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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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grass-finished

Grass-fed and grass-finished beef: How not to be fooled by beef industry tricks

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One of the more fascinating aspects of the meat industry in the United States is the use and misuse of product naming and labeling by various purveyors. We’ve covered this topic a fair amount, quite honestly, because it is an area where we see so much manipulation and, sometimes, purposeful deception of consumers. This is most striking when it comes to grass-fed cattle and the designation “grass-fed beef” in particular.

Grass-fed AND grass-finished

One of the first things we discovered about quality grass-fed beef is how little customers know about the products they buy and eat.

There’s not that much to know, but, crazily, it’s still very confusing for the consumer. Grass-fed beef is expected to come from cattle that eat grass — or other green forage — while grazing in open pastures for their entire life. Seems pretty cut and dried.

However, transparency hasn’t always been the beef industry standard.

The fine print – Grain-fed beef

Confusion arrives with the use of labels such as “grass-fed, grain-finished beef,” which could trick consumers into thinking the meat they are eating is something it is not. Basically, “grass-fed, grain-finished” is conventional beef, the same thing as every cow raised.

Currently, 98 percent of beef consumed in the United States is grain-fed beef. However, every cow starts out the same way: It is raised the first six months on its mother’s milk and continues for about a year just grazing on grass (and hay or other “forage” as it is impossible to grow cattle on grass year-round in most regions of the country). After half a year, the majority of cows move to the feedlot where they are fattened on grains for the last 90 to 160 days before slaughter.

But some cattle continue to graze and feed on grass after those first six months. This is what people think of when they seek out truly grass-fed, grass-finished beef.

When a label says “grass-fed, grain-finished,” that’s just the same thing as every other steak or roast at any supermarket. They were taken to a feedlot, just like other cattle. Although, that’s not what the labeling is trying to imply.

You can even have grass-fed and grain-fed cattle on the same ranch.

grass-finished
An example of grass-fed grain-finished marketing (with the branding removed). This is what they want consumers to imagine the cattle’s life entailed.

Why aren’t all cows both grass-fed and grass-finished?

The entire system is built for grain-fed, not grass-fed production. Grain-finishing is more efficient and cheaper, and it adds weight a lot quicker to get the cattle primed for slaughter. It also gives the cattle the type of marbling and fat content that Americans have grown accustomed to in their beef. If you think about it, even the “quality” ratings we use to talk about our beef — choice, select and prime — are based on marbling and rapid weight gain.

Feedlots and grain-finishing

Beef sales have been on the decline for a number of years, and a big reason for that is because people think that steaks are unhealthy. The reality of what makes beef potentially unhealthy has to do with the artificial fattening of the cow. Not only do grain-finished cattle eat food that has not been a traditional part of their diet, but feedlot cows also have more antibiotics and hormones than those that grazed for their entire lives (that is until some stricter FDA rules were put in place in 2017 tried to limit this practice).

Studies have discovered that grain-fed, corn-fed, or grain-finished cattle do not have the same nutrition profile as grass-fed. Studies show that cattle fed grain lack as many good omega-3 fatty acids and CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) as grass-fed cows. Both of these essential fatty acids have pretty great health benefits.

And yet, the system is structured in a way where grass-fed is just not an option for most cattle ranchers and beef producers. They have limited resources and must focus on making their cattle operations as efficient as possible. Letting cattle graze for their entire lives does not work for many beef producers.

grass-finished
An example of grass-fed grass-finished marketing.

Purposeful misrepresentation

Some nefarious producers still want the financial benefits of shipping grass-fed, natural beef. This led to the creation and use of the grass-fed, grain-finished label.

Mislabeling isn’t the only tactic that has confused consumers. We’ve heard a lot from people who’ve tried grass-fed beef before and didn’t like it, even saying that it tastes like shoe-leather. We cannot imagine how someone could think that tender grass-fed, grass-finished beef tastes anything other than delicious.

We discovered that at one point producers trying to get into the grass-fed market would sell dairy cows.  While most dairy cows are just fed grass, they are often old by the time they stop producing milk. In these instances, the product being sold was not beef raised with the intention of being high-quality meat, but that it was raised for dairy and got used for meat, under the implication that it was “grass-fed.” But as the market has grown, more and more companies have decided to raise grass-fed cows specifically for meat instead of dairy cows.

And so most of the beef on the market tastes a lot better than what people who remember eating grass-fed meat — but were actually eating dairy cow — have experienced.

This issues of misrepresentation and mislabeling have been a persistent problem for consumers who may have been unknowingly ignorant to the realities. When someone buys grass-fed beef, they think they are getting an idyllic cow grazing in a field. Too often that hasn’t been the case.

Finding real grass-fed beef

One of the challenges for the customer is that they have good intentions, they want to eat a quality product, and they want the benefit of eating a steak that’s better for them. But they can easily be led astray.

The key is for consumers to look for labels and brands that offer either 100 percent grass-fed meat or the grass-fed, grass-finished labeling. There are also a lot of organizations that offer to certify that products are indeed fully grass-fed. This includes the American Grassfed Association. However, the USDA, which only monitors certified organic beef, does not concern itself with grass-fed regulation. The story of how certified organic/grass-fed beef is labeled and regulated is the topic of another post entirely.

ButcherBox is a brand that stands against all this confusion. We partner only with the farmers whose interests are aligned with our own. We want to bring the customers the best quality meats without any surprises.

And, we are willing to scour the globe to do that.

We want to end the confusion about grass-fed, grass-finished beef. It’s time to be able to access high-quality, trusted meat.

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grades of beef

What different grades of meat mean, and why meat grades don’t matter for grass-fed beef

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If you’ve dined at a local steakhouse recently, you may have seen USDA Prime Beef advertised on your menu. What does this mean? Is prime beef better or healthier than other beef?

Prime is a designation given by the USDA and is a label that producers can choose to pursue, to distinguish their meat from lower-quality products. However, in the case of USDA meat grades, “quality” refers to the amount of flavor, the juiciness, and the tenderness of the meat. It has absolutely nothing to do with the level of nutrients within the cut, nor does it refer to how the animal was raised or what that animal ate during its lifetime (as organic, non-GMO, or grass-fed food labels or designations do).

It’s also important to note that any cut of meat can receive any grade, no matter how sought-after or expensive that particular cut happens to be. For example, a ribeye can be graded as prime or standard, a lesser-quality grade.

Finally, the quality grade has nothing to do with health or sanitation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) ensure all meat sold within the United States — either locally or nationwide — is inspected for safety, diseases, and other necessary measures. Once again, the quality grade is entirely optional; producers actually pay the USDA to grade their meat so they can price and sell the cut accordingly.

What are the different grades of beef?

There are two different ways to “grade” a cut of beef. The first, and better-known method is the quality grade. There are eight different USDA quality grades, evaluating the steak or roast for tenderness, flavor, and juiciness.

The second method doesn’t grade the actual cut — it grades the entire carcass. Yield grade measures how much lean meat can be used compared to the amount of marbling (fat). Yield grades are given a number between one and five, with one being considered “the best,” with the highest portion of lean meat; and five the lowest quality, with the lowest portion of lean beef available.

Prime Grade

Less than two percent of all meat in the United States is graded “Prime.” Viewed as the highest quality grade, prime beef is produced from young, well-fed beef cattle. Prime beef is known for its abundant marbling, as 11% (or more) of the cut is from intramuscular fat.

The only time(s) you’ll cut into a prime cut of beef is either at a steakhouse or an upscale hotel. You will rarely (if ever) find prime beef at your local supermarket — although they can be found at a few chains.

Choice Grade

One step down from prime is “Choice” grade. USDA Choice is still considered a high-quality grade; it just has less marbling than prime (only 9.5-11% intramuscular fat). A tender cut of meat, like a ribeye or filet mignon, will still be very tender and juicy (honestly, you probably won’t notice the difference from prime). A less tender cut could dry out, so it’s best to use a meat thermometer while cooking.

Select Grade

“Select” grade is considered of lesser quality than choice or prime, but still higher than the average steak you’ll find at the supermarket. Select beef has less marbling than either choice or prime, making it a leaner cut of meat. It’s still reasonably tender, but since it contains less fat, it might lack some of the juiciness found in the two higher grades.

Standard and Commercial Grades

“Standard” and “Commercial” are the two grades you’ll typically find at the meat counter as “store brand” meat. As you probably guessed, it contains less marbling than the three higher grades, thereby lacking some of the juiciness and flavor. Many times, these grades will be packaged as “store grades” or “un-graded” at the grocery store.

Utility, Cutter, and Canner Grades

You won’t find filet mignon labeled as utility, cutter, or canner. These three, lower grades are reserved mainly for ground beef and processed products. You won’t find a cut of steak with any of these three grades.

How to cook different grades of beef

Since the amount of fat varies so much between the quality grades, it’s important to know how to cook them. The less marbling in a cut, the higher your chances of overcooking it. Consider using a meat thermometer to prevent drying out your dinner (Remember: our recommendation is 125°F for medium rare).

When dealing with the two highest grades — prime and choice — almost any cut can be cooked by any method. Even if you’re cooking a less tender cut (like a rump or round roast), you should be able to cook with dry heat, such as roasting, broiling, or grilling.

When cooking a select steak or either of the store grades, you should only cook the tender cuts (those from the loin, ribs, or sirloin) with dry heat. Any other cut, you should consider marinating the beef prior to cooking. You could also consider braising — or cooking with another form of added moisture — to keep your meat nice and tender.

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Grades for Poultry

Unlike beef, there are only three grades for poultry: A, B, or C. There are no yield grades for poultry, so the three grades apply whether you’re purchasing a whole chicken or a single, boneless skinless chicken breast.

Grade A

Grade A poultry ensures the meat is free of bruises, feathers, or other defects. If it’s a bone-in product (like bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs), the bones should not be broken. For “whole” products, like your center stage turkey at Thanksgiving, should not have any tears or exposed skin that could dry out when cooking.

Grade A is, in all likelihood, the only label you’ll ever see in a store. It applies to all chicken, duck, turkey, and other poultry products if they meet the above standards. The few exceptions are gizzards, wing tips, tails, necks, and ground meat, which are not graded — no matter their condition.

Grade B and C

To our knowledge, poultry labeled grade B and C is not sold whole in stores. Typically, poultry that falls under either one of these grades will be saved for further-processed products, like ground turkey.

Grades for Other Types of Meat

There is no USDA grade for pork, the only other meat we sell on this site. However, we thought we’d share two other types of meat graded for quality by the USDA.

Grades for Veal

Veal is beef produced from a young calf. The grades are similar to that beef quality grades, with fewer options: prime, choice, good, standard, and utility. Like beef, prime and choice are considered the highest quality and suitable for almost any cooking method. Good, standard, and utility decrease in quality and marbling, with standard and utility usually being reserved for ground veal.

Grades for Lamb

Similar to veal, lamb has five quality grades. The highest quality grades, prime and choice, are typically the only grades found in grocery stores. Good, utility, and cull grades are rarely labeled as such.

What Grade Comes in Your ButcherBox?

None of them.

While there is absolutely nothing wrong with quality grade standards, it has nothing to do with the health or well-being of the animal a cut of meat came from. We would rather ensure our meat came from animals that were humanely raised, grazed on grass, and were never given growth hormones or antibiotics than simply measure the amount of marbling within a cut.

Grain-fed cattle are raised to get fat quickly, which enhances their marbling. Grass-fed cows are leaner, and therefore have less intramuscular fat within each steak. While the USDA beef grades consider this a disadvantage, we look at it as a selling point. We prefer grass-fed beef because they were fed a healthy diet of grass and forage, resulting in a cut of meat that is lower in bad fats and higher in key nutrients.

The purpose of USDA meat grades is to evaluate a cut of beef for flavor, but we happen to prefer the taste of grass-fed beef. But hey, don’t take our word for it.

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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.