Mad Cow Beef vs. Organic

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Can anyone enlighten me about organic beef? The reason I ask is because many of the cattle around here are raised on beautiful fields of coastal bermuda or other types of hay. Why spend the extra money for the feedlot? Seems if people are willing to pay extra for organic, the ranchers with improved grass fields can just bypass the feedlots.

Most ranchers say the meat is tough unless fattened up by feeding grain and such. I want to put a few head on our 26 acres of coastal bermuda. How much extra nutrition will they need to get by for the 3-4 months when the grass turns brown? Is the brown grass good enough? Will the meat be tougher than dried jerky? Will a molasses block be enough with the brown grass in the winter?

Who's idea was it to put cattle parts into cattle food anyway? Doesn't the thought of that sicken you. Makes you wonder what the heck they put into dogfood containing beef products. I've switched to IAMs for over a year now and my dog is much healthier.

Kyle

 

[Egon]

Kyle:

I'm guessing here but many ranches/farmers have a cow calf operation in which the calves are sold to feedlots. This may reduce the amount of different equipment required and feeding labour costs. It may also depend on the agricultural area as some are grass oriented and some be grain oriented. Transportation costs may be reduced as many of the big feed lots are closer to the packing plants.

From experience where I grew up grass took about twice as long as grain fed to get to market size. At that time we grew all our own grass and grain. No suppliments.

The grass fed will be leaner and the fat yellower.

It may also be there about four or so major companies in control of most feedlots. So consider this and all the inbetweens they can set up there may be lots of tax benifits for them as well as bulk purchasing advantages.

I vote for the homegrown product but my ways and thoughts are many years behind the present times.

And please note: This information may not be accurate!

Egon

 

[cowboydoc]

Organic beef in it's true form is not just raising the cattle on grass. Organic beef can be fed grain. The big thing with organic beef is you have to be certified as organic. This process is a royal pain!!! You can't use any chemicals or fertilizer on your place. Everything has to be natural. They will come and take samples of your place for three years. If at anytime during that period they find anything the three year process starts over.

Egon was right in that raising pasture fed beef takes alot longer than in a feedlot. You get much better gains and much better beef by getting your cattle on "full feed". Without going into too much this is basically all you can eat grain and a little hay. This is an art as you have to gradually get them up to this without bloating and then everyone has their secrets about what to put into the grain. You asked why feed animal products. Well to grow good beef you have to have ALOT of protein. It's very expensive to get this from only plant products. So you either use very expensive protein blocks or you mix in whatever you can find that is high in protein. That is why grass fed calves will not gain as well. Grass alone is mostly carbohydrates. You want big fat cattle you pour the protein to them as well as carbs. Why did we go to cheap protein? COST. You can't pour expensive protein blocks to cattle and make money. With the public crying foul everytime the price goes up and our obsession by the govt. for cheap food you do what you can to get the most meat on the carcass. Now that it's known what happens you won't see this anymore but that's the reason for it in the first place.

Pasture fed beef won't be as tender as grain fed beef but it's not going to be tough as jerky either. You have probably gone to different restaurants and noticed a big change in t-bones. It's an art to raising good beef. It's not as simple as just throwing your cattle out on grass and butchering them 18 months later.

Brown grass is junk grass. There's nothing left in it. That's why we hay. There is a little nutrients left in brown grass but not much. Certainly not enough to get good gains on cattle. It's ok for a supplement and filler but it's not very high quality feed which is absolutely necessary to raise good beef. All molasses does is provide the stimulus to get the cattle to eat the nutrients in it. It's what is in that molasses that is important. The molasses isn't worth much.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Thanks guys. Its pretty much what I was figuring on. I just need a few cows to help keep the grass down...Kyle

 

[dmccarty]

Kyle,

I throw in my two cents.

There is a book called the Omega Diet put out by a Greek
doctor by the name of Artemis P. Simopoulos and Jo Robinson.
I have heard her talk on the Peoples Pharmacy a couple of
times. To summarize her book, or at least a portion there of,
there are good fats and bad fats. Fats high in omega 3 fatty
acids are good. Fats high in omega 6 fatty acids are bad.
For example Olive and Canola Oils are good. Cotten seed and
peanut oil are bad. A food with hydogenated oil is bad bad.

What the heck does this have to do with organic beef? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
I'm getting there....

Simopoulos's argument is that modern meat production feeds
grains to animals such as chickens and cattle. Chickens and
cattle don't get grain as a major part of their diet if they
where grazing for their own food. This causes the animals to
have more omega 6 in their system than the good omega 3.
If the animals had a "normal" diet there would lower the omega
6 EFAs increase the omega 3's and make the meat or eggs
better for us. And we don't do well on omega 6 EFAs either.

She cites study after study on all of this and I'm trying to cram
350 pages in a book to a few words so bare with me.

Another thing she drive home is thatt is not bad to eat meat
but its bad to eat to much meat especially from grain fed
animals. She really pushes eating more fruits and veggies.
Where have we heard that before. Its the processed food that
is bad whether its white bread or grain fed steak or eggs.

I'm sure I have butchered her book at this point.... So
go read her book and see if it make sense to you.

One of my local markets sells regular grain fed as well as
grass fed steak. Suprisingly the grass fed has been cheaper!
There was a color difference between the two but I'm not sure
anyone could tell them apart unless they knew to look. I
bought two steaks, grain and grass fed, and cooked them in
the same manner. I could tell that there was a difference. I
don't think I could tell if I had known there was a difference in
the meat. They where both real good!

I did this a couple of times last summer and I liked both meats.
I would buy grass fed again when I get a steak craving.

Soooo, if you can raise your own beef go for it. I'm thinking
about chickens for the pot and for the eggs. My latest cooking
magazine just did a comparison with regular pork vs pork from
pigs that are allowed to roam and have a more normal diet. I
sure would like to know what the pigs ate. They liked the
regular pork over the "free range" pork.

Later,
Dan McCarty

 

[Junkman]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( ................. Makes you wonder what the heck they put into dogfood containing beef products. I've switched to IAMs for over a year now and my dog is much healthier. There are some other brands now on the market that are made of human grade ingredients and some are also certified to be "organic" ingredients. This is a whole new subject for another time.. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Kyle
)</font>

IAMS is a beef based dog food and the Eukanuba brand by the IAMS company is a chicken based dog food. Glad to hear that your dog is doing well on IAMS.
Junkman....... selling IAMS products for over 30 years.

 

[Libertine]

dmmcarty:

<font color="blue">Fats high in omega 3 fatty acids are good. Fats high in omega 6 fatty acids are bad. </font>

Just out of curiosity, what is the molecular different in the structure (i.e. carbon, hydrogen, etc chain) between these two? Don't know, just asking.

Have a suspicion (don't know) that much of the so-called "organic" issues are based on make believe differences rather than any real difference is what you're getting.

JEH

 

[Libertine]

cowboydoc:

<font color="blue">You can't use any chemicals or fertilizer on your place. Everything has to be natural. </font>

Your posts are always educational. Recall a series on hay making a few months ago with you and I think 5030-learned a lot about the subject. Question? Is there really any difference between, let us say, the nitrogen in a liquid fertilizer and the nitrogen in, say, so-called natural manure? Am not talking about the quantity, but rather the actual chemical structure. Given the sophistication of chemical analysis now days, isn't it possible to recreate everything in an artificial fertilizer, including all the trace elements (aside from the issue of humus content), that you would get in "natural" fertilizer?

The reason I ask is that I have the suspicion that much of the so-called "organic" movement is really a political issue based on make believe, rather than any underlying chemical issues. But I may be missing something.

JEH

 

[cowboydoc]

Well yes it is pretty much hogwash! Either one, too much runoff from a feedlot or runoff from man made fertilizer is going to cause problems. If you don't believe that just let the govt. find either getting downstream from you, /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif.

The other problem is alot of this is based on junk science. If you look up the peer reviewed science it's pretty weak on most of the environmental issues. I'm not saying there aren't issues but most of it is based completely on theory and not on actual science. Wait til people get ahold of the new info on cholesterol. Seems it doesn't mean what we thought it did. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[rockyridgefarm]

<font color="green"> I want to put a few head on our 26 acres of coastal bermuda. How much extra nutrition will they need to get by for the 3-4 months when the grass turns brown? Is the brown grass good enough? </font>

I am in the process of getting year round forage using different grasses, cereals and legumes. The object being cutting down on the need for extensive feed/hay by having growth for each season. This is something that Oklahoma State Univ. is promoting, and area ranchers I've talked with are having a lot of success with.

Course snow on the ground is measured in hours, not weeks, or months here...

A lot of what is done is "organic" but not the Certified Organic stuff. Works real well if you can sell to individuals for custom slaughter or whatever (small operation...) I'm just learning too...

OKState has a lot of info online. Of course, I'm sure those Texas Aggies have somethin, too(dang feriners are always trying to keep up...)