Thread: Grass Fed Beef
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Old 01-14-2018, 02:20 AM   #5
One Drop
On the road to being a farker
 
Join Date: 10-25-17
Location: Swiss Alps
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Originally Posted by Hoss View Post
I had the opportunity to visit Argentina several years ago.Some of the best Beef I ever tasted,it was touted as grass fed.When we visited the " hastancias", " farms" there were cattle grazing all over the freshly harvested corn fields.The local guy told us that once the corn had been harvested,the fallow fields were considered grass grazing.I do not buy into all this media hyped B@&& S:/+ about grass fed beef.I finish mine on grain and top quality Bermuda hay.Their meat was Quality #1,but I doubt it was "truly grass fed".
Argentina used to be all grass fed until the introduction of corn and soybean crops about 20 years ago, which transformed the industry to a feedlot one just as it did the USA market years before.

It's a pity because with the Pampas they have what is said is the only remaining region in the world where thy can sustainably raise cattle on grasslands on an large industrial scale. The move away was strictly economic, profits on soy and corn were much higher.

Now there is a return to a few old style estancias raising grazing herds but industrially speaking it's a thing of the past. They are trying to create a label for quality grass-fed beef, for now those estancias sell directly on the open market which does not have a grading structure at all, or most often directly to top restaurants and chefs.

The meat changed flavour with the change, I remember I stopping sourcing Argentinian beef at the time due to it, and using European sourced Angus beef instead. I used to use it unaged and it had an excellent particular flavour that I remembered from my younger days eating Western Canadian and American beef. It's still excellent quality beef and relatively cheap but it's just different.

Like anything else grass fed in itself means little, but well suited breeds that are grazed on quality pastureland can be superb and a nice change from what has become the norm.

Labels like grass fed and such can be useful for marketing but can also become meaningless or irrelevant if taken only at face value unfortunately.

One thing I appreciate about the 'movement' is the reduction in antibiotics, whose overuse in some places is a real pity and a massive world health danger.
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