Why eat grass-fed beef from cattle that eat a healthy diet, live in humane conditions and are processed at a local facility?Many documentaries, such as Food, Inc., Fresh, and Killer at Large, as well as multiple studies and articles, have documented the argument for local, pasture-raised cattle. Here a just a few of those many reasons:

 

Healthy for you
Grass-fed cattle are low in saturated fat yet high in healthy omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E, and folic acids.The beef from grass-fed cattle is not the unhealthy, heart-threatening beef your doctor told you to avoid - in fact, pasture-raised beef is recommended by Jonny Bowden in his book, The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth.

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Because grass-fed beef is leaner, cooking methods should be slightly modified. Please see the Cooking Tips & Recipes link on our website.

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According to the CDC, 70% of antibiotics used in America are fed to cattle to fight the unhealthy infections that spread easily among feedlot cattle.Pasture-raised cattle, however, stay healthy due to their healthy diet and living conditions and do not need antibiotics included in their feed; therefore they don’t breed antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

 

Cattle are ruminants. They are meant to eat grass, and their digestive systems are 'engineered' to handle grass, not grain. Grass-fed beef is very unlikely to harbor acid-resistant e.coli, which breed easily in cattle that are raised on a diet of grains. Because these acid-resistant e.coli are immune to the acid that lives in a human stomach, the risks associated with eating grain-fed beef are worth considering.

 

Healthier for the environment
Feedlot cattle are fed a diet of grain in order to make them gain up to three pounds per day.All that grain is raised using pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers and then shipped all over the country to the feedlots.The process of raising feedlot cattle is very energy- and chemical-intensive.But local, pasture-raised cattle eat grass that grows naturally on the ranch, without the need for any fertilizers or other chemicals.

Feedlots contain up to 100,000 head of cattle in one place. Even a feedlot one-tenth that size generates the equivalent manure of a city of 150,000 people, which must be stored in enormous manure lagoons.In contrast, the manure from grass-fed beef simply fertilizes the fields as the cattle are rotated around the ranch -- producing a benefit to the land, not a chemical cesspool.

Raising beef on pasture can be sustainable.The process needs no grains, chemicals or medications and creates no waste.The cattle are processed, packaged and sold locally, which uses much less energy.In fact, if properly done, rotating cattle on pasture can actually heal the land which has been scarred by industrial agriculture - by grazing and manuring it naturally.

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Healthier for the cattle
We believe in raising cattle humanely.Our cattle live outdoors, grazing grass and roaming around our ranch.They are never fed any grain, even at the end of their lives. Grazing naturally on pasture produces a stress-free, leaner and healthier animal. This is in contrast to feedlots, where calves as young as six months go to live out their short lives in crowded, filthy conditions, eating an unhealthy diet that makes them prone to all sorts of infections.

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If you hear of 'grass-finished' or 'grain-finished' beef this might mean that the cattle were fed grain during their lives and grass toward the end -- or allowed to graze for some months, but ended their lives feeding on grain to increase marbling and processing weight. Our motto is: "Let them eat grass!"

If you are interested in purchasing beef that has been raised only on pasture and in ways that are healthier for you, for the environment, and for the animal, please contact us at viccrose (at) roseranchjones (dot) com to schedule the next processing date.We look forward to serving you!