Yeah but it’s the best grass... Well, besides Mary Jane, but we can’t feed THAT to cattle.Uh, my ISU agronomy classes taught that corn in fact IS a grass!
Grass fed vs. Corn fed beef
- Thread starter Bipolarcy
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What’s the Difference Between Grass- and Grain-Fed Beef?
The foods that a cow eats can significantly affect its meat’s nutrient composition. Learn the difference between grass- and grain-fed beef.
www.healthline.com
You can get good beef in lots of places. What I really miss on the west coast is quality pork. You just cannot find a good pork chop out here anywhere. And there's no such thing as a fried pork tenderloin. Cured ham and bacon don't count because the smoke and salt does a lot of work. The seafood is great though obviously.
Anyway back to beef - many people are looking for the leanest cuts but the fat is what carries all the flavor.
Anyway back to beef - many people are looking for the leanest cuts but the fat is what carries all the flavor.
Blind taste test would be the only way to answer. How often do you eat steak? If I am eating steak it is at my home and If I have to eat a crappy steak, I am going to make it. (not on purpose) I am grilling sirloin strips over lump charcoal tonight. First steaks since October.
On my hiking trips through central California going into the Sierras I see these areas of endless rolling hills, a few trees, and probably the happiest cows on the planet. Really stunningly beautiful. The land has random dark black boulders scattered around, I'm sure it can't be farmed as anything else.
They taste completely different. Grass fed is better for the environment (not sure on the health side) but grain fed tastes many times better.
Grass fed beef has more gas, therefor more methane meaning it’s not really better for the environment but possibly worse.
The Kildee Hall boys are wondering why this is even a question on an Iowa State board.
But it doesn't require combines, that chew up gas, or fertilizer that is terrible for everyone like grain.
Methane is supposed to be the worst gas on earth though. Plus are you hand cutting the alfalfa and grass and hand packing bales for non summertime? Guess what does that?
Here's the deal. There is good and bad grass fed beef, just as there is good and bad corn fed beef. There is plenty of crap to be had at Hy-Vee etc. And it is ALL corn fed. I guarantee I could put ANY piece of the two grass fed heifers I raised against ANY corn fed Angus you like and you'd be more than satisfied with the flavor, tenderness, marbling, etc. And chances are good choose mine. It just needs to be well managed when raising,b sweetened on a high quality Spring pasture and then harvested and aged correctly. If you know what you are doing with the production of the beef, you can get a great product. Corn fed is great, you can rest what you want, it's just stood to be so against something just because you're not used to it out unfamiliar with it.
Grasses require fertilizer just like corn does.
A 3 ton/yr grass crop would require/remove 108 lbs of nitrogen, 39 pounds of phosphate, and 162 lbs of potassium.
A 200 bushel (5.6 tons) corn crop requires/removes 134N/70P/50K.
Per ton the corn is a more efficient use of nutrients.
Could you tell me where the gas comes from? Is it from the grass that the cows digest? Can you then tell me what happens to the grass when it grows and decomposes. And please tell me what it outgasses when it decomposes.
This is very comparable to the fact that ethanol produces carbon dioxide when you burn it. That is how fossil fuel people claim it is just as bad, when they as comparing burning million year old sequestered carbon to surface carbon cycle carbon. We're a science based school, let's look a little deeper, shall we.
I will defer to you based on your moniker, but my little pasture has required 0 fertilizer in 7 years to support my small number of animals. I HAVE overseeded AND for the first two years in did use spot weed treatment to keep weeds down. But I would say that my animals and light mechanical manure "breaking" has been enough to raise the animals I raise. Great ground though, and I am in Iowa, it's hard to mess that up. I think I could harvest head per year on my 4 acre pasture, that is 8 head total with little need to even rotate.
