What's IN the Beef for Dinner?

You may have heard that it takes eight pounds of corn to grow a pound of beef—and that the corn would be better eaten in its “pre-beef” form. That’s definitely true, and the poor cow would probably rather not eat that corn either.

Cows are ruminants: animals with multiple stomachs that allow them to convert grass (which most animals can’t digest) into high-quality proteins. The organ which makes this possible is the cow’s rumen, where the grass is fermented by specialized bacteria and then used by the cow. In return, the cow spreads and “plants” the grass seed, then fertilizes it with his manure. Grasses and ruminants form a sustainable, symbiotic system for converting sunlight into protein.

So why don’t we let the system work?

Unfortunately, cows raised on grass take longer to gain weight than cows raised on corn. In the name of “efficiency,” cattle are fed what to them is an unnatural diet so they can be full-grown in about half the time it would take naturally. Of course, cows can’t eat corn by themselves (as they do grass), so it has to be fed to them. Thus feedlots (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or “CAFO’s”) were invented to house the cattle in small areas, making the process more efficient still.

These days, feedlot cattle are actually being bred to be able to eat large quantities of corn without getting too sick. Still, though, they are susceptible to bloat, acidosis, and a host of other diseases—which is why they are fed antibiotics with their corn in order to live long enough to make it to the slaughterhouse. It doesn’t sound like much of a life.

So, while corn is apparently cheap and efficient, it’s not a good value. There are the public health costs (antibiotic-resistant supergerms and E.coli poisoning from sick cows), the taxpayer-supported farm subsidies to keep the corn cheap, the environmental costs of pesticides and fertilizers for growing the corn, and the cost of the petroleum needed to make it all happen. Ironically, the system that developed to make meat production more efficient has done just the opposite.

It seems like common sense to abandon the feedlots and raise beef in pastures, but it takes a lot to turn around half a century of “progress.” There are fewer pastures than 50 years ago and fewer farmers who know how to replace high-maintenance feeding with grazing. Joel Huesby of Thundering Hooves Pasture Finished Meats (here in Washington) is one of these farmers. He says, “Cattle as part of a holistic system can harvest crop aftermaths such as straw or unharvested vegetables. They can harvest forage on land too dry or steep for farming. The key is good management. Four-fifths of what goes in the front end of a cow goes out the back, enriching the soil for the next cycle of crops….The waste of one is the food of the other.” (Quite a contrast to the feedlots where energy pours in while pollution pours out.)

In nature, herds of ruminants graze in tight groups to ward off predators, and they frequently move to fresh grazing areas where the grass is new and not spoiled by their own manure. Joel Salatin—another farmer raising grass-fed beef--calls this “the mob and move routine,” and he strives to replicate it for his cattle on Polyface Farm.

Of course, grass feeding affects the nutritional composition of beef. Grass-fed beef has less fat than grain-fed, and it has more of the good omega-3 fats. Cattle fed on grass also have twice as many CLA’s (conjugated lineoleic acids) as cattle fed on corn, because their rumens have bacteria that convert grass to CLA’s. CLA’s provide cancer-fighting benefits, prevent weight gain, reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, and help fight inflammation.

Joel Huesby muses, “I don't kid myself by thinking these broken energy systems can be fixed overnight. We'll need time to restore the grass-based genetics in cattle, time to train people to move cattle in high-intensity, short-duration grazing schedules like wild herds, and time to educate the public and lawmakers who only now are beginning to understand there's a difference.” (“Harvesting Sunlight” in PCC Newsletter, August, 2009)

We’ll also need motivation—incentive for meat producers to go back to a system that’s sustainable. That incentive can come from customers who insist on grass-fed beef for dinner.