Beef!

I was listening to the radio the other morning and they were doing a story about how expensive beef has become.  It is insane!  $19 for 2 rib eyes?  Good grief!  I am so thankful that we were turned on to buying our own side off beef.  Not only is it way more cost effective, and better for your health, it tastes WAY better than store bought.

So, I thought it appropriate to re-vive a post I wrote about the subject a while back that explains a bit about the whole grass fed beef deal.  I hope it gets you thinking!



Image via bodysanctuaryinc.com

It seems like beef is in the news a lot lately.  Whether it is pink slime, rising prices due to the awful drought, or the debate between grain fed and grass fed, beef is a hot subject lately.  Well, I don't know much about any of that. All I know is we don't worry about any of it because of the way we now buy beef. 

Let me explain:

In 2009, we made the decision to buy our first side of beef.  My brother-in-law started raising beef cows in SW Missroui and called us to see if we would be interested in buying the beef from the cow he was getting ready to take to the butcher. I found myself wresting with all kinds of emotions.  I am an animal lover and somewhat of an animal advocate, but I am not vegetarian. Nevertheless, I struggled with this.  I always bought beef from the grocery store and tried my best not to think about where the beef was coming from. Ignorance was bliss. But now, I was forced to face the fact that this happy cow was about to die and we were going to eat him. Wow.  It was work to come to peace with what we were about to do.  But, in the end, I came to a couple of conclusions.  We are beef eaters and we will continue to buy beef whether it be from a grocery store that buys their beef from big feed lots that are known to grossly mistreat their cattle, or from my brother-in-law, who treats his cows very well in the best environment where they live a very happy life. So, we accepted his offer and bought a side of beef (1/2 a cow) which translated to roughly 300 lbs of beef that took our small family almost three years to eat. 

So why should you care about any of this? Because I want to share with you the huge benefits of buying local, grass fed beef in bulk. I know how buying grass-fed beef has benefited us, but I wanted to dig a little deeper into other benefits such as health and environmental. So I actually did a little research for you all. Fancy, huh?

Grass-fed vs. Grain-fed
So what the heck is the difference between grass-fed and grain-fed beef?  Most cows eat grass as their main source of food. However, at feed-lots who are the main supermarket suppliers of beef, they "finish" off a cow with a mix of corn, grains, antibiotics and hormones in order to bulk them up faster for slaughter.  Whereas, grass-fed cows fatten up in their own time.

Cost:
Buying grass-fed beef at the grocery store is more expensive than buying regular beef.  This is why it is best to buy it in bulk. The cost savings can be HUGE! Take a look at the store ads in your paper and you will see steaks for 7-9 bucks a pound! Eating beef these days is expensive and it is projected to skyrocket with the drought.  In our case, we just recently bought a quarter beef (roughly 150 lbs) for about $2.40 per pound.  That included about 60 pounds of hamburger, 30 pounds of steaks, brisket, roasts, stew meat and other odds and ends.  For most families, that is about a year's worth of beef.  Now, I don't know about you, but I like the idea of not having to worry about buying beef for a year.

1/4 side of beef

Taste
Once you have tasted grass-fed beef, you will never go back to buying beef from a store. Even if you are not able to buy beef in bulk like we do, you will go out of your way to find a local butcher to buy fresh, grass-fed beef.  The flavor is out of this world. 

Health:
Turns out that grass-fed beef is a bit healthier than store-bought.  It tends to be lean and contains more omega-3s and good fats.  When I cook hamburger, I notice the grease rendered is a lot less than your typical store-bought 80% lean hamburger. It looks to me more like 90%. 

Environmental:
Buying grass-fed beef if easier on the environment too for obvious reasons.  First, it takes less energy to feed cows grass than it does grain.  Second, transporting a grass-fed cow tends to be a lot less expensive than what big feed-lots do for transporation.  In general, the energy a local farmer uses to raise their grass-fed cows is a lot less than a big feed-lot and high volume slaughter houses use. The list could probably go on and on.

Anyone can do it!
Obviously, buying grass-fed beef in bulk means you need locate a local farmer and have the freezer space to store it. But even if you don't have a freezer like we do, there are still many options to buy grass-fed beef at an affordable price.  The best way is to "cow-pool" with friends. This means you can split up the amount of beef into quarters (which is what we do now). Another option is to find your local CSA (community-supported agriculture group) which are growing in popularity in bigger citties.

We used several large coolers to get it home from the butcher

So there you have it.  The skinny on beef from our point of view. So take the plunge and buy local, grass-fed beef.  Its better for you, more humane for the cows, better for the planet AND much easier on your wallet. 

Want to know more? Google grass-fed beef to find out more on the how-to's and options in your area. 

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