Grass fed beef vs grain fed

Does anyone really like grass fed? A rancher wants to give me a blind 2 yr old heifer for a jug of whiskey. One of my Sons says grass fed is just one step above nasty. Surely we can do something with it. Chili, meatloaf, goulash...

ate a blind steer as a kid... he stood at the self feeder and ate... i think he thought he couldnt find it again......blind is not a problem if penned alone.... look at the animal.... gotta be bad to be worse than store hamburger!!

I like it and think it tastes better than the store bought grain and hormone fed beef.

Depends on your palette, most people today like chicken breast and tilapia because it doesn't really taste like much and hate wild game because it still has flavor. We're slowing breeding the flavor out of everything....soon all food will taste institutionalized.

3 times the omega 3's in grassfed

There’s so much ignorance regarding agriculture its sad. There’s no such thing as feeding beef “hormones”, yet people think its real. Go visist a feeder and you might learn something.
There is zero regulation regarding how beef is labeled, so what you buy as “grass fed” could be anything. Its usually just a cow pulled off crappy pasture and butchered. And its not what many people like to eat. Grass FINISHED can be good, but it is an aquired taste. Not everyone enjoys it. A two year old heifer pulled off pasture won’t be terrible, but it also won’t be like eating Choice beef. But the burger should be fine though. I’d take it if it were me. Get the prime cute into steaks, burger the rest.

We had a red limousine bull that was partially blind. I had a lot of fun playing with him. It is hard to describe on an internet forum.

Pike River, I hear ya, you can not get a tree ripened apple anymore or other fruits. JMO

I grew up eating grass fed beef cooked till it was dead. Don't know why cattlemen like dad thought a couple weeks of sweet feed was all a steer needed to finish or cattlemen wives thought well done was the only way. I was grown before I realized beef could be melt in your mouth tender.

The biggest problem with our grass fed beef is when the freezer runs empty. People in our family start getting mad. I am not familiar with store bought grass fed beef. Just animals of our own.

so much of you' statement is true!! grass fat .... and grass fed .... are 2 different things........

Southern cattle don't get grass fat.

Here’s a decent aricle on grass fed beef. You’ll see how people take little things like omega 3s and tout them as significantly healthier, when in fact the difference is extremely minimal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...ec335c_story.html?utm_term=.8a66933f26d0

but get a true grass fat 3 yr old barren heifer west rivver s dakota that got toad fat on buffalo grass not many of these animals produced...have never heard a complaint from my wifes pot roast. cut it with a fork

I do know that beef in general has a more complete nutritional profile than chicken even when grain fed. To me arguing over grass fed vs. grain fed is a little bit like Chevy vs. Toyota.

Eat more beef. It's healthy for you unless it had preservatives added when it got butchered.

a friend raises beef he is all switched over to grass fed now. I can see the difference in the marbling but the taste is still excellent.

his beef also spend only a few days on new grass them move to fresh grass so they are constantly eating fresh high protein pasture mix and most importantly they still put on the weight.

he also feeds tons of mineral mix and has his herd checked for complete nutrition to make sure it he is keeping them growing well.

grass can taste very good but it depends on if your have good grass and enough of it.

I think too many people try to cut corners when it comes to minerals. I like thorvin brand kelp.

All the beef I eat is grass fed/organic 7% fat. You only have one body so I fuel it with healthy food.

The most important thing is the condition of the animal. If it has good cover fat it will be good.but if it's to lean you might as well grind the whole thing. I prefer the taste of a old fat cow over a 18 month old steer.

If you have a place to keep it , with some grass. If she has good cover, butcher her. If she is too lean, leave her on grass or hay , give her some grain. She will put on the pounds, when she looks tasty, butcher her.. You might need two animals, as one doesn't do well alone, see how easy it is to become a farmer. old243

We raise colored beef by that I mean beef breeds and not dairy steers. We like to intensively rotate our pastures and have the cows in a paddock for 2-3 days and then move this gives us with a legume grass mix forage that is about equal to ear corn in energy if not higher. We do grain them a bit every day so they are easier to work with. The last year the wet conditions caused our legumes in our pasture to basically be removed due to root disease so and our winter hay was low in quality so we are gain feeding a bit more now. We have 3 calves on the ground right now and we have increased grain to keep the cows lactating better.

Our best tasting beef has been heavy legume grass forage of good quality with grain as about 20% of the dry matter per day. We won't have that this year. With forage as a major feed the marbling is there but different, but taste is good as is texture and dressing percentage is actually higher for our own use. If you want to raise for the conventional market you need to grain feed heavy to get more marbling, fat and have the animal younger with a higher percentage of the meat in the higher value cuts.
The type of forage one feeds can also impact the flavor of the meat. Have your cows graze some wild onions and then drink that milk. Some fermented feeds can cause flavor issues as well.

Bryce

Blind = not as much muscle movement= tender!! Put them on grain for a couple months and enjoy

If nobody told me any different I would not notice. I'm no connoisseur of beef, but I believe it has a lot to do with cooking it and the cut of meat. RUN, I would like to hear your story though??????

Every steak I’ve made tastes the same. You guys got too much time on your hands.

All grass fed here. I love it. Argentine beef is grass fed too and incredible.

Pete

I will attempt to tell my story. We had a partially blind Red Bull that liked to get out. I was trying to keep him in his pen so I bang a bucket with cracked corn, alfalfa meal, and a touch of molasses against a wooden post. He would hear me bang the bucket and charge full bore. I would quickly get back on the safe side of the fence and watch him eat his feed. I kinda got attached to him. I miss him a little bit. It's true that blind beef is the best tasting stuff I've eaten.

Good feedback. Thank you. This is a SoDak beef that runs on a ranch with about 800 cows. I'm going to take her to the locker next Thursday. She gets wild when they attempt to drive her, so we'll shoot her, bleed her, put her in the back of the pickup and haul her to town. Hopefully it won't be a 90 degree day as it's about 50 miles from town.

I would throw her in a lot for 3 months with a corn feeder in front of her.

Serious questions - can you get good marbling from straight grass? If you finish on alfalfa is it still considered grass fed?

I would say alfalfa is grass fed.

Better believe it’s Berta beef

but isn't corn a warm season grass?

Id grain her for at least 3 months first.. but thats me

We raised two holsteins last year here in our lot and butchered them. I will spend the extra time and money next year to keep mine on corn. I do not have the genetics to get the marbling I like in my beef with straight grass fed beef. Straight grass fed here means primarily fescue pasture. We do not have Alberta native prairie or even flint hills native grass mixes. We have rank fescue that keeps cows alive but thats about it. South Dakota grass fed beef would likely be better than here because you have more brome, bluegrass, and likely native pastures. Grass fed means quite a few things when in relation to geography and forage types.

This heifer is blind and can't be moved without her going nuts. She can't be driven into a lot. I live in town so me feeding her is outta the question. We'll just pretend she's a buffalo on the open prairie and just run with it.

I agree that fescue is nasty. Our cows like clover and burdock and plantain.

We always timed our purchase to get beef that was grain finished. (I am no beef rancher, so we are taking the farmer's word for it). He told us to order in Feb/Mar as his cattle had been off grass and on to grain for several months at that point. We did find the flavor to I quite good always using this method.

It is best for people to have a 1(omega 6) to 1(omega 3) or 2-1 omega 6 to omega 3 ratio in their diet but most people in this country have a 20-1 ratio or better.

In that situation...its the best thing!

Amazes me the way folks look at beef and how most believe it's GTA be finished this or that way to be tasty an healthy. It's like walking into the grocery store and watching ppl read labels on their supposedly organic food and arguing that it's not organic enough to eat. I think folks have forgotten not that many yrs ago ppl were worried about starving more than OMG what have I put in my perfect body.. food is fuel.

A friend of mine is nuts about buying meat that hasn't been treated with any antibiotics, yet most of us would likely be dead if we hadn't been prescribed antibiotics. I for darn sure would be dead without penicillin, vicilin and many other antibiotics.

Gary, I am eating on a blind bull calf similar situation to yours. He was just wandering the pasture until the day we put him in the cooler. I cut the some roasts out of the bigger muscle and burgered the rest of him. I have absolutely no complaints from those that have eaten him, and the price was right.
I am a frugal person and have eaten every down cow or blind or cripple calf we have had as long as it didn't have a fever. Some make good stakes and some are roast and burger, just have to look at the meat and make a judgement.

All this talk about what your beef is eating and not a lot about what happens after it’s lights go out . So much great meat is ruined , or at least the flavor suffers, by poor handling.

Good point Aaron. A quick slaughter fallowed by quickly getting them to the cooler for aging is the best way IMO. A burger cow, I tend to let cool good then cut (day to a week). If I intend to make steaks, I will let them hang in the cooler for as much as 3 weeks at 36-41 degrees. Don't know if this is best, just the way I was taught, and it works.

The grass fed beef people around here are always advertising, no repeat customers. whats that tell ya? Every bodies taste is different and I don't doubt there are people who actually like the taste of grass fed beef, but we all chew the same and I doubt there are many people who enjoy their grass fed beef just cause they get to chew on it till there gums are sore.

I also raise grass fed belted Galloway and from my experience all beef taste much better if you are able to let them hang and age. Most butcher shops seem to have them butchered, cut and wrapped in 3-5 days. Very little time to hang and age. I have been lucky enough to find a butcher who will let them hang for 2-3 weeks.

I don't buy beef, the freezer is always stocked with venison. BUT, 3 years ago a farmer here had a blind steer (born in the spring) that the buyer would not load into the truck because the processor wouldn't take. This was late November, cool temps. This steer had only walked the pasture all summer grazing. We went out, I plinked with the .22, bled right there. Hoisted up with the skid steer and dressed. Loaded on a trailer and took to a friends Morton building where we skinned and cut in half. Wrapped in wet sheets for 7 days at 38° F. Butchered and split up among the farmer and people who helped.
I gotta say, the steaks were excellent. All the burger was ground 80/20. I used that in zuchinni lasagna. No complaints. I'd rate the taste very good.

Ya gotta admit, there's a reason people started feeding beef cattle grain to begin with!

It's called cheap grain. Only where I live grain is way overpriced.

Well said

The biggest issue for many that grass feed their beef is they don't intensively manage their grazing for the best quality and if their sward density is moderate or lower the cattle don't gain well and they get older which is a bigger factor in toughness instead of grass versus grain. Those who manage pastures well with good pastures with dense swards can achieve 2.5-2.7 lbs. of grain per day on their stocker cattle. This can get the beef to market weight say 1,200-1350 in 18 months. Many that graze or pasture will have animals 22-26 months old before getting to those weights.
Yes it is more difficult to put a fast growing beef animal to market in 1.5 years with all grass but not impossible whick is why most are fed a magority of their ration in grain. The two reasons for that based on typical grazing practices
is grain will finish them better
They will go to market quicker and with corn a subsidized crop as is milo and sorghum grain is by far cheaper to feed than high quality forage.

Bryce

Lotta folks my way can't stand the idea of grass fed anything. Then again same folks will look at ya cross ways if you offer em a rare or medium rare steak. Think a larger part of it is how it's cooked honestly.

I have had 2 steers that I grass fed butchered. They were good to eat, but no where near as good to eat as a related steer, that grew up in the same pasture, that was finished on corn. All of my steers will be finished on corn from now on.

Keith

Some folks, maybe all of them, will feel corn silage to beef in a feedlot along with grain. I'd think silage would give beef a nasty sour taste but apparently it doesn't.
Corn mash from ethanol plants all goes to feedlots as well. That likely affects the taste of the meat, whether good or bad.

always raised mine on pasture and corn....tasted supreme....even bulls.(im fond of dairy beef(holstein)

I didn't say grass fed cant be done right, I am saying 95% of the time it isn't done right. It takes the right knowledge, the right cattle, the right forage, the right time of year, seldom does this happen.

And I am not disagreeing with your statement, just saying it is not common to have forage fed cattle finish choice and quickly but have seen it done by those who know how to read and manage their forages.

As to the statement regarding cornsilage. We have thousands of Holstein steers fed and finished with high corn silage diets in our area. They are not down graded for the rations they are fed. Most Holstein steers around here are finished at 18-20 months or a bit longer and most will grade choice or high choice but typically are 1400-1600 lbs. when the grade that good, with higher forage diets.
Some feed out the Holsteins on the real heavy grain diets and get 1100 to 1250 lbs. steers in 12-15 months. Time is money when space is limited and corn is cheap.

Bryce

I like how the Holstein steers actually grade higher than the beef breeds on grain. People think black Angus are so wonderful but they are not all that they're cracked up to be. I am not trying to argue with anybody. I like the dairy genetics. Holsteins tend to have a finer grain of meat if they're not too old. I am trying to agree with Bryce. Angus are ornery generally speaking.

We used to breed a couple Holstein heifers to Black Angus bulls and raise the calves for the freezer. Made for some fine eating.

Would like to know where you got this info. You should share it with the cattle buyer's, they are currently paying about .35 apound more for beef breeds. Angus brood cows can be a handful.

only berta beef

4 minutes, flip each minute, let rest, down the hatch


we only eat locally grown beef that we buy and have butchered - it is top notch IMO

Lancaster Farming I believe is where I got the info that the actual meat from a corn-fed Holstein steer grades higher than Angus. Holstein's big bones/frame tends to negate the improvement in meat quality. The buyers don't like to buy bones. Over 1/2 the ground beef in the grocery comes from animals with dairy genetics.

FWIW, the last 3 years we’ve bought either a half or quarter beef, pending on what’s available. These cattle are raised by the parents of our good friends. I visited with him last night about how these cattle are raised/fed. He said they’re fed alfalfa and grain daily. These are Holsteins, we’ve had a variety of beef from other breeds of cattle, from other sources. I don’t know if we’ve just been lucky, or it’s the breed, how they’re been fed...... I can’t prove anything, but without question these 3 (2 halves n 1 quarter) have been the most flavorful, tender meat we’ve ever had. I wince at the thought of having to buy elsewhere. I do ask the locker to please let ours hang as long as possible, before cutting n wrapping.

Yup, dairy cull cows.

Of the conventional beef market, Brazil owns a lot of the beef processing industry and many of our better cuts are moving out of country. China also owns Tyson so they have a huge stake in the poultry processing industry.

We keep wanting to spend a lot more on defense every year and we are being taken over by companies and countries buying up our food supply system.

Bryce

I agree with you,Bryce.

Can you cite your source for China owning Tyson?

Last I checked they were out of Arkansas.

Yup,

World headquarters of Tyson Foods at 2200 Don Tyson Pkwy, Springdale, Arkansas

My bad they are a target of the Chinese and there have been some misleading reports on Tyson importing chicken from China, but the Chinese own Smithfield Foods. My bad.

Bryce

Thanks for the update. What company from America supports American pork producers?

There is a national pork producers Association, but I don't know the companies who work with them or may be associate members etc. Asia is killing another 2 million plus pigs to slow the swine flu epidemic. It is interesting to see that there is not much reaction to that in the CME market as of yet. i hope we can keep this away. We have concentrated our hog industry and a few large farms can have a major impact on the supply.

Bryce

Last year when pork producers received tariff payment for low prices - China was the biggest recipient as they own more pork in the US over any other country. I believe the 3 largest pork/beef packers in the US are now owned by foreign countries being China and Brazil as the largest.

grain fed all the way. those grass fed SOBs are tough as shoe leather.

She went to the locker yesterday! I'll know in about 10 days. She definitely isn't a fat animal. And nowhere near 12-1300 lbs.

There is an attempt to block a wealthy Brazilian from receiving millions f dollars from the farm bailout last year as he controls or owns considerable production in the USA.

Bryce

Interesting.