Where's the beef? Mine is happily munching grass in Virginia sunshine

By Katherine

 
While driving down the highway recently, my husband and I passed a freight truck from one of the mega-industrial food distributors in the United States. The side of the truck read, “Meat Solutions.”  After chuckling at how idiotic that sounded, we got creeped out and wondered,  ‘What the hell is a meat solution?’

Whatever it is, it’s not a happy, grass-fed cow grazing in the pasture like a bovine’s supposed to. It’s probably something frozen and packaged to withstand being shipped thousands of miles on a freight truck.  And the actual living thing it originated from probably spent its life in a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO).

If you don’t know what a CAFO is, you should. It’s where most of the meat in this country—from the prettily packaged stuff sold in conventional grocery stores to the burger from your favorite fast-food chain—comes from. And it’s gross. I’ll spare you the gory details of cows confined in tight pens, standing knee-deep in their own excrement and being forced to ingest chemicals and antibiotics just to stomach the corn that’s conveniently fed to them there (because corn is cheap and abundant).  And I won’t try to explain how all those chemicals and antibiotics end up in your bodies through the conventional meat you eat. If you want to understand how industrial meat works and how it’s poisoning us and the planet (and all consumers should), read The Omnivore's Dilemma or watch Food, Inc.

Ever since I’ve come to understand this messed-up industrialized food system of ours, where “Meat Solutions” is a booming business, I’ve committed to purchase and consume only grass-fed beef, preferably locally-raised. This takes more planning and a bigger beef budget, but that’s what simplifying my life is all about—spending more time and effort on things that matter, like my health.  Besides, thirty years ago, 99 cent hamburgers were not the norm either. You had steak once a week and that was a treat.

Fortunately for me, I have plenty of grass-fed options where I live.  There’s often a local livestock farmer at the Charlottesville City Market, and both Rebecca’s Natural Food and Cavalier Produce regularly stock local grass-fed meats in their freezers.

But the biggest score is that national celebrity alternative farmer Joel Salatin operates his Polyface farm just a 40-minute drive away. To learn more about Salatin and his rock-star-of-farming persona, you can read a piece I wrote about him last year in the C-VILLE Weekly here. Not only does Salatin and his family raise livestock in the healthy, humane way, but they co-operate their own abattoir called T&E Meats to ensure that their animals are being butchered and processed in a healthy, humane way as well.

I’ve been to Polyface a few times to pick up stashes of pasture-raised pork and broiler chickens. The first time was a major lesson in my own ignorance. I’d brought home two frozen broiler chickens, which were wrapped in parchment paper and then a plastic bag. I’d promptly thrown them on the bottom of my fridge without a thought to the thawing process. When I opened the fridge later that day, I found a sea of bloody juice pooled at the bottom of the fridge and briefly wondered if the birds might still be alive! Apparently, I had grown complacent from the “Meat Solutions” of my past and assumed that these chickens had been packaged for massive distribution, mega-chain grocery-store style.  Not so. Buying directly from a farm will get you up close and personal with what it really means to be a carnivore.

An even bigger lesson occurred when I opened the broiler chicken bags and discovered the things still had their necks and that the innards were not conveniently washed-out and covered up in a blue plastic baggy. I invested in a meat cleaver after that.

I’ll get even more educated on pieces and parts when I pick up my first half-cow share from Polyface in July. A good friend has been ordering a split, half-cow share from Polyface for a few years now, and this year I’m going to share in her bounty and extra freezer space.  A split half cow means we’ll get all parts of the cow, front and back, split down the middle with another customer. The meat will be processed, cut and packaged into individual steaks and such. I’m sure there will be a lot of stewing and braising of tougher cuts of which I’m not familiar, so stay tuned for more on my cow share adventure later this year. 

In the meantime, for more information on finding grass-fed beef and pasture-raised farms in your area, check out www.eatwild.com.

Comments

[gisela]

Great info Katie. After reading this I'm done buying beef from the grocery store, I'm going local!