| Home Grown Lean Grass-Fed Beef |
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| Home Grown Lean Grass-Fed Beef |
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We have been raising lean, grass-fed beef for over four years. Our cattle are raised on pasture and hay, and have received no grow-hormones. As a result, our beef is healthier for you and tastes the way beef used to taste.
Our beef is healthier because grass-fed beef has a much lower ratio of the bad omega-6 fatty acids and a higher ratio of the good omega-3 fatty acids. There is also another good fat in grass-fed beef called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). Research has also shown that grass-fed beef contains much more Vitamin E than other beef. Click here to see some of this research for yourself.
What about the beef that you buy in the store or at the restaurant? Why is that different? Well, today beef cattle are typically "finished" on corn in feedlots. This is bad for two reasons. First, cattle are ruminants whose digestive systems were designed for the eating of grass. Corn is not digested as well as grass and is stored more easily as fat. This fat makes the cattle larger and actually "marbleizes" into the meat. That is why corn-fed beef seems juicier and tenderer. But it also has lost much of the beefy flavor because you are eating more fat (which is also higher in omega-6 fatty acids). But the true key to tenderness is aging. That is why we age our beef at least 14 days. (Incidentally, our Angus cattle naturally marbleize quite well on grass, but with not nearly as much fat in it). The second reason feedlot-beef is not good for you is the actual condition of the feedlot. The cattle are confined in small spaces, often without adequate sunlight or ventilation. They require drugs to keep them from disease and are often standing in large quantities of their own excrement. This is not good for the cattle, and does not lend itself to quality beef.
We are not yet able to legally sell cuts, but we do sell halves and quarters (split-halves). The current price is $1.70 per pound, hanging weight, PLUS processing charges (about another 50 cents per pound). If you are interested in ordering some very tasty home-grown, grass-fed beef, please e-mail us at: contact @ homegrownfarm.com (remove the spaces within the address before sending the e-mail).
Here are some links regarding lean, grass-fed beef that we have found to be educational and helpful:
| Grass Fed Beef - another site that shows the nutritional benefits of this type of beef | Eat Wild - excellent info on pasture-based farming |
| Cook's Thesaurus - shows diagrams of he different cuts of beef | Stockman Grass Farmer - great magazine for anyone raising livestock on pasture |
| Tongue Recipe - recipe for making delicious beef tongue (don't throw it away!) | Beef Management & Marketing - great links at the U of M's Extension Service |
We found a lot of helpful information from Joel Salatin's book, Salad Bar Beef. If you are planning to raise grass-fed beef yourself, we highly recommend this book.