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angus beef

What is Angus beef and why the label really doesn’t matter

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We talk a lot about industry naming and labeling, and for a good reason: There are many confusing beef cut names, quality grades, and beef industry marketing tricks. Consumers are likely to have no idea that there are differences between USDA prime beef, organic steak, and grass-fed, grass-finished meat.

One brand name that has been used by the beef industry, steak restaurants, and fast food joints alike is “Angus.”

Angus beef is often used to designate a better quality product. But in fact, the term doesn’t have anything to do with quality grades, far better marbling, superior taste, or even beef that is raised to some sort of stringent requirements. If anything, the term Angus may be nothing more than a way to charge a higher price for beef that is quite ordinary, yet, in limited supply. In fact, Angus is so prevalent, both McDonald’s and Burger King have served their own “Angus” burgers at one time or another.

If Ronald McDonald and the King are slinging a product, that should be an indicator that a product is not quite what you might expect.

What exactly is Angus beef?

Angus is a term used for any beef that comes from the specific type of cattle known as the Angus breed. There are two types of Angus: Black Angus and Red Angus, and both can trace their roots back to Scotland.

According to the American Angus Association — which claims to be the largest beef breed organization in the world — a Scot named George Grant imported four Angus bulls from Scotland to Kansas in 1873, where he cross-bred the naturally-hornless, black-hided bulls with Texas longhorn cows. The Angus Association asserts that the original bulls came from the herd of a man named George Brown from Westertown, Fochabers, Scotland — to be specific. Also, the breed used to be called Aberdeen Angus, but some of the Scottish roots seem to have been lost through the whims of beef marketing interventions.

The black cattle ended up being quite resilient; they were able to last the winter better than other breeds without losing much weight. And although Grant died a few years after arriving in the United States, his legacy left a lasting impression. Between 1878 and 1883, twelve hundred Angus cattle were imported to the Midwest from Scotland. Today, it is the most common breed of meat-producing cattle in the country.

In 1978, a group of Midwest ranchers formed the Certified Angus Beef brand, setting up an organization to give specific certification to some Angus producers. This label has nothing to do with how the animals are raised or fed. To get the Certified Angus classification, a producer must meet ten standards related to tenderness, marbling, and flavor.

So, is Angus beef any better?

Likely, you’ve seen the term Angus — as well as Black Angus or Certified Angus beef — on restaurant menus and at the grocery store. The implications made by the brand are that consumers are getting a superior product — and likely, paying a higher price for it. However, Angus is far more common than you might realize.

The difference, according to the American Angus Association, has to do with the better taste. It asserts in much of its marketing advice that the “Angus breed is superior in marbling to all other mainstream beef breeds.”

Angus has become the prevalent type of beef found in America; it is also the marbled, rich-flavored type of beef the Americans have gotten used to over the past 50 years as the brand has flourished.

However, even the advice given by the American Angus Association on how to raise Angus cattle will demonstrate the differences between Angus beef and cattle that are grass-fed or organic and raised humanely. The AAA recommends producers’ use of “a corn-based, high-starch ration” of feed to fatten up the cattle and has other guidelines for Angus feedyards, vaccinations and more.

Unlike ranchers obsessed with making sure their cattle flourish on grass-fed diets, enjoy grazing on a pasture, and don’t receive antibiotics and hormones, the goals of Angus producers are quite different. The ultimate goal of the Angus arm of the beef industry is to raise the fattest cattle that will result in the marbled, tender beef that consumers have grown accustomed to, whether this profile of beef is good for their health or not.

So, now you are armed with a little more information on what the term Angus beef means when you next encounter the term on a grocery store label or at a steakhouse. In reality, Angus is little more than any other American brand like Coca-Cola or Pepsi. It certainly doesn’t imply any benefit to your health, and, to our mind, the branding doesn’t make it taste better than a grass-fed, grass-finished cut of beef.

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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.