“Today we’re going to beat our record with a 350-pound burger.”
I turned on the local news last night to catch the weather forecast – and there was a three foot tall hamburger staring back at me.
It sells for $2,000.
“It’ll have 20 pounds of cheese, 15 pounds of tomatoes, and 10 pounds of bacon. And it comes with a free drink.”
I chuckled at that. But all I could think of looking at the reporter and the restaurant owner was, if you only knew what was in all that commercial burger meat, you might be amazed for a different reason.
Sure, restaurants and grocery store chains go out of their way to assure you that their beef is pure and natural. It’s all USDA top grade, thoroughly inspected, supplied by accredited “farms,” and so on.
But factory farmers have been known to feed cattle:
- Recycled human food like stale candy, potato chips, brewery wastes, and burger buns.
- Parts of fruits and vegetables we don’t eat, like orange rinds, beet pulp, and carrot tops.
- Random garbage you don’t even want to know about, including chicken manure, chicken feathers, newsprint, cardboard, and “aerobically digested” municipal garbage.
And here’s something even more disturbing, as if passing on an end product to your family with what I just mentioned isn’t bad enough.
The slimiest, nastiest slaughterhouse leftovers are put together by a company called Beef Products. Inc., (BPI) who then takes the dirty, feces-stained scraps and turns them into dirty, contaminated burger filler.
How is that allowed?
The government lets them use this filler because it’s treated with ammonia.
The harsh chemical with the horrible smell that’s used for fertilizers and oven cleaners kills the harmful bacteria swimming around in the slimy meat soup. (It doesn’t get rid of it, of course . You’re still eating it, it’s just dead).
What they do is pass the pink slime through a pipe where it is doused in ammonia gas. You would never know because they don’t have to mention this on the label. And you probably never think about it… until you buy some meat that stinks so bad you have to return it.
Beef Products invented the process so they could find a way to use and make money from the absolute last and cheapest scraps of the animals. This meat is so cheap and popular that the National School Lunch Program forces schools to use it so they can shave a whole three cents off the cost of each burger fed to your kids.1
And it’s in up to 80% of the ground beef you can buy at restaurants or stores.2
Can you imagine how much ammonia is in a 350-pound burger? That’s a dirty secret I don’t want in my beef.
Fortunately, there is a source of beef that doesn’t have any of these fillers.
Pasture-raised organic beef couldn’t be more different than that pink stuff. Instead of eating what I described above, animals raised in pastures eat their natural diet of high-quality, mineral filled grass. And they’re healthy because they can do what they normally do, like walk around, root and graze.
Grass-fed animals also get no antibiotics, hormones, or pour-on insecticides.
And if you haven’t tried it, let me tell you, it really tastes great. Serve it rare if you like the taste. It will preserve more nutrients. You can braise it, roast it, or throw it on the grill. That’s what our ancestors did.
One thing about grass-fed beef is that it usually takes a third less time to cook. That’s because it’s leaner and richer in healthy fats. They melt quicker at a lower temperature than contaminated fats from conventional beef. So you have to be careful not to overcook it.
You can get some of the best grass-fed beef delivered to your home, ordered right from the Internet. There’s:
- US Wellness Meats – One of the original grass-fed meat suppliers, and the one I use, with a unique way of raising cattle to have more CLA and omega-3 (www.grasslandbeef.com)
- Alder Spring – This Idaho ranch sells only dry-aged, hand processed beef (www.alderspring.com)
- Weatherbury Farm – This Pennsylvania farm also has grass-fed lamb (www.grassfed.weatherburyfarm.com)
- Good Earth Farms – A family-owned Wisconsin farm uses only green compost, manure and minerals for fertilizer (www.goodearthfarms.com)
- Wise Organic Pastures – Also in Pennsylvania, this farm’s beef is double-certified… organic grass-fed and certified kosher (www.wiseorganicpastures.com)
- Crossroads Ranch – This California ranch mimics the animals’ natural setting and uses sustainable grass farming practices (www.bestbeefever.com)
The good news is, these are only a few of the places you can get pasture-raised meat. New grass-fed ranches are springing up all over the country. And you don’t even have to stick to beef. Try buffalo, pork, venison, or other responsibly raised meat. You can find more resources at grasslandbeef.com, eatwild.com, and onlygrassfed.com.
1 Moss, M. “Safety of Beef Processing Method Is Questioned.” NY Times. www.nytimes.com. Dec. 31, 2009. Retrieved Oct 26, 2011.
2 Kay, S. “Grinding Out More Business.” Industry Search. www.industrysearch.com.au. Sept. 3, 2006. Retrieved Oct 26, 2011.