Tag Archives: organic

envirocow

The natural balance between the environment and grass-fed, pasture-raised livestock

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There is massive overlap among people who are conscious about how the food they eat is sourced and those who think a great deal about how their lifestyle choices impact the environment. I often hear from folks concerned about the environment, who state that they would “eat more red meat, but it’s just not sustainable for our planet.”

We at Singing Prairie Farm believe that there are solutions to the concerns about meat and sustainability. To our mind, it comes down to the management of the animals in question. If we use nature as our blueprint, we find that with raising grass-fed beef and pasture-raised pork, there are benefits to the earth that far outweigh the potential perils.

For us, restorative agriculture is the answer. The goal is to create better wildlife habitat and sequester MORE carbon in the soil — by removing it from the atmosphere. We found that we can do this by employing a form of rotational grazing that mimics the evolutionary pressures that formed over time in grassland ecosystems.

How many grassland ecosystems were historically devoid of large grazing animals?  None.

The North American plains were historically filled with bison. To the far north, the plains were rife with caribou. The Serengeti plains are still populated with a bewildering assortment of large herbivores. As part of a regenerative ecosystem, these animals allowed plant populations to flourish and thrive to the extent that would not have been possible without them.

And large predators who preyed on these grazing species played a significant role in the health of the grassland ecosystem. The effect large predators create in a healthy ecosystem is to keep the grazing animals in relatively tight groups. Herds of bison in the western U.S., for example, were kept in tight groups by packs of wolves. The bison constantly kept moving to find fresh forage to eat.  

Along the way, the large herds grazed intensely, trampled — indiscriminately — what they did not eat, and fertilized the rest with generous helpings of their droppings. Then they’d move on, to avoid predators. During the lengthy rest interval for the land that followed, the grasses grew back more robustly than before.  

Our model duplicates this evolutionary process to ensure animal health by moving our grass-fed cattle and pasture-raised pigs.

For starters, our livestock is always kept in tight, herd formation using solar-powered electric fencing. This fencing is portable and can be moved as often as needed. Some cattle producers in our area move fencing as much as six times a day.

This process allows for maximum biomimicry in our food system. As with the example of the bison, the herd is kept moving on the search for fresh grass. They graze intensely — but for a very brief window of time — on each temporary pasture. This intense grazing means that they don’t just eat their favorite species and leave the less desirable ones to reseed and thus advance in population. All plant species are uniformly impacted in a positive way.  

Secondly, hoof action brings the uneaten leaves and stems of grasses out of a vertical orientation and into a flat one, pressed squarely against the ground. This is exceedingly good for the soil. Ungrazed forage is not wasted but is the gift to the land.  

We love to explain how we perceive the soil: It is not the inanimate substance that animals stand on, but rather a giant living, breathing, eating organism with billions of life forms packed into each tablespoon of healthy soil. We love to imagine that our livestock is standing on the back of a giant lifeform, much like the legendary Whale or Turtle of ancient, indigenous stories. This giant organism consumes food through its “skin,” and the trampling of organic matter against its surface akin to setting food on the earth’s dinner table.   

As quickly as the animals enter a grazing space, they depart. The earth takes a deep breath. The grasses and legumes are left with enough leaf surface area to photosynthesize regrowth without accessing the carbohydrate reserves stored in the roots. They rebound stronger than before, developing deeper roots, thicker crowns and more stems and leaves each time.

This process has been occurring over and over and over for thousands of years. It has been key to the creation of traditionally healthy soils in the American heartland. However, large-scale, corporate farming has forgotten how vital this evolutionary process is. It’s an extractive race to get more meat and grain from the land, the regenerative process has been abandoned. Healthy, robust plant life and soil that is great at sequestering carbon is not part of the economics of industrial farming.

But it is what makes Singing Prairie Farm and other farmers practicing restorative agriculture thrive.

On our farm, after the livestock has grazed, tramped, and moved on, the land is already restoring itself. The microorganisms in the soil are having a party. They have access to enormous amounts of food in the form of leaf litter and livestock droppings.  They increase in health, vitality, diversity, and population quicker than most can fathom. As they do this, the plants are working slowly and steadily to draw down carbon from the atmosphere and deposit it — in the form of organic matter — into the soil.

This is the effect that rotationally grazed cattle and pigs have on the earth.  If we value the idea of farming in Nature’s image, how could it be more perfect?

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organic grass fed beef

The mystery of ‘organic grass-fed beef': Why organic and grass-fed aren’t the same thing

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Here at ButcherBox, we are proud to be able to deliver nutrient-rich, thoughtfully-sourced grass-fed beef to our subscribers’ doors each month.

We get many questions about what the differences between grass-fed and organic, and, for that matter, why grass-fed is better than supermarket meat. It comes down to a few critical issues: Feed, certification, and, at least for us, treatment.

Grass-fed beef

We’ve written about grass-fed beef on numerous occasions. Our passion for healthy grass-fed meat is the reason why we started ButcherBox.

Grass-fed beef is, by definition, meat from cattle that have grazed on grass — and sometimes forage — in their lives. This is in opposition to grain feeding, which has long been the standard of the beef industry and is most likely what you buy from the grocery store or butcher.

Because a grain-fed cow eats grains as its primary source of food, its meat does not have the same nutrition profile as meat from a cow that has eaten grass its entire life. For instance, grass-fed beef has a better omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, as well as more good fatty acids, nutrients, and minerals than grain-fed beef.

Also, grain-feeding occurs on feedlots, which we are vehemently opposed to. Grain-feeding in feedlots — where cattle are crammed into pens together — is done to make cows fatter to bring to market more significant quantities of beef that have marbling that the American consumer has unfortunately become used to over the past century.

Because of the horrible conditions at feedlots, which breed disease and the desire to raise bigger cows faster (i.e., get more meat on the market more quickly, regardless of quality), grain-fed cattle often receive antibiotics and hormones as well.

Thoughtfully-sourced meat is not just healthier, it’s more humane: No pens, no feedlots, no hormones, and no antibiotics.Pasture-raised cattle graze on grass as nature intended.

This brings us to one of our most significant concerns when it comes to grass-fed meat: Purposely deceitful labeling of some meat products.

Grass-finished is the key

The term grass-fed is used so often, that it is assumed that all “grass-fed” beef is the same: Meat from cows that have spent their lives grazing on lush grass green fields.

However, some meat producers purposely trick consumers into buying grass-fed beef when they are actually buying grass-fed, grain-finished meat. We’ve discussed this on Roam before, but here’s the Cliff’s Notes version: Almost all cattle spend the first year of their lives grazing with their mothers and eating grass. Industrial farms then move these cattle to inhumane feedlots. Unfortunately, some producers use this as justification to label their beef as “grass-fed, grain-finished,” just because the cows ate grass for a short period.

Additionally, some beef industry operators do feed their cows grass, hay, or forage for the majority of their lives. But they also feed the cows grains to fatten them up, labeling their meat “grass-fed, grain-finished” as well.

When consumers buy grass-fed beef, they are expecting meat that is more nutritious than grain-fed or corn-fed beef. Grass-fed, grass-finished has more good omega-3 fatty acids, more conjugated linoleic acids, and other vital nutrients.

More than anything, being pasture-raised — truly grass-fed — is good for the cow (a cow’s digestive system evolved to eat grass, not grain or corn).

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So what is organic beef?

Organic beef is meat that is sourced in a specific way so that the USDA designates it as “certified organic.”

According to the Department of Agriculture’s website, to meet the standards of the “certified organic” label, a cow needs to be raised, “in living conditions accommodating their natural behaviors (like the ability to graze on pasture), fed 100% organic feed and forage, and not administered antibiotics or hormones.”

Now the problem is that this means there are no qualifications on what that organic feed can be. This is the most prominent difference between grass-fed, grass-finished and organic beef.

A filet mignon or New York strip steak you buy that is organic may be from an animal that has eaten corn or grain its entire life, not grass-fed cows.

A grass-fed New York strip that comes from pasture-raised, grass-fed cattle has more health benefits — good fatty acids, nutrients, and the better omega 6 to omega-3 ratio — and, to our mind, tastes better. But, it may or may not be organic grass-fed beef.

The important distinction is that most grass-fed beef is raised organically, but organic beef is not necessarily grass-fed. Not all farmers receive the organic certification label from the USDA, either because the process is too cumbersome or they use some non-organic product on a section of their land, so they don’t have “organic pastures” to meet the standard for a certified organic label.

I know this is confusing.

From our perspective, the “organic” label is not as important as whether or not a cow is grass-fed and grass-finished, is raised humanely, and has never been given hormones or antibiotics. Period.

To ensure this, we vet our farmers carefully before we partner with them, and stay in close communication with them, to make sure they meet our high standards.

Our close relationship with our farmers — many of whom run small independent or family farms — allows us to bring the highest-quality beef products to our members each month.