At least if I win yours, you won’t have to ship it.

And, thank you so much for mentioning my story about Oliver Ranch!

Silvia, that’s a fair question re: beef sustainability. Truth is that cattle raised right can not only revive poorly managed land or keep soil healthy but also sequester carbon. There are a lot of things that need to be done to transition North American beef to a grass-only system and the road will be bumpy but I think we can do it.

One key barrier is that we’ve oversimplified beef for the sake of expediency and low prices. Ranchers raise all kinds of different breeds of cattle but they’re not rewarded for anything other than the % fat marbling and relative yield of meat from each cattle. To use wine as an analogy, it’s as if all the red wine grapes picked this week went the same processor and came out the other side as “red wine.” This batch might be delicious but good luck trying to repeat it. Plus think of the waste, so many different fine wines or purposeful blends could have been produced with a bit of will.

So step one is help folks discover that marbling – achieved most easily via a grain diet — is not the only driver of taste and texture but that gentle handling, breed, specific diet, and aging technique also make a big (if not bigger) contribution. This category is full of diverse tastes and textures. Our home artisan steak tasting packs are great for showcasing this.

The other key barriers are that we have the wrong genetics here, the herds have been optimized to be finished on grains not grasses, and grass-finishing is a different skill set and far more seasonal. I try to directly or indirectly support those ranchers who have made the switch but in the meantime also support others who might be persuaded to make that transition.

Sorry for the mini-novella :-}

(Actually, the sustainable refers more to the land. The way some beef in this country is raised can be very devastating to the land. These ranchers are not only grass feeding their cattle for most, if not all of their lives, they are doing so in a manner that allows the land to regenerate itself. By rotating pastures, crops and such, the farmland and the cattle are raised symbiotically.
-Todd of WORC)