What’s the beef?
Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, March 9, 2004
There is plenty of safe, healthy and great-tasting beef out there, if you know what to look for, according to Organic Style magazine’s March issue.
Consumers now face choosing from labels including “natural,” “organic,” “hormone- and antibiotic-free,” “grass-fed” and “grass-finished,” along with conventionally raised beef. This label proliferation is good news for red-meat lovers who want to know more about what they are buying.
More good news, the magazine says, is that across the country, a new generation of ranchers are using old-fashioned methods such as pasture-feeding and the latest organic farming techniques to produce their beef.
The magazine offers pointers for informed beef buying at the grocery store or butcher.
What the labels mean:
Natural: Beef has not been altered with food coloring or artificial additives, or it was raised without the use of antibiotics, hormones or animal proteins. The price and quality of natural beef varies according to how much special care a producer provides for the cattle.
Grass-fed or pasture-finished: This translates into beef from animals that have spent their whole lives on pasture and are never fattened up with grain. Grass-finished beef is what most people ate before industrial farming took over in the 1950s.
Organic: This label means that the beef was raised on only organic feed and with no antibiotics, hormones or animal byproducts. Of all the beef labels, it is the only one certified by the USDA. Because of the expense required for producers to meet certification standards, organic beef will cost three times more than supermarket beef. If you are a purist, you probably won’t mind.
Associated Press
