Devon/Angus Beef Proves to Be Tasty & Tender
by Ridge Shinn

The data are in. The Devon/Angus calves that Hardwick Beef is harvesting are tender and tasty!

This isn’t really a surprise, because we had heard reports from customers that our 100% grass-fed Devon/Angus beef was both tender and tasty. Comments from friends and neighbors, our meat processor (with years of meat-eating experience), our customers and our vendors have all been overwhelmingly positive. In addition, a national Whole Foods representative says it’s the best beef he has tasted in America!

So we decided it was time to test our hypothesis that the Rotokawa® Devon bulls stamp their progeny with the characteristics of high-quality meat. We would do this by analyzing a random sample of ½ Rotokawa® Devon steers as they were harvested. We cut two adjacent rib eye steaks from the 12^th and 13^th rib of 25 steers.

Some of these steers were calves that were born and raised in Montana. They were fed hay and alfalfa, combined with a mineral supplement, for their first winter. Then the calves were grazed on ryegrass on irrigated land. When they were 15 to 17 months old and fat, weighing between 1,100 and 1,250 pounds, they were harvested. The cattle were killed in Montana and the primal were “wet-aged” for 14 days before the rib eye steaks were cut 1” thick and then frozen. Other steers were raised in the Northeast on perennial pasture, hay and haylage; carcasses were dry-aged before samples were harvested.

Samples Evaluated

The samples were shipped to grass-fed meat researcher Dr. Susan Duckett at Clemson University to be evaluated for fatty-acid values as well as tenderness values as measured with the Warner-Bratzler shear force test.

Preliminary findings are very exciting; the first eight samples show consistent high quality. Total fat values were equivalent to USDA low choice values; the Omega 6 Omega 3 ratio was a near perfect 1.26 to 1; and the Warner-Bratzler Shear values averaged 3.6 -- below the 4.1 level, which is the generally accepted range where 98% of people feel the meat is quite tender and of restaurant quality.

Highly acceptable taste and tenderness values are essential for the consumer to fully embrace a 100% grass-fed and finished beef program. The story about the health benefits of this product for the consumer, the animal, the farmer/rancher and the environment have been trumpeted in the press and are no longer even debated.

More and more 100% grass-fed producers and vendors are bringing beef to market and the overall quality has improved. Marian Burros, influential food writer for the New York Times, reports that nearly 75% of the samples she tried recently were good, whereas three years ago 75% were either “bad” or not tasty and tender. (August 30, 2006; read it by clicking here.)

Consistent Quality

Consistent quality of product is the goal of any long-term market success. Numerous 100% grass-fed beef companies rely on sorting cattle for quality using the ultrasound method. Live cattle can be evaluated for quality parameters and can then be harvested if they meet the quality standard set by the meat company. Other meat programs are based on a production protocol like “organic”; the protocol and “purity” or adherence to a particular standard is the prerequisite for participation in such programs, but there is less emphasis on consistent quality of the meat.

One reason for the extreme variability of meat today is the adherence to cross-breeding programs by the cattle industry, and some companies actually market “composite” bulls that are generally a three-way cross. The resulting variability that we see in the industry is the enemy of producing meat of a consistent quality.

At Hardwick Beef, we use sorting methods, including ultrasound, to select cattle for harvest. We admit this is a short term crutch. How many producers will allow a meat company to cut their herd and “cherry pick” their good cattle every year? A better approach is to breed high-quality herds using condensed, high-quality bulls, and that is what we at Bakewell Repro Center are doing to create a consistent meat product.

It takes a long perspective and patience to wait for a return on investment to create 100% grass-fed bulls. We at Hardwick Beef and Bakewell Repro Center believe that using artificial insemination (AI) with semen from the right bulls is an investment that allows a producer to breed a consistent group of high-quality calves with the overwhelming majority fitting the profile of high-quality grass-fed beef.

We at Bakewell have evaluated numerous breeds of cattle and subsets of these breeds around the world to find bulls suitable for this job. The breed that excels in this arena is the Devon.

In spite of the mountains of press criticizing animal fats over the past decades, the consumer is now beginning to distinguish between good fats and bad fats. Essential fatty acids are just that -- essential for many aspects of health. Conjugated linoleic acids, which are produced in the rumen of bovines (one of the few places these are manufactured), have numerous health benefits including creating lean muscle mass and stopping tumor growth in mammalian experiments. The omega 6/omega 3 ratio is critical in determining how these essential fatty acids benefit human health, rather than harm it.

High levels of good fat and tenderness in meat are essential for palatability of 100% grass fed beef. The consumer’s acceptance and embrace of this product depends on experiencing quality consistently.

The recent data are excellent indicators that Devon are the ultimate grass cattle. They have always been an easy fleshing breed on grass and were also known historically as the “butcher’s breed” for the quality and volume of meat. We at Bakewell believe that artificial insemination using proven Devon bulls is the fastest and best way to introduce consistent quality to your 100% grass-fed beef program.

Click here to download the data: http://www.bakewellrepro.com/bulls/RotokawaDevonsdata.pdf

Some Harsh Facts About E. Coli
by Ridge Shinn

E. coli is a naturally occurring bacterium that lives in the lower intestines of mammals, and most strains are not harmful to people. However, there is a particularly virulent strain (E. coli O157:H7) that is dangerous to human health.

We all have heard about meat recalls and outbreaks that actually kill people, including the recent media reports concerning tainted spinach. Some people are theorizing that this spinach was infected with E. coli by exposure to animal manure or human manure (for example, feces from farm workers).

E. coli outbreaks are often linked to meats or meat products that are improperly cooked. Meat can be accidentally contaminated by E. coli in the slaughter process or by contamination of meat by manure from harvested animals that contains the E. coli.

What is the biology of this syndrome? Although E. coli naturally lives in the gut of all bovines, it needs an acidic environment to proliferate. The normal pH of a healthy rumen (digestive tract of the bovine) is basic in a range from 6.2 to 6.5.

However, most cattle in this country spend their final days in feedlots eating food that includes substantial amounts of grain. This diet causes an acid environment in the rumen called acidosis, which becomes a challenge to combat. Feedlots incorporate baking soda into cattle’s feed in an attempt to counteract the negative pH. In layman’s terms, the high grain diet causes indigestion and provides an environment in which E. coli proliferates. Is there any way to reduce this threat to human health and safety?

CORNELL RESEARCH
Cornell University suggests there are ways to curtail this problem. Although the research was reported in 1998, the findings are even more appropriate today: “A simple change in cattle diets in the days before slaughter may reduce the risk of Escherichia coli (E. coli) infections in humans, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Cornell University microbiologists have discovered.”

As reported in the Sept. 11 issue of the journal Science, the research indicates that E. coli in the bovine digestive tract could be substantially reduced by removing the grain ration from finishing cattle and feeding them hay for about five days before slaughter. This allows the rumen to revert to its normal pH, which in turn makes a very unattractive environment for nasty strains of E. coli O157:H7 bacterium.

Here are the important points:

“In studies performed at Cornell, beef cattle fed grain-based rations typical of commercial feedlots had 1 million acid-resistant E. coli, per gram of feces, and dairy cattle fed only 60 percent grain also had high numbers of acid-resistant bacteria. In each case, the high counts could be explained by grain fermentation in the intestines. By comparison, cattle fed hay or grass had only acid-sensitive E. coli, and these bacteria were destroyed by an “acid shock” that mimicked the human stomach.”

“… acid-resistant strains of bacteria have evolved to overcome the protective barrier of the gastric stomach. The ongoing process of natural selection allows organisms with the appropriate genes to survive and multiply where others cannot. Because cattle have been fed high-grain, growth-promoting diets for more than 40 years, he says, there has been ample opportunity to select acid-resistant forms.”

• Follow this link for the whole story: http://http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Sept98/acid.relief.hrs.html

• Additional research on this topic is summarized at Jo Robinson’s EatWild.com site: http://www.eatwild.com/foodsafety.html

Once again we can see that changing how we raise cattle, moving them from their natural grass diet to a man-made diet of grain, has serious consequences for our food supply and our health. Raising 100% grass-fed and finished beef is just good sense.