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| Our freezer full of the tasty, healthy side of grass-fed beef (formerly known as Rocky) which we got from Mundt Farms. |
It comes as no surprise to me that Fox "News" recently ran a piece extolling the virtues of conventionally raised beef. They have repeatedly and consistently shown their bias to be in favor of big business, and there aren't many businesses as big in this country as the production of our food, and the production of our drugs (and one system feeds the other, have no doubt about that). I will not deal directly with the segment of the John Stossel show in question, Paleo nutrition guru Robb Wolf does a fantastic job dissecting it here, and you should definitely take the time to divert away from this article and read it... fantastic stuff. In full disclosure, unlike Robb I'm pretty convinced about the issue of human carbon production, the folly of fossil fuels, and lean further to the left politically, but the man is absolutely dead-on in this article, and in the belief that we all need to take our health in our own hands and start making better choices (and, thus, votes) with our money. One of the most effective votes you can cast is choosing grass-fed beef.
One thing mentioned in the report that is usually true is that grass-fed beef is a higher per-pound cost for the end consumer (normally, I don't like using that word to describe humans, but in this case it's literally true). In my personal experience, it's not twice as expensive, but it is more costly. I think this is partly a cost of "boutique" demand; those who are aware of the value in health and environmental impact are willing to pay more for quality, and are currently enough in the minority that the prices can stay high. The far bigger issue is the fact that it's not a part of the established mainstream food system in this country, which makes it much more costly... if all those corn subsidies (which, as Robb pointed out, are basically welfare for huge industry) were redirected into growing vegetables and raising grass-fed beef it'd get much, much cheaper. I'm OK with tax money going into reducing the cost to our citizenry of life essentials like food if it's actually supporting the health of citizens.
Luckily, there is a way to mitigate the higher cost of buying grass-fed beef somewhat; buy in bulk.
We recently bought a side of beef from our friends at Mundt Farms, and offered to split that among some friends. We ended up keeping about 1/2 of the side. Based on the cuts they chose, our friends who shared in paid an average price-per-pound ranging from $5.31 to $7.50. Here's a more specific breakdown for the meat Darren and I kept, along with the cost of the same cuts from our local supermarket:
| Cut of Beef | Our Grass-Fed Cost | Kroger's Corn-Fed Cost |
| Ground Beef (90% lean) | $4.75 | $3.94 |
| Chuck Roast | $5.50 | $4.79 |
| Ribeye Steak | $11.00 | $10.99 |
| Sirloin Steak | $9.00 | $7.99 |
| NY Strip Steak | $15.00 | $11.99 |
| Soup Bones | $3.00 | $1.69 |
| Liver | $3.00 | $2.49 |
| Heart | $3.00 | N/A |
| Tongue | $3.00 | N/A |
And, those are the prices for the beef which is marketed with no claims to specialness... in other words, their labels say nothing about being all-natural, hormone-free, pastured, etc. Given the very lean nature of grass-fed beef, I used the 90% lean ground beef as a comparison.
Start looking at the special stuff (in the case of Kroger, "Laura's Lean Beef," raised without anti-biotics and without added hormones), and look at what happens to the prices: ground beef becomes $5.07/lb, more expensive than the grass-fed ground beef, acquired from the farmer who we know personally and know definitively isn't doing the absolute minimum by FDA/USDA requirements to qualify for a claim on a label, but is actually raising his cattle in a sustainable way and feeding them properly.
On a quick tangent, the liver is potentially packed with nutrients, but let's face it... it's also a filter. If the animal whose liver you're eating has been eating exactly the wrong stuff and said liver has had to filter loads of toxins and is full of bad fats, guess what... it's in your food too. We ate a bit of Rocky's liver the other night, and it was far and away the sweetest (in the literal sense of the sensation of taste), best tasting liver we've ever had. Why? It was a healthy liver from a healthy animal.
So, keeping this in mind when comparing the slightly-more-expensive grass-fed liver to the cost of conventionally-raised liver, right next to it in the supermarket was calf liver, for $4.29/lb. I don't know if people really will just pay more for the word "calf," but if there's any aspect of flavor superiority (I have no personal experience of it), I would bet it might be because the animal was slaughtered sooner in it's life, and so the degradation of the liver did not go as far. That's just my guess, but it seems logical to me... I mean, it's not like it will be more tender because it's been exercised less, in the manner of skeletal muscle.
And, of course, Kroger doesn't carry beef heart or tongue at all, and by all that is good and right in the world, if you haven't tried beef tongue you must do so. It is so tender and flavorful... I just had some of the best I've ever had last week and I am now salivating just writing about it and remembering the meal. Seriously, holy crap... try beef tongue! (I like it in tacos)
If I were to go out to the farmer's markets around town, the grass-fed prices are usually higher still... so, we definitely saved some buying the side. Beyond these immediately apparent comparisons in price, though, consider the following...
- Grass-fed beef is much more nutritionally dense, and better for you (if you're still doubting this thanks to the debatably wise words of Dr. Capper, spend some more time reading Robb Wolf, or indeed, just Google for a bit).
- Grass-fed beef is, when the whole system is considered, more environmentally friendly and sustainable.
- It is inherent in choosing grass-fed beef over conventional beef that big corn production (tied to many other problems in our food supply) is not supported.
- The cattle are healthier and enjoy a superior quality of life, insofar as can be told from behavior, and enjoy a much stronger similarity to what would be their natural environment were they wild animals (minus the predators, which has to make for added happiness, right?).
I'm partial to Mundt Farms, partly because they're friends, partly because their prices are good, and partly because Rocky has been so tasty thus far. However, there are a lot of choices in Indiana for getting your hands on a side of grass-fed beef:
This is not an exhaustive list, by any means, but it will get you started!
Also, if you don't have a deep-freeze to store it, just hop on Craigslist... we got ours for $130, and I saw some (which had already sold) for as low as $40 which the sellers claimed were in good working order. Caveat emptor, of course, but I'm sure a freezer in good condition could easily be had for less than we paid.
So, buy a few less coffees per month (or, depending on your habit, week) at Starbucks, drop part of your cable TV package (you need to get out and be active more anyway), take other small steps to make it financially viable, and invest in some high-quality protein. Your body, the cattle, and Mother Earth will thank you.
