A peek behind the curtain….

If you feel the meat you’re eating isn’t as tasty as it was when you were little, you’re right.  Studies show that the percentage of meat qualifying for “Choice” and “Prime” has dropped way down.  It’s the result of hurrying the cattle with hormones and grain.

But time is money, and Industrial Ag, and their handmaidens in university research, keep coming up with ways to grow beef faster if not better.  Dr. Sue Beal sent us this story on the latest wonder drug in your supermarket beef.

http://chronicle.com/article/As-Beef-Cattle-Become/131480/?sid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en

Dr. Allen Williams, the university professor who blows the whistle on the conflict of interest in “scholarly research” in this article is a good friend.  Allen has been to our farm and ultra-sounded our cows as we isolate the characteristics for the most tender meat.

As we’ve noted before, tenderness is a function of the cow’s genetic heritage; flavor is the result of the grass it eats.  Devon, we think, are the optimum size for cattle and we’re not about to hurry them for quick results.  Fattening on grass takes time and a healthy, happy animal.  And that makes for healthy, happy eaters.

A side-note: we were talking with a young woman today about how our cattle are taken from the pasture just an hour before slaughter…and that whenever possible…we like to have a herd mate with them.  It is about the most stress-free culmination of their purpose we could imagine.

But a not-young woman (meaning my age) nearby was listening to the conversation and commented that she could never do that to an animal; that’s why she only bought her beef at the supermarket.  I was going to launch into a description of the terror that a commercial cow endures not only for hours, but days and weeks, before slaughter alongside hundreds and thousands of strangers, but I figured the poor dear couldn’t stand the shock.