Posted on 12/22/2014 10:26:23 AM PST by grundle
Yes. Enough grazing on wild garlic in parts of the Midwest will really put the ugly to the taste of beef. In the West, there’s not much taste at all to beef, and it’s tougher. There’s one reason for the popularity of grass-fed beef in the West: marketing. There are two sub-reasons.
1. Grains are much more expensive in the West.
2. Folks with big incomes derived from government and government-connected corporations don’t want to buy grain, vaccinate cattle or build shelter for cattle (shelters being an invitation to paying big engineering fees, permit fees and tax hikes far bigger than any profits).
Rangy cattle result.
Positively one of the best talks you'll ever see, read or listen to.
Grazing animals are the key.
The use of grain supplementation is expected to increase in 2014 and 2015 as world feed grain prices have dropped significantly...The different livestock industries have plenty of resources to produce and expand in the future , as Argentina has millions of hectares of pastureland and is one of the world’s top producer s and exporter s of grains and oilseeds...Several million h ectares of good pastureland were turned into crop land. Therefore, in order to maintain cattle and beef production producers intensified their cattle production on fewer hectares. Today most of the beef consumed in Argentina is grain - fed beef.
Plus, grass-fed beef is tastier. I pay extra for it when I can find it.
I’ve been schooled in agriculture and have worked in agriculture off and on for about 40 years. Like people in other lines of work, there are good people and bad people in agriculture. And now, with their sponsoring of media and influence in politics, many of those most supported by big government and government-linked business are much more widely well liked and trusted.
Here are some of the complaints of those more favored and government-connected people over the past 15 years or so.
* The land is overgrazed.
* There aren’t enough regulations.
* There aren’t enough impact fees.
* There are too many people.
* There’s too much development.
* There’s too much mining and drilling.
* There aren’t enough animal protection laws.
I could go on, but you see the point. They look good, because they’re rich on your money. Their voice is heard, because they pump enormous sums of money into the media and into politics. They haven’t been in agriculture for long, but they do dominate agriculture. They’re also investors in energy, bonds and other markets.
I knew a rancher whose family once owned over 400 square miles of ranchland, before he passed away. He was also a bomber crewman in the Army Air Corps in World War II. His family and many other families like them are out of the business. Others are being put out of business by the new gangs around them.
On the other hand, I’d like mine medium-rare with brown mustard and a side of onion rings.
In agriculture, grass is a roughage. Some roughages are referred to as grasses and are less nutritious for cattle than legumes. Grass is related to grain. Some roughages and legumes are, in fact, grains. Some legumes are perennials. Nearly all cattle eat grasses and grains. Many farmers finish cattle on grains in order to make the cattle healthier. Others sell feeder cattle (weaned cattle roughly 500-600 pounds) at auctions. Many of the feeder cattle purchased go to pastures for finishing. Others go to crowded feedlots. Many cattle confiscated under animal protection laws due to demands from neighboring ranchers, politicians and government employees have been taken by order of judges and law enforcement officers to feedlots. Many things about contemporary agriculture are not as they appear to be from the outside.
And, with beef around, there’s less room in the case for Boca “burgers”. Thanks grundle.
Ya gone and riled up Dale, haven’t ya? Venison tastes fine without being marbled with fat.
I agree that grass fed is much better tasting, its beefier tasting, not mild almost sweet like corn fed. I was raised on grass fed beef though, my grandfather raised cattle, never fed them corn.
I believe corn fed came about for fattening the cattle faster, more than anything else.
Some people prefer big fatty steaks from corn, some don’t.
Most people who have never cooked anything but corn finished, have a hard time cooking grass fed as you cook at a lower temp, and take it off at a sooner cooking state, as it continues to cook much longer after being removed from heat. This is the reason for most complaints people have about grass fed, similar to complaints about venison.
I can say,that I have never met someone personally, that didn’t prefer grassfed after eating a steak that was cooked properly, but I’m sure they are plenty out there.
On vacation we used to be able to buy Nevada grass fed beef. You can really tell the difference Ummmmmm.
It tastes more like beef, so I don’t know what “off” taste you mean. Corn fed is like beef light to us. Flavorless and bland. Our farmer’s pastures have no (or extremely minimal) wild onions or garlic. Pastured beef and lamb and deep bedded pork are his specialty.
Dad got us a young doe a few weeks ago. Clean shot, instant death. No gamey taste. I grind most of it because we use a lot of burger, so I mix it with grass fed beef from our farmer. The venison needs the fat addition, in my opinion. The next deer I’m going to save some of the extra fat trimmings and grind it in.
***I don’t know what “off” taste you mean.***
It’s like the difference between a castrated boar and an uncastrated boar. No matter what you feed them the uncastrated boar is NASTY! After castration put them on grain for two months to get the nasty flavor out.
Deer, the difference between a buck raised on Juniper berries and a buck raised on acorns.
Same for beef. Bull beef is good only for hamburger, so is old cows. Young beef can be raised on grass till mature then put on grain for two months to get the bad flavors out.
To eat beef raised on wild onions you must first take a bite of raw onion to overpower the onion taste in the beef. You must also air out your house after cooking the onion flavored beef.
The other nasty thing is a dairy cow who has gotten into a patch of wild onions. The milk is NASTY!
Some reasons for “lighter” tasting beef include killing cattle at an early age. They’re basically still calves. Secondly, beef isn’t hung to tenderize like it used to be. Now it receives a shock treatment at the butchering plant which somewhat tenderizes the beef.
Fats carry flavors and they assist in making meat tender. Younger, leaner beef without hanging equals tougher meat and more water weight so that there is shrinkage occurring when it’s cooked.
Meat has also been down graded as part of the usda grading process. What we call choice today isn’t what was called choice 50 years ago. It’s more like what standard beef was, then.
Prime used to be a 1700 lb beef with maximum size, marbling, and a deep red, rich meat. It wasn’t a cut of meat from the rib that people are calling “prime’’ rib, these days. “Prime” was once a term that indicated full ‘ripeness’ in addition to the most top quality that a beef could be. Today beef are killed as early as possible to maximize profits. Today a 1200lb beef is about the best you’re going to get. It means small steaks and roasts with very light fat.
If a grassfed beef has no flavor, either the beef was killed young, or the quality of grass was poor. A grass fed beef which has been butchered at the right age, and then hung and aged to tenderize and shed moisture is going to be a very rich, tender, and flavorful beef. Your steamboat round can be more than 2 feet in diameter. You’re lucky to find a full round steak in a store that reaches 10 x 8 inches in size from commercial beef.
Sometimes a grassfed beef can taste a little bit gamey but that can have variable causes as well. It can be hormones, stress, a hard kill, feed, and the treatment of the animal prior to butchering. It can also be due to less than good butchering techniques like too much hair on the meat. Similar things can happen with venison, lamb,
Our meat, wild or otherwise, is raised and butchered in my county. Our farmer and butcher are awesome. Grass fed is our preference.
My wife and I are retired and raise grass-fed beef cattle in north central Florida. We’re on fixed incomes so we can’t really afford feeding them corn to fatten them up. They are all plenty fat from eating grass (and our own hay in the winter). We sell some cows at auction every so often for the money but also butcher a steer once in a while to eat ourselves. Before we started doing this, we thought grain-fed beef was supposed to be tastier and more tender because that’s what everyone says. We lived in the big city—what did we know? But not so from our experience raising our own. There is nothing better than grass-fed meat. Lean and tasty. Best BBQd steaks we’ve ever had.
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I try to keep kosher. ‘Don’t eat beef - which is allowed therein - nonetheless ‘cause the kill is too messy, no matter how it’s done.
Fish, poultry, milk and cheese mark my essential diet.
Biblical observance: appx 80%.
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