A few more thoughts on grass-fed beef...and meat in general

You may be saying to yourself after reading my last post:  “I want to get me some of that grass fed beef.” Here are some things to look for.

All range cattle destined for the dinner plate (or fast food wrapper) start out life grass fed. Cattle are allowed to graze on grass until 7 months. Then they’re moved to the feed lots to be fattened up. So theoretically a market could advertise that their beef is grass fed. Be sure to look for labeling that says “100% grass fed” or “grass finished”. This ensures that the steer only ate grass. You might see at the market “organic beef”. This simply means that the grass the steer fed on wasn’t sprayed with pesticides and that the corn it ate wasn’t genetically modified (those nasty GMOs). While that’s all fine and dandy the fact remains that the steer was fed a diet of corn which its body can’t digest.  The best of all would be organic grass fed beef (in yelp language: $$$$) which, come to think of it, I haven’t seen too often. I’m pretty sure they carry it at Berkeley Bowl if you’re fortunate enough to be able to shop there.  Whole Foods has grass fed beef but it’s not organic…and they just upped the price to $8.99lb! Like I said, I get my beef from Tassajara Meats at the Friday farmer’s market. Not too sure if it’s organic or not.

How much do I pay per pound? All I can afford is ground beef…$6.00lb. More expensive than Costco’s finest? You betcha. But in the realm of grass fed meat prices, a great bargain. I saw grass fed beef at Nob Hill ($5.99lb) but it comes all the way from Australia. Too big of a carbon footprint for me.  So we eat smaller amounts of beef...which is vital to the health of our planet. Read on…

If you want to jump on the grass fed beef bandwagon, come aboard! There’s plenty of room. But you must realize that it’s not a panacea that will solve all our problems. The United States has become a huge meat-eating machine. We consume massive quantities of meat: beef, chicken, pork.  Meat is a major portion of our diet. Other countries are eating more and more a Western diet…and so the demand for more meat rises.  But having everyone start buying/eating grass fed beef isn’t the answer. There simply isn’t enough grazing land on planet Earth to support the amount of meat that the USofA consumes. This is why factory farms were started in the first place: to conserve resources. So really the only solution is to eat less meat.

Mark Bitten (Food Matters) talks about being “less meatarian”. In other words, limiting meat to just a few times a week will make a drastic difference in the health of our planet.  The Environmental Defense Fund supports this idea helping consumers understand what kind of impact meat production has on our resources such as water, fossil fuel, greenhouse emissions:

“If every American had one meat-free meal per week, it would be the same as taking more than 5 million cars off our roads. Having one meat-free day per week would be the same as taking 8 million cars off American roads.”

We eat vegetarian 2x week. And when we do eat meat, I try to treat it more like a condiment (Bitten’s idea) or if we’re having bbq chicken, I limit the portion to the size of a deck of cards. I’m not always successful but I’m trying to be conscious of what we’re eating and that’s the first step. No, I’m not aiming to be vegetarian; just trying to have a shift in awareness.