Name That Cow

On opening day of the Millwood Farmers' Market last year, someone was in line to get some beef from Dave Mcculough of Susie David's, who sells grass fed beef, including sausages made from the beef. This person noticed that Dave had little morsels of the sausage available for sampling, and said, "This is just like Costco." In one of my favorite comebacks of all time, Dave said, "I can do something Costco can't do. I can tell you the name of that cow's grandmother." I don't know if reminding people that the sausage they are eating comes from someone with a name and family is the best way to sell beef, but it is a great way to sum up the difference between industrial beef and local beef that you get from someone like Dave. Dave knows the names of the cows and what they have eaten.

Dave's comment is especially meaningful given the news today that the FDA has finalized their rule regarding what is allowed in pet and animal feed. I thought they had banned any cattle parts from animal feed, but it turns out it's only the spinal chords and brains of cattle 30 months old or older, and carcases more than 30 months old. I guess cows are still being fed to cows. I don't know the science of it but I find it a little disturbing.

As I understand it, and I admit my understanding is limited and I welcome any corrections, the industrial beef industry works something like this; A cattle rancher raises calfs, born at around 80 lbs, until they are close to a year old. They are then shipped off to a big feedlot where they are fattened up with a mix of grains, grass, and growth hormones. Anti-biotics are important because you've got thousands of cows coming from hundreds of locations thrown together in confined spaces of 500 to a 1,000 head of cattle per acre. After three months of intense plumping up to 1,200 lbs, the cows are then sold to a meat packer or processor who ages the carcas, cuts it up, boxes it, and sells it to grocery stores. 

The upside of this arrangement is that we've got cheap beef. There is something to be said for having inexpensive sources of vital protein. I met someone on the bus who is on disability, and they use their $100 supply of food stamps to buy a $99 box of beef at Sonnenbergs, which provides them with food all month.

There are a lot downsides though. The treatment of the animals is a big concern. See my post on Chicken Dignity for more on that. The healthfulness of the meat is a big concern. And another concern is that when we buy the meat at the store there is really no way to know where that beef originated and what it was fed. Once the cow is "boxed" up, it's a market commodity. That explains why problems with one cow at Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. triggered a recall of 143 million pounds of beef, going all the way back to 2006.

To put this all to the test I'm going to initiate a little contest. The first person who can find out from their traditional grocery store where the beef is from, get's a free steak from Susie David's Cattle. Here's the test; They have to be able to tell you the ranch the cow was born on, where it was fattened up, where it was processed, and what it was fed. Let me know what you find out.

Locally raised beef is available at URM, Crown Foods, Rocky Ridge Ranch, Fresh Abundance, and Susie David's.

Comments

[Melissa]

I think of myself as a hamburger connoisseur. My grandparents were cattle ranchers and we always had fresh hamburger straight from the butcher. It was so fresh that it even smelled tasty when it was raw. When I got out on my own I noticed that all of the hamburger I had tasted in Spokane was terrible whether it be from a store or a restaurant. It smelled and tasted rotten. I started a search for some of the good stuff. Every grocery store I went to didn't really know where the cows came from. One store told me that it came from a plant in Kennewick. One time I asked the meat manager at one store if the burger was cry-o-vacced, opposed to them grinding it themselves, and he acted kind of shocked that I was asking and quietly said yes it is cry-o-vacced. Having no luck at the grocery stores I decided I would search out the local butchers. To my surprise, the first meat market I went to ended up telling me that their hamburger was cry-o-vacced too. And he wasn't very friendly when he said it. Next I tried a butcher in Coeurd'Alene. This time I decided to buy 1/4 of a beef. The steaks were so tough we literally could not bite into them. I asked the butcher if it was a hot kill and he insisted that it was not and said I was the first one to ever complain about tough meat. He said the only thing he could do was to grind my T-bones into hamburger. We ended up just throwing all of the meat in the garbage. Next I tried a local meat place on the northwest side of town. They were extremely friendly but the burger tasted wierd. It seemed like it had a chemical taste to it. I did travel to Wilbur to try that market. It was o.k. It did seem a little too far to travel on a regular basis. I have really changed the way I eat in the past few years and hardly ever have beef anymore. But I still cook hamburger about once every two months. Last summer I discovered the best hamburger I have had so far in Spokane. It was at the Millwood Farmers' Market. It was from Susie David's Cattle Co. Believe it or not, the second best hamburger I have had in Spokane are the chubs at Fred Meyer. By the way, my favorite food is a homemade cheeseburger. I also love to eat hamburger the way my grandma used to make it. She would get a piece of hamburger about the size of a baseball and flatten it out so it was short and fat. She would put it in a cast iron skillet and smother it with Johnny's Dock seasoning salt. She would cook it well done. We all like our meat well done. Our last name was Wells. If anyone ever wanted a well done burger at the local drive in they would say, "I want a Wells burger". That would indicate that they wanted their burger well done. I gave up trying to figure out where the grocery stores get their beef. But I can tell you in one whiff if it is fresh or not.