The Amazing Benefits of Grass-fed Meat

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Todd Churchill runs Thousand Hills Cattle Co. in Cannon Falls, Minn., which buys about 1,000 head a year from local producers, then processes and sells them to natural foods stores, restaurants and three colleges in the Twin Cities area. He says demand for his product always exceeds supply, and he sees no leveling for its growth curve.

Churchill’s operation is, in fact, a sort of model, a regional company that buys animals from a handful of graziers and meets a local need. Carrie Balkcom, executive director of the Grassfed Association, says consumers can now find quality grass-fed beef just about anywhere in the United States. All of this has been fueled by demand. Consumers are willing to pay a premium for grass-fed beef and other meat simply because they know it’s healthier than its conventional grain-fed counterpart, and because they don’t like the filth, cruelty and antibiotics inherent in the “concentrated animal feeding operations” that are now so prevalent.

The health claim is not speculation. Grass-fed beef and dairy products are leaner, but more importantly, lower in omega-6 fats that are linked to heart disease. Grass-fed meat and dairy products also are higher in beneficial omega-3 fats and conjugated linoleic acids. Both reduce the risk of heart disease.

Besides, grass-fed beef tastes better. I know because I eat it. However, it only tastes better if it’s raised right. Churchill tells me that when he first considered going into the business, it was because he missed the taste of beef he remembered as a child. So as an experiment, he bought two quarters of grass-fed beef from local farmers. One was the best he had ever eaten; the other so rank he fed it to the dogs.

To be sure, there currently are variables in the quality of grass-fed beef, for instance, genetics. A major problem for today’s graziers is that the industrial beef system has monopolized the gene pool, and for more than 50 years has selected for cattle that are adept at standing in a feedlot and eating grain as efficiently as possible. It may sound odd to say so, but this has left us with cattle not very good at eating grass. That’s pretty much all cattle ate from domestication 8,000 years ago until mid-20th century. But Churchill says it’s virtually impossible to find Herefords, the classic beef animal, that finish well on grass. His operation has done best with Red Angus, and over the years, he has been able to select for a set of traits that now yields animals that fatten well on grass. This selection for appropriate genetics is a key element in building the infrastructure of a scalable solution. We now have the correct foundation traits.

Better Grass and Rotational Grazing

The most important factor in quality beef, however, is the quality of the grass itself. Specifically, the grass should have a high sugar content. That quality is not automatic. It is not as simple as pointing cows at pasture and waiting for results. In fact, a trained eye will notice a similar scene at virtually any modern grass-fed beef operation: a couple of strands of electric fencing running around a bunch of cattle grazing in a clump. In fact, you could argue that the current revolution in grass-fed beef would not be possible without poly-wire electric fencing, which is cheap and easy to move.

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