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Canadian Beef Advantage

One problem I tell my customers is that the food pyramid doesn't say anything about good fats and bad fats. The other important thing is the Omega 6 to 3 Ratio. The current grading system was a way to add value to corn, the more corn you feed, the better you can grade. Think fat color. I promote the fact that my fat isn't as white, it has more Beta Caerotene. I also promote that it has more omega 3 giving it a near perfect 6 to 3 ratio. There is less saturated fat and also more CLA, the fatty acid known to fight cancer. These are all quantifiable in a lab analysis. But none of my customer come back saying how wonderful all these omega 3's, fat soluble vitamins and CLA, they complement about the wonderfull flavor. I've been spoiled and set myself up for disapointment whenever I have beef other then my own. Maybe we can't feed everyone Grass Fed Beef, but I'm going to feed it to myself and try to sell to as many customers as I can.

In addition to Grass Fed, many of my customers are really in to buying local, I have had some that just won't buy from the store anymore..

Here's a site that talks about the difference.
http://www.eatwild.com/healthbenefits.htm

You can say all you want to put Grass Fed down, but I really don't care, my customers are happy, I'm happy and they are willing to pay for it. A friend of mine who feeds grain was quite suprised when I took a random ribeye out of my freezer and showed him you can actually get good marbling without the grain. Tall Grass Beef has as high or a higher percentage of animals finishing Prime then the feedlots.
 
Ben H said:
One problem I tell my customers is that the food pyramid doesn't say anything about good fats and bad fats. The other important thing is the Omega 6 to 3 Ratio. The current grading system was a way to add value to corn, the more corn you feed, the better you can grade. Think fat color. I promote the fact that my fat isn't as white, it has more Beta Caerotene. I also promote that it has more omega 3 giving it a near perfect 6 to 3 ratio. There is less saturated fat and also more CLA, the fatty acid known to fight cancer. These are all quantifiable in a lab analysis. But none of my customer come back saying how wonderful all these omega 3's, fat soluble vitamins and CLA, they complement about the wonderfull flavor. I've been spoiled and set myself up for disapointment whenever I have beef other then my own. Maybe we can't feed everyone Grass Fed Beef, but I'm going to feed it to myself and try to sell to as many customers as I can.

In addition to Grass Fed, many of my customers are really in to buying local, I have had some that just won't buy from the store anymore..

Here's a site that talks about the difference.
http://www.eatwild.com/healthbenefits.htm

You can say all you want to put Grass Fed down, but I really don't care, my customers are happy, I'm happy and they are willing to pay for it. A friend of mine who feeds grain was quite suprised when I took a random ribeye out of my freezer and showed him you can actually get good marbling without the grain. Tall Grass Beef has as high or a higher percentage of animals finishing Prime then the feedlots.
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Problem is too many grass fat folks are harvesting too early and when they are on poor forage,

PPRM
 
PPRM said:
Problem is too many grass fat folks are harvesting too early and when they are on poor forage,

PPRM
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more, there are a few reasons. One major one is that producers are scrambling to meet the demand, someitmes finishing what they can to keep up with sales. Next is that you have many who see the price and want to reduce costs.

A friend of mine and I have discussed the idea of creating a co-op in the future to serve as the brand name and have standards producers need to meet. Similar to Tall Grass, Thousand Hills and Hardwick. Here in the North East we have the right kind of consumers who are looking for this type of product. Due to the urban sprawl and loss of farmland in New Dngland it makes it very challenging to grow quickly. We're at a critical point where farmland needs to stop being put into developments or it iwill make less and less eeconomic sense to farm here. We do have organizations buying development rights so that farms can be sold as farms, it's a drop in the bucket but helps. Not something we have taken advantage of at this point. My town was a major farming community at one time. It was settle prior to the American Revolution, supplying timber and ag products to England. I got some aerial photos from the NRCS from a 1940 flight, just about every field in town touched another. In the 60's I believe it was, the government paid some farmers to plant pine trees on their farmland. Now you can see these areas as full grown trees planted in straight rows. It's really a shame. There is land here, the major disadvantage is that due to the housing and traffic there are current and potential grazing cells I can't walk the cattle between. The furthest distance between two farms that I either hay or have animals at is only 8 miles.

Ok, got a little off track from USDA grading.
We already may be at the point where grass fed is cheaper per pound of gain then grain, taking into account that it takes longer.
 
Steer calves grow faster on grass and milk , Got lots of pasture this year and you can see him by doing a search for 840002000037220 RFID no. in ScoringAg.com search box. His mama has put out 4 steers in a row. Just copy his number above and go to Search at www.ScoringAg.com , then pull up RFID, and paste the RFID number in. Happy 4th everybody !
 
I find the percentage grading Choice this year very interesting. Look at it on this report. http://marketnews.usda.gov/gear/browseby/LSMNPubs/PDF_DAILY/DCBS.PDF


I read this report a lot BTW.....

Why ius it? I think it may have much to do with how we feed cattle this year. Maybe more backgrounding so they get time to put fat intermuscularly rather than just a layer of "Bark" on the outrside?

Some may be due to culling...The bottom end goes out of production..

Thots anyone???

PPRM
 
A regular contributor to Stockman Grass Farmer as well as speaker at their conferences, plus the Grass-Finsihed Editor of SGF has spoken about marbling. There is a critical age in the younger part of an animals life (I forgot when) that you absolutely have to have a good rate of gain. This will effect the fnished product because you are depositing the fat cells into the muscle that will later be marbled. If you mess this up you can ruin your end product. This may be the early stocker phase. I have wondered if the would apply to human nutrition, would kids who get fat always have trouble loosing weight though their life because they had these fat cells deposited at a critical time?

Here's another one, some people are casterating later and later looking for that boost in gain. I believe I read about having marbling problems when cutting too late. I went to buy some feeders in NH, I ended up buying heifers because some of their 900-1000 lb steers just had their bags fall off, I haven't had experience cutting that late, I wasn't about to try it. Too bad, they were some good looking black cattle.
 
Ben,

It is a fairly early stage on the marbling, like 500 pounds.... The best statement I have ever heard is if you want good grading good performing cattle; never let them have a bad day.... That does not mean overdoing it, just everyday is a good day,


PPRM
 
PPRM said:
Ben,

It is a fairly early stage on the marbling, like 500 pounds.... The best statement I have ever heard is if you want good grading good performing cattle; never let them have a bad day.... That does not mean overdoing it, just everyday is a good day,


PPRM
Click to expand...

You're exactly right, Anibal and Allan Nation both stress that you need to have a good rate of gain throughout the lifetime. I believe they say you should never drop below .8 lbs/day (comp. gain). Also, Anibal's last article recomended only finiishing grass fed beef 10 days, any more can concentrate off flavors, your tenderness should come from a consistant good rate of gain. He also says that if you graze corn you should have that be there final feed. You can get upwards of over 3 lbs of gain on direct grazed corn (no ear), you can run into some quality problems if you switch to another forage after that. I plan to try some grazing varities of corn next year, utilize some nitrogen from my alfalfa. We'll see, the varitey I was looking at had 50 acres of seed corn under water due to the recent floods. I have started telling my butcher to limit the aging to 10 days, you can also wet age after you thaw the meat out if you desire.
 

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