Frequently Asked Questions

• Safer for Everyone - No Growth Antibiotics & No Added Hormones.

• Beef with Reduced Fat Content

• Beef with Healthier Fats - Omega 3s

• Happier Cows with Happier Guts

• Delicious, Juicy & Tender Meat

• Healthier Ecology & Environment

The claim that grass-fed beef is healthier for you is true! It's leaner, and more importantly, lower in Omega-6 fats and higher is Omega-3 fats. This reduces the risk of heart disease and has numerous other health benefits.Grass-fed beef also contains 500% more Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA). CLA is an essential fatty acid with some pretty amazing side properties:

• Anti-carconogenic (helps prevent cancer)

• Helps prevent obesity

• Anti-diabetic

• Anti-antherosclerosis (helps prevent heart disease)

Other health benefits of grass-fed:

• 400% more Vitamin A

• 300% more Vitamin E

• 75% more Omega

• 378% more Beta-carotene

100% grass fed cattle remain on open pastures and meadows and eat a diet of grass and forage for their entire lives. Farmers shelter their cattle in the winter and feed them hay and dried forage to supplement grazing and keep them grass fed throughout the year.

Cattle prefer and are in fact designed to eat grass, and are much happier in a pasture than in an over-crowded feedlot. Ruminant animals like a cow eat plant matter and digest their food by eating and chewing “cud," which is created by a special organ called the rumen. They are designed to process grass not corn, which is the main diet of feedlots or grain feeding environments.

We believe that cattle should be fed what their bodies were designed to eat: grass and forage!

About 60% of cattle in the United State’s commercial beef industry spend the first 6 to 12 months of their lives on ranches grazing in pastures eating grass and other forage before being moved to a feedlot or CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) for approximately 5 months where they are fed a 70 - 90% grain (corn) and protein (often beef tallow) based diet with hormone supplements prior to being harvested. About 40% of U.S. cattle in the commercial industry spend more than 8 months in a feedlot environment. The purpose of this strategy is to cause them to gain weight and become fat in a shorter period of time.

Cattle in a CAFO live in crowded, unhealthy conditions as many as 100 head in a half acre pen. Many cattle become ill from these conditions and the grain based diet then require the use of antibiotics and other medications. Illnesses affecting feedlot cattle include bloat, acidosis, compromised immune system, pneumonia, feedlot polio, and liver disease -- illnesses caused by the wrong diet and unhealthy conditions of a feedlot!

One of the most terrifying consequences of the feedlot cow’s changed diet, compromised health, and crowded living conditions are the increase of acid-resistant strains of E. coli. This common intestinal bacteria is usually killed off by the acid in humans stomachs, but the rumen of a corn-fed feedlot cow is nearly as acidic as our own, which has led to tougher strains of E. coli like 0157: H7. This strain is consequently prevalent in the manure of the pens and often becomes caked on the animal's hide, which then can enter the beef during meat processing.

Feedlots are concentrated in the 5-state area of Nebraska, Texas, Kansas, Iowa, and Colorado. Learning about cattle that are finished in feedlots before harvesting is an indescribable and unpleasant lesson. If you would like to know more about this method of raising cattle for beef production please consult:

• The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

• “Current situation and future trends for beef production in the United States of America - A Review” by James S. Drouillard

• “Here’s Why Most of the Meat Americans Eat Is Banned in Other Industrialized Countries” by Martha Rosenberg

• Modern Meat - Frontline PBS production and webpage;

• Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser.

"Pasture-raised chicken meat tends to be higher in iron, higher in Omega 3, have a lower Omega 6:3 ratio, and be higher in antioxidants (Vitamin E, for example).

When we talk about nutrition, fat gets our attention and dominates our conversation, but there’s nutritional benefits beyond fats. Vitamin E, for example, is an antioxidant, and pasture-raised chicken has higher densities of vitamin E." taken from APPPA.org