MEAT MEAT and more MEAT! (Page 3)

That's nothing to brag about.

Ummm....NO.  Wrong type of meat handler.

My wife had already been in contact with them I found out .... the owner said that they get in pre-cut and/or semi-cut stuff, finish the work and then package it in their own packaging then sell it.  They do not usually do all the butchering there (meaning if you were to bring in a cow on the hoof they don't do the whole slaughter/butchering thing).  And yes, they are not natural/organic.

Bummer .........

Daremo, I buy beef from a local rancher who's beef is 100% grass fed and uses organic methods, though she is not certified organic. I pay $375 per quarter of beef and she delivers it to me. A quarter is usually around a hundred lbs of meat. A half is cheaper and probably in line with what you pay, but I have to keep room in my freezer for wild game.

I think what you're paying is pretty good, especially considering that it's Certified Organic (I'm assuming it's also grass fed, which is, IMO, the most important thing). There are some certified ranches in Montana that try to sell their beef for $500-600 a quarter! Personally, I think they're trying to trick the Californians. You could certainly get cheaper beef, but it probably wouldn't be the same quality. Maybe look into grassfed, but not certified organic ranchers? http://www.eatwild.com/

Also, raw milk is legal there? Cool!

Ooh! Good questions about the grass-fed. My exDH's grandfather raised Angus and fed them corn grown on his farm. According to the exDH, his grandads cows were renowned for their quality (he used to attend the cattle auctions with him when he was a boy). Also, exDH reports that the deer on his parents' land is very tasty because they are corn-fed, too (right off the stalks).

Grass fed versus corn fed would be my wife's area of expertise (she's the nutritional consultant, not me).  Suffice it to say that corn is one of the reasons kids are all ADD and ADHD and is a high allergin food - yet is in EVERYTHING in the processed food industry.  It's almost as bad as soy ......

The place we are looking to get it from is not certified organic, but they are natural farmers (menonite I believe).

And when you pasteurize anything, you kill all the good stuff as well as the bad.  Same thing with antibiotics.  In an effort to kill all the bad stuff you end up killing all the good stuff you need in the process.  Real brilliant stuff ........ As long as the place you go uses proper handling techniques and takes care of their equipment and gets their product tested regularly for bacterias, then it is safe to use it.

The farmer we go to is getting seriously harassed by the PA health board and has been in the news both locally and nationally about it.  It is "legal" in some cases, but they are giving him the riot act because the PA govt. is a bunch of idiots who don't know anything about reality when it comes to natural farming.

And I personally hate drinking milk ... yuck!  We don't buy it because no one in the family drinks milk (the boys are only allowed goat's milk - whole different discussion on the complex proteins in cow's milk that are hard to break down and also are high allergins).  But we use their butter and cream a lot, and their natural eggs are the bomb!

So back to the original question/answer ... yes, it sounds like a bit less than $3/pound for the 1/4 or 1/2 is good that he has!

I agree that anything coming out of the processed food industry is yuck. But I was talking about cows from local ranchers, not talking processed foods.

Does your wife say that corn fed cattle, raised by local ranchers, are bad? Or dispreferred? Or whatever negative connotation is appropriate.

Looking for Kimi's input on this, too. She's the one that's got me thinking about ordering half a cow from local sources.

If it has corn in it (and that would be corn fed cows) then it is still an issue.

Plus from everything I've seen and tasted, grass fed cow's meat is just better quality and taste.  The reason everyone likes the corn fed is because of the sweetness of the corn and when you have an allergy to something you tend to crave it more ..... hence the desire for everyone to want the corn fed stuff.

But everyone will make their own choices, and there is nothing wrong with that.  We just prefer not to have corn fed if we can avoid it.

Here's the reply I just gave to Renee on this topic ( I saw her email before I got back to this thread). It's a total brain dump, so sorry... As for the allergies, I don't know. I'd be surprised if it made it all the way through to the meat. I am allergic to corn and have never reacted to beef (I eat only grassfed at home, but if I'm at a friend's house and they want to make me a burger, I don't say no.)

Cows are ruminants, so they only thing that they would naturally eat is grass. It's all they are really built to digest. However, corn makes cows grow faster and with more fat marbling in the meat. It also makes them sick, thus the necessity of anti-biotics for cattle. (As an interesting side note, it makes their stomachs, which are naturally almost neutral, more acidic. The e. coli therefore becomes resistant to acidic environments and can survive in our stomachs to make us sick. E. coli from grass fed cattle is much, much less dangerous to humans.)

The reason why I think that grass-fed is very important is that the composition of the fats are entirely different between grassfed and grainfed. Omega 3 fatty acids are what an animal's body produces when it eats photosynthetic plants. Salmon for instance, eat only algae, which is why they are so high in Omega-3s. The ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats that one consumes is very important to your health. It affects systemic inflammation, cardiovascular health, brain function, etc. Grassfed beef actually has the ratio that humans need, whereas grain-fed has very little omega-3's.

As a bonus, grassfed has another kind of fat called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which has been shown to fight cancer. It also has a better vitamin and mineral profile than grainfed and has less fat in general.

As for taste, I hardly noticed a difference at first. Grassfed has a... I dunno how to describe it... brighter note to it. It tastes more alive (so to speak) and is more complex. I think grain fed steaks kind of taste like dirt when I taste them now. I guess it has a flavor that is closer to game, but that aspect is very, very mild and is more like elk than deer. Because I eat a lot of game, I don't really notice it. 

It's the new tobacco.

Pearls 'n honey... mmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

It's bad for me!! Causes headaches, nausea, fatigue, shortness of breath, etc. :-P It's also bad for cows!

No, we have never overcooked a piece of beef (sacrelige)......and I know about resting, since I was a wee lad.... 

From a traditional cattleman's perspective, marbling is what the customer pays$$$ for.

I figured you knew, since you're quite the cook. But you never know... You must have just had a bad cut or something. The beef from my rancher is very tender!!! What cut was it, out of curiousity (if you remember)?