burnt
Well-known member
flyingS said:
Well I have no idea what your silly little rant was all about but you sure sound like you could have used a few more lessons from your missionary friend.
A few random thoughts on the topics at hand
- Thread starter Soapweed
- Start date
Well I have no idea what your silly little rant was all about but you sure sound like you could have used a few more lessons from your missionary friend.
flyingS
Well-known member
Burnt, the part I don't get is why people can't look out for other people. Everyone is out for number one these days. Know one cares about there neighbor or their community. Our local businesses are closing and neighbors are selling out. I am not saying that you have to write them a check, but do business locally as long as their prices are with in reason. Try to help your neighbor somehow so he doesn't have to sell the ranch and move to town ( however that help might be). Thats the lesson learned from a missionary. He works for free for someone elses benefit and is glad to do it. Help one another, care about someone else, you will get the same in return. Sure you have to be smart enough to not exhaust yourself.
burnt
Well-known member
Now I understand what you are saying. And I fully agree with it. It is good to be a part of such a community insofar as it works. And I have learned that it is much better to be the one giving the help than the one receiving it.
RobertMac
Well-known member
FlyingS, you should read more books...particularly the one I suggested for Soapweed. Controlling obesity is a matter of matching calorie intake AND THE TYPE OF CALORIES to the individuals metabolic system. Exercise can be a factor, but how many people do you know that exercised to lose weight and when they stopped exercising, gained the weight back? That's the way most weight lose exercise programs turn out.
Your cows put on fat during the summer to make it through the winter...burning the fat to stay warm. This is the basic logic Dr. Atkins used in his diet plan...keep the body in a condition that uses fat to maintain the metabolic system. Carbohydrates have the effect of overloading our bodies with energy (glycerol) that is over and above what our metabolic needs are. The bodies response is to make triglycerides (a glycerol and 3 fat molecules) and store them in fat cells...making us fat. Limit carbohydrates and you reduce the amount of fat your body stores. This is also why we use grain (carbohydrates) to fatten our cattle.
Books can be interesting! :wink:
On the community issue, the profit we use to make was circulated in our local communities...now, more of the profit goes to Cargill and Tyson and is circulated in their communities. Same with buying at Wal-Mart instead of the local 'mom and pop' store. Whether we want to admit it or not, the corporate world in draining our rural communities of money.
Your cows put on fat during the summer to make it through the winter...burning the fat to stay warm. This is the basic logic Dr. Atkins used in his diet plan...keep the body in a condition that uses fat to maintain the metabolic system. Carbohydrates have the effect of overloading our bodies with energy (glycerol) that is over and above what our metabolic needs are. The bodies response is to make triglycerides (a glycerol and 3 fat molecules) and store them in fat cells...making us fat. Limit carbohydrates and you reduce the amount of fat your body stores. This is also why we use grain (carbohydrates) to fatten our cattle.
Books can be interesting! :wink:
On the community issue, the profit we use to make was circulated in our local communities...now, more of the profit goes to Cargill and Tyson and is circulated in their communities. Same with buying at Wal-Mart instead of the local 'mom and pop' store. Whether we want to admit it or not, the corporate world in draining our rural communities of money.
Shortgrass
Well-known member
Back to the topic at hand, whether its organic, all natural or black hides, niche marketing is not about quality at all, its all about marketing. I'm not sure that trying to add value to our animal by degrading the product as a whole is very healthy for the industry. It might be shooting ourselves in the foot. The Angus people have not degraded beef as a whole, they simply promote black hided beef as somehow better than other beef. Natural and Organic marketers have insinuated that other beef is not healthy. We need to promote beef, not just our personal cow. I think the Beef Board is a working in the right direction. Makes sense to me, and maybe cents for the beef industry.
Big Muddy rancher
Well-known member
Shortgrass said:
"The Angus people have not degraded beef as a whole, they simply promote black hided beef as somehow better than other beef. "
Actually I don't think they really said it was some how better just that it was good and it was Black Angus. They Identified their product.
But i do agree with what you said.
katrina
Well-known member
RobertMac said:FlyingS, you should read more books...particularly the one I suggested for Soapweed. Controlling obesity is a matter of matching calorie intake AND THE TYPE OF CALORIES to the individuals metabolic system. Exercise can be a factor, but how many people do you know that exercised to lose weight and when they stopped exercising, gained the weight back? That's the way most weight lose exercise programs turn out.
Your cows put on fat during the summer to make it through the winter...burning the fat to stay warm. This is the basic logic Dr. Atkins used in his diet plan...keep the body in a condition that uses fat to maintain the metabolic system. Carbohydrates have the effect of overloading our bodies with energy (glycerol) that is over and above what our metabolic needs are. The bodies response is to make triglycerides (a glycerol and 3 fat molecules) and store them in fat cells...making us fat. Limit carbohydrates and you reduce the amount of fat your body stores. This is also why we use grain (carbohydrates) to fatten our cattle.
Books can be interesting! :wink:
On the community issue, the profit we use to make was circulated in our local communities...now, more of the profit goes to Cargill and Tyson and is circulated in their communities. Same with buying at Wal-Mart instead of the local 'mom and pop' store. Whether we want to admit it or not, the corporate world in draining our rural communities of money.
I have to agree on this one..
After losing fourty pounds and keeping it off for two years... There is just some foods I can not eat... And my metabolic is much differant than anyone elses...
Northern Rancher
Well-known member
You can be lazy as hell and still skinny and work like a beaver and pack some fat-I'm sure we've all rode horses you couldn't pull weight off or ones you grained every day and they still pulled down.
katrina
Well-known member
Northern Rancher said:
Ditto... NR..
Northern Rancher
Well-known member
Or girl friends-oops I had A Jigs moment lol.
per
Well-known member
Shortgrass said:
Not all products are created equal. That is what the commodity beef industry misses. There is a difference in grass, corn, barley finished and in different production models as organic, natural (depending on your definition), source verified etc. All can and will be marketed differently and should be. Some have different omega fatty acid profiles and some taste different. The consumer should be the final arbitrator and it is up to us to educate the consumer. It is not hurting anyone to market different products differently if the truth is told. Many on here don't like grass finished beef and are quite happy to let folks know that. It is the truth that it tastes different, some like it though and there is a place for it. I can't wait to test GF's beef and compare it to my own. The bottom line is that commodity beef is not working so well where I live and it is in my best interest to differentiate my product and market it as such.
The 7 habits of highly effective people is also a good read. I would recommend Good Calories Bad Calories first if you haven't read either.
burnt
Well-known member
Shortgrass said:
While I understand and accept what you are saying about not running another's product down in order to promote your own, I think it would be wrong to ignore the fact that there are some real quality issues going on in the commodity beef industry.
We have customers for our freezer beef who buy it strictly for the reason that it is not coming off of a store shelf. We recently sold beef to someone referred to us by a friend of ours who usually sells them beef. He did not have any ready to butcher for several months and could not supply them right now.
The lady was so glad to be able to buy meat from a farmer. Because, she said, "I have been buying just a bit at a time at the store to keep us going, but it's just not the same". And later - "Thank you so much for the meat. It's excellent and so tasty".
She could have bought it for less at the store.
So, how much beef would beef consumption go up if the stores could sell the same quality of beef as we do from our farmgate?
Why can't the corporates do it?
Blkbuckaroo
Well-known member
:agree:PureCountry said:
RobertMac
Well-known member
Tell me what you think about what this lady has to say.Shortgrass said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roOXtwK0uFQ
The beef industry has much bigger marketing problems than Natural and Organic marketers making insinuations about commodity beef. Our product is coupled to saturated fat and I doubt that there are many cattlemen here don't believe that saturated fats are linked to heart attacks (except those that have read "Good Calorie, Bad Calories"). One of the big promotions of the grassfed people, THAT I DISAGREE WITH, is that it contains less saturated fat. The fact is that the vitamins, minerals, CLA, omega-3...is in the fat! So the more grassfed fat, the better. Unfortunately, a lot of the things the body can't utilize also ends up in the fat. Some feedlot beef may contain "other things" in the fat, but grainfed/feedlot beef is still the second most health beneficial food if processed right.
There is lots of 'food for thought' here, and some self-serving hype with no apparent verification of claims of better beef, as well, sorry to say.
One, why not have independent testing to verify with certainty just what the differences are between various methods of raising beef?
Matters of flavor/taste perferences are one thing. Accusations of 'tainted' beef, or 'inadequate nutrients' in 'commodity beef' are quite another.
How many factors affect flavor, other than ones' own individual taste preferences? No one mentioned dry aging and other practices which affect flavor.
What about stress an animal may have encountered in its lifetime? Quality of feed, whatver that feed may be? Is it true, as tests some years ago indicated, that barley fed beef has better fat profiles, and maybe more faeatures of benefit?
I go agree with Taubes' assertions, mainly because he has extensive resources listed for verification. Contrary to at least one posters belief on here, the Beef Checkoff has also talked, tho very quietly, of the 'forces' which gave animal fats a bad name for their own profits selling vegetable and grain sourced fats. The belief, at the time, was that without funds to do the testing for verification of the facts of claims, it was not surportable to make our counter claims. Same goes for recently verified fatty acid profiles of beef versus the claims made against beef, and in favor of various veg oils as superior.
Many other factors in obesity and other dietary problems are ignored here, and may be more influential than many suggested here. The trend of teaching kids all their school lives that "you can be whatever you want to be", which quickly became mis- interpreted by both instructors and students to mean "you can DO whatever you want" and all will be well.
Sadly, many have learned we cannot eat whatever we want in whatever quantity we want.
Re. the work, or activity levels; there is a difference between being lazy, and doing work, whether mental, requiring sitting (such as at a computer!), in a tractor, etc. that require far less energy (read calories), yet produce far more value than slugging it out loading small bales by hand, etc.
We seem so eager to blame someone, something, especially if it is "big", and or we do not really understand the goals, ethics, or problems of those businesses. It is just plain easier and even, for many, much more FUN to blame and accuse those "corporates" for all problems of our CHOSEN life work, for too many of us!
mrj
,
One, why not have independent testing to verify with certainty just what the differences are between various methods of raising beef?
Matters of flavor/taste perferences are one thing. Accusations of 'tainted' beef, or 'inadequate nutrients' in 'commodity beef' are quite another.
How many factors affect flavor, other than ones' own individual taste preferences? No one mentioned dry aging and other practices which affect flavor.
What about stress an animal may have encountered in its lifetime? Quality of feed, whatver that feed may be? Is it true, as tests some years ago indicated, that barley fed beef has better fat profiles, and maybe more faeatures of benefit?
I go agree with Taubes' assertions, mainly because he has extensive resources listed for verification. Contrary to at least one posters belief on here, the Beef Checkoff has also talked, tho very quietly, of the 'forces' which gave animal fats a bad name for their own profits selling vegetable and grain sourced fats. The belief, at the time, was that without funds to do the testing for verification of the facts of claims, it was not surportable to make our counter claims. Same goes for recently verified fatty acid profiles of beef versus the claims made against beef, and in favor of various veg oils as superior.
Many other factors in obesity and other dietary problems are ignored here, and may be more influential than many suggested here. The trend of teaching kids all their school lives that "you can be whatever you want to be", which quickly became mis- interpreted by both instructors and students to mean "you can DO whatever you want" and all will be well.
Sadly, many have learned we cannot eat whatever we want in whatever quantity we want.
Re. the work, or activity levels; there is a difference between being lazy, and doing work, whether mental, requiring sitting (such as at a computer!), in a tractor, etc. that require far less energy (read calories), yet produce far more value than slugging it out loading small bales by hand, etc.
We seem so eager to blame someone, something, especially if it is "big", and or we do not really understand the goals, ethics, or problems of those businesses. It is just plain easier and even, for many, much more FUN to blame and accuse those "corporates" for all problems of our CHOSEN life work, for too many of us!
mrj
,
A
Anonymous
Guest
mrj said:
Yes dry aged beef has been mentioned. Also Northern Rancher posted this web site of I believe Grassfarmer and the site or Grassfarmer one mentioned keeping the animals quiet and calm during the kill process.
I have asked this before in this thread I will ask again. Why is substance about the difference in programs such as corporate practices versus the small independent guy.
Why is it blame or cutting someone else down?
It is marketing plain and simple nothing more or less. Seems the ones that want to cry out the loudest about someone who is developing a nitch market and telling things like they are, these are the ones that are complacent with corporate America and what they dribble down to them for their product. :wink:
Shortgrass
Well-known member
We sell 20 - 25 halves a year off the place, and I think it is better tasting than off the grocery shelf. I think it is because of aging. Logistics don't permit the big packers to age all beef for 2 weeks like I can with a dozen head. I think it would help the flavor and tenderness of the product if we could. I also like grain fed. Some like grass fed. I do not promote my product as safer than other beef. Some beef consumers have experienced health issues perhaps from beef related factors. Some people are more healthy and stronger because they eat beef. I just believe that we need to work together to promote beef as a healthy, nutritious, and great tasting product (because it is), and be careful about giving the industry a black eye to sell our paticular preference. We need to present the industry in a good light. Americans and Canadians have a whale of a good product at bargain basement prices, and they ought to be aware of both of those facts.
A
Anonymous
Guest
Shortgrass said:
We raise beef and hogs 100s of hogs and average 100 cows. the pigs are farrow to finish. The beef is also bred here and fed here.
We are currently negotiating with a individual to purchase 60 more bred gilts.
Here is something all to typical that goes on everyday. I was on a hog forum the other day and a person was asking for help with a sick sow. There were numerous posts telling the individual to give all kinds of antibiotic's and if the sow did not respond to ship her real quick. {there is a perfect example of what is broken in the cattle and hog industry.
Farmers and ranchers are still feeding chicken manure to cattle. The chicken manure has animal byproducts in it from the chicken feed. Here we are 6 tears after the first out break of mad cow in America and things like this continue to happen.
Then there the problem with the deer and these animals being processed in government inspected slaughter houses. Article after article says that knives and equipment cant be sterilized enough from the diseases killing the deer.
If the beef and hog industry get or have a black eye it is of there own doings. We don't do implants nor preventative antibiotics. Both of these are consumer unfriendly. just like if I READ ABOUT OR EXPERIENCE A BAD UNSAFE CAR i WILL INFORM ANYONE I can about it. The same with the hog/cattle industry. If it hair lips anyone I cant help it. There are somethings that are more important than the almighty dollar. The best one I CAN THINK OF IS A CLEAR CONSCIENCE. :!:
Soapweed
Well-known member
Look at all the precautions that the big bad evil corporations go to so that consumers buy a safe product. There are enough seals and wrapping paper on every item in a super market, that it about takes an act of Congress to get anything out of a bottle or package. This is something that has to be done because of the irresponsibility of a few. I applaud the efforts that is done to ensure this safety.