Grass Fed

Last night, Jen and I went to a free event in Midtown where author of “Pasture Perfect” Jo Robinson talked about the environmental and health benefits – health for both us and the animal – of raising animals naturally on grass. The event was sponsored by The Sustainable Table, a website on a mission to educate consumers on what they should be eating and how to source it. Jo Robinson presented slides comparing the conditions on a typical “factory” or “feed” farm versus a grass-fed farm. Apparently 98% of the beef sold in this country is raised on factory farms, where cows are taken from there mothers at an early age, fed growth hormones and unnecessary antibiotics, and stand around in their own poo for most of their life. The overuse of these antibiotics causes bacteria to mutate to build immunities, which means scientists are constantly having to develop new antibiotics. Also, while manure can be good for fertilizing the land, on a factory farm it is so abundant that it has to be shipped out to a dumping area where it seeps into the ground and eventually into nearby waterways.

Another interesting point is that, according to a study, two quarts of fuel (gasoline) are used to produce every pound of beef. Factory farm animals are grain fed, which means it has to be grown somewhere. Fuel is used in the farm equipment to plant the seeds, spray the land with fertilizer and insecticides, harvest the grain, and ship it to the farm to be fed to cattle.

For grass fed beef, there are only two things that have to be done: let the cows eat grass one area of a pasture, rotate them to a new area so the grass in the first area can grow back.

Another woman, Jessica Applestone, owner of Fleisher’s Grass-Fed and Organic Meats, talked about her business and the difficulties of being a butcher for grass-fed meat. It’s not easy to find grass-fed beef right now – the demand far outweighs the supply. She encouraged people to seek it out and be open to cooking with different cuts of meant, because you might not always be able to find grass-fed tenderloin or ribeye.

Jen and I were both inspired by the presentation. I picked up Jo Robinson’s book “Pasture Perfect” last night, but also picked up these books in the last few weeks: