number of longhorns will bed down over two acres. because they dont like their horns touching.
we eat little beef at our home,probably 90% venison because of my wifes heart condition. But if I still had a butcher with on farm slaughter i would turn a few longhorns out in the pasture and never look back.

jack, the last time I raised a longhorn my wife made him a pet and couldn't stand to see him in the freezer, finally traded him to a guy that raised longhorns to breed so he has a pretty good life. our cattle are all raised on riverbottom pasture, but I do like the cornfed beef.

Know what you mean about the pets,Wife and i were first married i made the mistake of buying couple of bottle calves (that I thought were for the freezer),I wound up having to work in south texas,and she fed them up. BIG MISTAKE! those cows stayed around here for seemed like thirty years,couldnt get out of the truck without one trying to walk on you. Neither one ever had a calf worth killing in all those years! Its funny to me how folks think those longhorns are naturally mean. Left alone they get wild,all cattle will, and any cows with horns can hurt you bad,but ive seen far more of those longhorns that were hand fed than anything. I personally prefer my beef corn fed also (and hung for about 45days),though i grew up on grass fed beef. Just saying,its not the fat they want to put on cattle in a feedlot, That comes from the breed of cattle to a large extent. What they are trying to modify is the flavor. The taste is what sells beef,not the fat. Want a tender steak? hang it in a cooler for 30-40 days or longer,that will make them all tender.(we both know the best time to buy a steak,a really GOOD steak,at a grocery store is the day before they throw it out) want the best grass fed beef from a native pasture,use the leaner cattle. They will take on less of the flavor of the plants they eat. This grass fed and corn fed stuff is nothing new,its been going on since ables cow got in cains corn patch. It comes up every time feed prices get high or times get hard.

whats funny also to me is folks pay a premium for grass fed beef,and they think its because its healthier, harder to raise or something.NOTHING could be farther from the truth! they pay more because the cattle that are raised this way have more bone,and the meat packers cant sell bone. So they pass the cost along. Strange what folks think isnt it, I just dont get it i guess. Someone said buy grass fed beef from a farmer for five dollars a pound,HOW many thousands would you like to buy? bet you could buy every head of cattle in the US for $5 a pound right out of any pasture you want!I'll sell you my entire herd for sure!thats four times what i can get at the sale barn!simply amazes me what a little scientific spin on age old knowledge will do!!LOL ive got some old cows that are so old they dont have any fat on them(probably because they dont have any teeth left to eat with, but thats neither here nor there) I'll make you a deal for $3 a pound on those.All 100% grass fed beef!Talk about a good advertising job,this just may beat the angus associations!LOL