What do you think of organic beef.

[Little_C-E]

I don't like it. The organic beef is tuff and has a funny color, beef should not have a yellow tent

 

[PORKER]

Range and grassfed animals are organic animals depending upon the mineral mix available and how the rangeland and pastures were fertilized and if pesticides were used to treat the grasslands. Link to Grassfed livestock http://www.eatwild.com/basics.html Beef from organic and grassfed operations is healther to eat. Check this link out . http://www.eatwild.com/healthbenefits.htm
http://www.agmrc.org/agmrc/commodity/livestock/beef/beef+natural.htm
http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/indexIE.htm

The Organic Grassfed Beef Coalition (OGBC) was assembled in 2005 as a team of producers, researchers, educators, and organic beef livestock specialists that bring together resources used in the production and marketing of organic grassfed cattle in the Northern Plains. The group collaborates with organic producers to promote on-farm research and education of grassfed beef livestock systems including the economic, human health, and environmental benefits. In order to tell if you have grassfed beef at the store counter you need the www.ScoringAg.com traceback code on the package or the item.

The goal is to bring knowledge, expertise, research, and science to the farms and producers to support our longstanding goal to improve and advance the quality and availability of organic grassfed beef in the USA.

The mission is promote and develop quality benchmarks for this USA grown organic grassfed beef in the marketplace while building the infrastructure and production knowledge needed to be competitive in the marketplace.

 

[Denny]

What is organic???????

I know a gal who raises organic beef but it's grain fed with organic corn.

So basically it's grain fed organic that should be good.

Now grass fed is'nt high on my list but I've never had any that was properly Finished on grass from what I have read alot grass finish on some high quality grass.

 

[Anonymous]

Not sure what is considered "organic beef" or if their is actually an official definition yet..But I do know that more and more consumers are going to beef/meat products that have no added hormones or antibiotics- the All Naturals...And since the Canadian BSE issue is so prominent, many of the Consumers publications and web sites are advising folks to eat "grassfed" only....
I know folks don't like anyone fooling around with additives or changes which is evident in this mornings headline story in the Billings Gazette- and also shows the distrust many have with the current FDA/USDA folks...

FDA allows cloned beef, but many not so sure
Cloning breeding stock makes most economic sense, ranchers say
By TOM LUTEY
Of The Gazette Staff

Cloned beef, in the eyes of the Food and Drug Administration, tastes the same as that coming from cows made the old-fashioned way, but Billings butcher Gary Pollock still isn't swayed.

He thinks the FDA's recent decision allowing cloned meat and dairy products in the marketplace smells funny. There won't be any cloned meat on the chopping blocks of the Meat and Poultry Palace in Billings anytime soon because Pollock said he's seen the FDA jump the gun before.

"E. coli is a prime example," Pollock said. "The FDA came out and said, 'If you cook it at this temperature, you'll kill it.' Then it turns out that's not the case. The E. coli really sticks with you."

Therein rests the problem for the American cattle industry, which is seeing what it considers a major scientific advancement in livestock breeding put on ice because consumers aren't biting. Industry insiders say grocery shoppers grossly misunderstand the science. "The perception is that we are making 'frankenfoods,' " said John Paterson, extension beef specialist for Montana State University. "They don't really understand that all we're doing is taking a cell, I think the last one I read about was a kidney cell, and making a whole animal from it. It's not a dangerous technology."

At issue is the way science is used to duplicate highly desired livestock. The public perception is that cloned offspring are somehow morphed into supercows through genetic engineering. But the clone advocates say the parent cow is just being carbon-copied. Scientists take a donor egg, remove the nucleus that contains a cow's hereditary characteristics, and then replace that nucleus with DNA from the animal to be copied.

Roughly $20,000 and several failed attempts later, the completed egg is inserted into a cow's womb. The cost of cloning makes sending duplicate cows to the slaughterhouse impractical, ranchers say.

But breeding stock, like prized bulls favored for their semen, are worth duplicating, Paterson said. Ranchers can zero in on their best animals, ones with the best fat content or fertility rates, ones that eat less or reproduce longer.

The breeding stock market, very specialized and lucrative, is one in which Montana ranchers excel.

"There won't be clones in the food supply," said Larry Coleman, a rancher from Charlo who has waited a decade for the cloned beef industry to take off. "When you breed the progeny of cloned beef, you take a vial of semen and impregnate a cow. There's no cloning."

Coleman turned to cloning in the 1990s after his best Limousin bull, "First Down," injured its urethra and could no longer reproduce. Around that time, Scottish scientists were producing the first mammal cloned from a common adult cell. The clone, a ewe named Dolly, was making world headlines. Coleman kept his bull alive, hanging his hopes on the chance that cloning science would become widely available.

In 1998, an American laboratory made copies of Coleman's bull. The cookie cutter copies of the slick black bull became First Down, Second Down and Third Down. Other ranchers did the same, but none scored a market success. The FDA banned cloned products from the nation's food supply so research could be done on meat and dairy products from cloned animals. The government stopped short of banning ranchers from cloning altogether, after producers said they'd self-impose a voluntary moratorium.

Coleman's cloned bulls have been in holding since and are in danger of aging beyond their reproductive prime. Three government studies have since been done, all concluding that meat and dairy products from cattle, pigs, poultry and the like are safe. The rancher said he hopes other countries will follow the FDA's lead, creating a market abroad for the progeny of cloned breeding stock.

The American public remains unconvinced.

Last week, when the FDA declared cloned meat and dairy products safe, it ruled that special labeling would not be required on cloned animal products because the administration found no difference between those products and conventional ones already in stores.

However, because of market worries, the FDA also asked ranchers to voluntarily refrain from introducing cloned products into the food supply. A 2006 poll by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology revealed that 64 percent of Americans weren't comfortable with cloning. The FDA's own research suggests roughly a third of American consumers wouldn't eat cloned meat.

Stockgrowers, while siding with scientists who consider cloning safe, are talking about the creating their own national tracking methods to assure consumers that cloned beef is accounted for.

"The industry has not taken consumers lightly, and the industry has actually started working on a national registry so they know what's cloned out there," said Errol Rice, executive vice president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association.

In Montana, the number of ranchers with cloned cattle ready for production is so minimal that the FDA's announcement hardly stirred conversation among Treasure State ranchers, Paterson said. The cost of cloning is still high enough to keep many ranchers away, the MSU extension agent said.

"You can go out and buy a lot of good bulls for $35,000," Paterson said.

Still, if Montana's agriculture producers responded to consumer concerns that insiders considered unfounded it wouldn't be the first time. Ten years ago, when grocery shoppers voiced concerns about growth hormones in Montana milk, Darigold responded with rigorous sorting and labeling, though only a fraction of the cooperative's members had ever used hormones.

Ultimately, the market has the last word. For businesses like the Meat and Poultry Palace, the word is "no."

"I'm from the old school," Pollock said. "What's wrong with what we got? What's wrong with that?"

 

[PORKER]

And since the Canadian BSE issue is so prominent, many of the Consumers publications and web sites are advising folks to eat "grassfed" only. My response is that that yellow fat in grassfed beef shows that it is high in CLA,
The CLA Bonus. Meat and dairy products from grass-fed ruminants are the richest known source of another type of good fat called "conjugated linoleic acid" or CLA. When ruminants are raised on fresh pasture alone, their products contain from three to five times more CLA than products from animals fed conventional diets.[11] (A steak from the most marbled grass-fed animals will have the most CLA ,as much of the CLA is stored in fat cells.)

CLA may be one of our most potent defenses against cancer. In laboratory animals, a very small percentage of CLA—a mere 0.1 percent of total calories—greatly reduced tumor growth. [12] There is new evidence that CLA may also reduce cancer risk in humans. In a Finnish study, women who had the highest levels of CLA in their diet, had a 60 percent lower risk of breast cancer than those with the lowest levels. Switching from grain-fed to grassfed meat and dairy products places women in this lowest risk category.13 Researcher Tilak Dhiman from Utah State University estimates that you may be able to lower your risk of cancer simply by eating the following grassfed products each day: one glass of whole milk, one ounce of cheese, and one serving of meat. You would have to eat five times that amount of grain-fed meat and dairy products to get the same level of protection.

Two new studies suggest that grassfed meat and dairy products may reduce the risk of breast cancer
CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) is a cancer-fighting fat that is most abundant in grassfed products. Two new European studies link a diet high in CLA with a lower risk of breast cancer. In Finland, researchers measured CLA levels in the serum of women with and without breast cancer. Those women with the most CLA had a significantly lower risk of the disease. Meanwhile, French researchers measured CLA levels in the breast tissues of 360 women. Once again, the women with the most CLA had the lowest risk of cancer. In fact, the women with the most CLA had a staggering 74% lower risk of breast cancer than the women with the least CLA.

The most natural and effective way to increase your intake of CLA is to eat the meat and dairy products of grassfed animals.

(A. Aro et al, Kuopio University, Finland; Bougnoux, P, Lavillonniere F, Riboli E. "Inverse relation between CLA in adipose breast tissue and risk of breast cancer. A case-control study in France." Inform 10;5:S43, 1999)

 

[RobertMac]

I don't like it. The organic beef is tuff and has a funny color, beef should not have a yellow tent

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Taste is very subjective!!! :???:

When you eat a tough conventional steak, do you believe all conventional steaks are tough???? :shock:

Yellow fat is indicative of high beta-carotene(Vitamin A) meaning grassfed, not organic...that's a good thing!

You have five voters against "organic"...I wonder how many actually know what "organic" means?

 

[Broke Cowboy]

Considering the fact that there are so many fertilizers used, various insecticides, pesticides and herbicides out there, along with transfers from wind drift, equipment travel and insect transfer of pollens from one field to another and so on - I am of the opinion that organic in the truest sense of the word is nothing more than a myth - a great marketing myth that sells.

It's all fake to me. There is no such thing as organic.

B.C.

 

[RobertMac]

Not true, B.C. It is agronomic fact that plants grown on high fertility soils are more nutrient dense. One of the more important aspects of "high fertility" soils is "high organic matter". Soils of high organic matter are also very high in microscopic life...which is very positive for the transfer of nutrients to the plants. (That's why land in Iowa sells for several thousands $ per acre and land here sells for less than a thousand.) This is the underlying idea behind the original "organic" products. The USDA Organic Standards turned the term "Organic" into a marketing term and allowed loophole for large corporation to adulterate the products.

 

[PORKER]

producers slowly enter the market and more land becomes available for organic growing, the market is expected to increase in value by some 54 per cent over the five years to 2012, breaking through the £2 billion mark by 2011, according to Mintel.

The Soil Association says however that Mintel's figures are conservative, and organic products are already at this level, with a sustained market growth rate of 22 per cent throughout the year.

Organic meat in particular is expected to see strong demand, with forecast growth of around 71 per cent in the next five years - the fastest of any sector.

Organic meat guarantees higher animal welfare standards and recent coverage of negative aspects of conventional farming methods on British TV programmes is expected to boost demand even further.

"Consumers are set to think more about the meat they buy following Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall controversial and highly emotive TV programmes highlighting intensive poultry farming," said Bird.

Consumers say they want to buy organic foods because of concerns about the environment and health as well as continuing wariness of GM and pesticide use. Many people also think organic food is healthier and tastes better.

 

[Mrs.Greg]

I don't like it. The organic beef is tuff and has a funny color, beef should not have a yellow tent

Our beef is grass fed and finished,never tough and yes the fat is more yellow,thats the minerals in the grass its eating that colouring the fat. Have you never eaten eggs from free range chickens,the yolks are a nice dark yellow,not like the force fed chickens that thier yolks are so pale they're almost white.Which egg would you rather eat :???:

The taste of grass fed beef is a little different,stronger in taste but totally enjoyable and I believe healthier.IMO

 

[Tex]

I don't like it. The organic beef is tuff and has a funny color, beef should not have a yellow tent

Our beef is grass fed and finished,never tough and yes the fat is more yellow,thats the minerals in the grass its eating that colouring the fat. Have you never eaten eggs from free range chickens,the yolks are a nice dark yellow,not like the force fed chickens that thier yolks are so pale they're almost white.Which egg would you rather eat :???:

The taste of grass fed beef is a little different,stronger in taste but totally enjoyable and I believe healthier.IMO

Mrs. Greg, I agree with you. The meat has a much better flavor in my opinion and is different than corn fed.

It takes a little more skill on the good grass to get a steer fattened on grass than putting them into a pen and feeding them grains. I have had some grass fed organic that is not tender just like I have had some grain fed that is not tender. Maybe RM could give his opinion on the tenderness issue.

I think it has to do with the age/condition/genetics of the animal, the quality of the forages and the rancher on keeping the gain plane positive, and as RM has said before, the handling of the animal during slaughter. You can mess these factors up and not have as good of meat to eat but if you are a good rancher and get them right, it is the best.