Better Beef

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Lastly, producers must have their animals slaughtered at the right time — not too soon, as they need more time to mature on grass than feedlot cattle do on grain. The grass-fed animals, and then their carcasses, also must be handled properly, including keeping stress on the animals to a bare minimum and managing the cooling of the carcasses right after the animal is killed.

When cattle are butchered, the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that the carcasses be cooled quickly. But the standards designed for the bigger, fatter feedlot cattle don’t work well for grass-fed meat. Cooling the carcass too quickly will stop the action of natural tenderizing enzymes.

“For the first two hours after the animals are killed, grass-fed beef should not be cooled,” Nation says. “We don’t know where we are right now with the USDA rules; a lot of butchers are willing to accommodate the grass-fed producers if they are major customers.”

Aging takes place after the carcass is chilled but not frozen, and Nation says aging cannot overcome the toughening that occurs if you chill the carcass too quickly. Traditionally, beef carcasses were dry-aged in coolers for at least a week or two. The dry-aging process allows natural enzymes to tenderize the meat, and the flavor is intensified as some of the water in the carcass evaporates. But this process takes time and cooler space and reduces the weight of the carcass, so today about 90 percent of all beef is no longer dry-aged.

Instead, producers wet-age the beef, placing large wholesale cuts in vacuum-sealed bags and shipping this in boxes (called “boxed beef”) to stores, where the meat ages in the bag, with no loss of water that would intensify the flavor, until it’s cut up and packaged for sale.

Most producers of grass-finished beef have their meat dry-aged, but most butchers (and the USDA rules) are geared toward handling fatter grain-fed carcasses. So again, there will be a learning curve as we rediscover how best to age beef raised on a natural grass diet.

Robinson says there is a tremendous need for USDA officials to get involved in supporting the research to learn more about the best ways to process grass-finished beef. “There’s every reason they should be. The fact that I had to go back into the 1970s to find any research on how to process grass-fed animals is criminal. It’s time everybody starts insisting their tax dollars go to support animal health and welfare, and human nutrition, rather than the feedlot industry. And it will happen if the public wants it to happen.”

RESOURCES

Eat Wild
A clearinghouse for grass-fed information, featuring a comprehensive state-by-state list of producers.

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