Starting With The Best
At Brown Cow Farm, we believe in quality and won’t accept less than the best.  Our animals are hand selected to provide high-quality breeding stock, guaranteeing that all of the animals will meet the same award-winning high standards.  Many of our animals come from champion bloodlines. 

Why Grassfed is Good for You and Me
There is becoming a plethora of information available as to why grassfed beef is so good for not only the environment and the animal’s health, but also your health. In general the average United States citizen is leading a more sedentary lifestyle than we were at any time in the past. This is a good thing when you consider we are allowing technology to provide us with a more efficient society and that our standard of living has steadily continued to improve at the same time. The obvious downfall is that if we learn to accomplish a certain objective with less effort than before then that is how we are apt to do it.  Such is the case with physical activity and the calories needed to function and perform our daily activities and jobs.

Fats tend to make up a significant portion of total caloric content in our diet.  Grassfed beef is typically lower in fat and a higher percentage of lean muscle than other forms of red meat.  But, you say - aren’t there other types of meat, like chicken that are also lean?  The answer is yes, but it is becoming increasingly evident that the makeup of the fat is even more important.(1)  The ratio of the polyunsaturated fatty acids that are termed omega-6 and omega-3 appears to be one of the critical factors. These are essential fatty acids, which means our bodies need them, not necessarily any more than other fatty acids, but we cannot produce them ourselves so they must be supplied in the diet.

There have been two major trends that have occurred in the last century to throw the fatty acid ratio in our diet out of balance for a healthy body.  The first is the development of the oil seed processing industry which began a steady trend of increasing vegetable oils in our diet.  Through modification of these oils and their incorporation into highly processed foods, they extend the food products shelf life making it very economical and profitable for corporate food handlers to include.  Most of the plastic wrapped, highly processed foods in the center isles of the supermarket contain large amounts of vegetable oils.
The other occurrence is the shift to finishing cattle in feedlots with grain feeding.  The omega-6 to omega-3 ratio in the diets of Americans has risen from somewhere between 10:1 to 20:1 with grain fed beef being a significant contributor to this imbalance.(2)  A healthy intake would put the overall diet ratio close to 3:1. (3)  The ratio in grassfed beef is in the 2:1 range making it an important and healthy choice to include in a regular diet.
 
(1) Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Dietary fats: total fat and fatty acids. In: Dietary reference intakes for energy, carbohydrate, fiber, fat, fatty acids, cholesterol, protein, and amino acids (macronutrients).  Washington, DC: The National Academy Press, 2002:335–432.

(2) Kris-Etherton PM, Taylor DS, Yu-Poth S, et al. Polyunsaturated fatty acids in the food chain in the United States. Am J Clin Nutr 2000;71(suppl):179S– 88S.

(3) Omega-3/Omega-6 fatty acid content of Grassfed Beef: C.A. Daley1, A. Abbott1, M. Basurto1, G. Nader2, and S. Larson2 College of Agriculture, California State University, Chico1

Grassfed Difference
The inclusion of grain into cattle diets partially began and continues due to cheap grain prices.  These grain prices have shown volatility as of late but in general, government programs are designed in such a way that keeps prices at the farm gate as steady as possible and near the cost of production.  As higher percentages of grain were added to the diets of fattening cattle, finishing operations transformed into much larger herds.  It became a more streamlined operation than allowing animals to roam the fields foraging for their needs.  It is a more controlled situation and thus much easier to fatten cattle on a feedlot by supplying them with a high energy diet that varies little in its day to day ingredients.  They don’t have options to pick and choose what they are going to eat, it’s all right in front of them in the bunk.
 
Contrasting to that are cattle that are 100% grassfed to finish.  The majority of their life is spent in the pasture picking and choosing what they want and don’t want to eat.  A significant influence in what a calf learns to include in its diet comes from the example of its mother while it is young.  By observing her, the calf does not have to try every plant, good or bad on its own.
 
Many factors can cause variations in cattle’s diet.  Seasonal growth patterns of the plants, differences in rainfall amounts, the type of plants occurring in a field, mineral deficiencies or surpluses in the soil, even the topography of the land can sometimes challenge the animals in their quest for what they desire to consume.  This is where grass farmers must use their management skills and improvements in available grazing products to overcome uncontrollable variables as much as possible.  We can now decide the size and shape of the areas cattle have access to much better than in the past with portable fencing.  This also allows us to limit how much time they spend eating in any designated paddock or field.
 
The cattle can utilize the available forage and be moved on to a new area allowing the sun and natural biological activity to “sanitize “that grazed area.  This natural sanitation effect reduces the pathogen load resulting in healthier animals as compared to animals that spend the last half of their life standing in the same concrete feedlot.  Pressurized water systems and flexible piping can be utilized so that cattle don’t need to come back to the farmstead to get a drink.  New knowledge is constantly being gained on holistic management of land and cattle for the betterment of both.  So the challenges of finishing cattle on forage alone come from many fronts.  What the cattle eat on a day-to-day basis may also vary.  But what that also does is create a unique and genuinely flavorful taste experience every time.  When you bite into our grassfed burger,  it reflects the diet of the animal it came from, so why wouldn’t you want a predictably healthy yet exciting eating experience?

Animal Benefits of a 100% Forage Diet
The statement that cattle were made to eat grass is substantiated by too many obvious reasons to ignore.  Let’s have a short discussion on the physiology of the cow and its digestive tract.

The cow is an animal with four compartments to its stomach, the largest of the four is the rumen, thus these animals are called ruminants. Sheep, goats, bison and deer are other examples of ruminants and this information pertains to them also.  The rumen acts somewhat like a large fermentation vat.  Inside this vat are bacteria and protozoa that are cellulolytic, meaning they are able to digest cellulose, the major component of plant cell walls.  The host animal, in this case the cow, provides the environment for these microbes and they in turn aid in digestion of plant components that the host could not otherwise utilize. These microbes also continue down the digestive tract of the animal where they are digested as part of the protein in the animal’s diet.   Monogastrics, or single stomached animals like humans and pigs don’t have this symbiotic relationship going on to this extent and cannot make good use of the type of plants that cattle typically eat.  

So in cattle, particles of food are bitten off, masticated to some extent and swallowed.  Once a ruminant has eaten, it will go and peacefully stand or lie down while it “chews its cud”.  I say peacefully because if one is doing it’s “cud chewing” it is at ease.  The “cud” is actually a portion of regurgitated food that needs shredded into smaller particle for effective digestion in the rumen and beyond.  The importance of this is often not noted.  The long fiber in a ruminant’s diet causes the need for cud chewing.  During this process large amount of saliva are produced and swallowed.  Saliva in cattle has a pH of 8.4 to 8.7, very basic or non acidic; however, you want to look at it.  This is very important to a healthy environment in the rumen for proper digestion, for both the microbes and for the animal’s health.  In a feedlot situation where starches from byproducts or grain feeding make up a large portion of the diet, digestive upsets from acidosis are a major problem.
Very little forage or fiber is fed so cud chewing is minimal and only small amounts of saliva are produced to buffer the rumen.  When rumen pH drops below 6.0, fiber digestion is hampered by the loss of cellulolytic bacteria that cannot survive at these unnaturally acidic rumen conditions.  Low rumen pH can cause diarrhea and stomach aches and over time can induce lameness and liver abscesses.  Low levels of antibiotics are constantly kept in the diets of many feedlot cattle to keep the animals from going “off feed” and also reducing various other health maladies.  Therefore, cows eating grass are eating their natural and healthy diet.  Those with the proper genetic makeup can also add marbling to their muscle for great tasting, wholesome beef without the need to feed any grains.

Certified Naturally Grown
Certified Naturally Grown is a Grassroots Alternative to the USDA’s National Organic Program meant primarily for small farmers and producers marketing through local farmers markets, local restaurants, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs and small local grocery stores.  We’re the farmers that make up your local landscape!

www.naturallygrown.org