Where do you lie on the responsible meat spectrum?

In my opinion a good steak is one of life’s greatest dining pleasures.  Most people’s definition of a good steak is tender with plenty of fat throughout which melts in your mouth.  The cattle industry is mostly made up of Factory Farms and corn-fed cows which is not natural and not the way that cows were meant to be raised.  Humans desire for the ‘perfect’ steak has created the industry this way.  Feeding cows corn for long periods makes them fatter and pumping them full of hormones and other additives makes them grow faster so that they can be sold cheaper and faster.  Fortunately there are steakhouses like Mooo that prove that an amazing tasting steak can come from pasture-raised, grass fed cows like nature intended.

I have had the wonderful fortune to have been to Mooo on multiple occasions.  Located in the Beacon Hill area of Boston the menu is refreshingly transparent, stating the farm and source for each of the steaks.  They even state in some cases whether the cows were totally grass-fed or grass and grain fed in some cases, I will explain the differences later on but this level of detail is hard to find.  It is not my intention to give a restaurant review in this article, there are plenty of reviews online praising the quality of the food, service and everything else that makes this restaurant special.  My objective here is to take a closer look at the sources of the meat on the menu so that people can make an educated choice of the source that best suits their own meat beliefs.

The farms stated on the menu are a who’s who of the cattle farms that are known for raising cows the way they should be – pasture-raised and treated humanely.  Let’s go through them one by one.

Greater Omaha – I have to admit that I passed over this at first and have not tried steaks from this farm.  Factory Farms are primarily located in the mid-west and my immediate response was that this was the same.  A closer read of their website has changed my mind slightly.  The company works with a number of smaller producers who are all located in within 300 miles of Omaha, Nebraska.  There is also a section where some of their producers describe their farm practices.  There are mentions of non-hormone treatment, humane handling, feed yards and growing crops such as corn and alfalfa to feed their animals.  This is where you need to make a decision on where you sit on the meat philosophy spectrum – are you a grass-fed purist or are you satisfied with the small farm that is growing their own crops including corn without hormones to feed their cows (still a much better situation than the a factory farm)?  Within the FAQ section of the website they state that all of the beef is pasture-raised and grain finished.  What does this mean?  This means that for most of the cows life they are eating grass in the pasture but at the end they are fed a grain diet (often including corn) to fatten them up.  There are some farms that are 100% grass-fed (grass-fed grass-finished).  Where do I sit on the spectrum?  I would prefer the 100% grass-fed side and look for those options but I can live with the grass-fed grain-finished from the right farm that is not using the right grain (no animal products, hormones or no-natural additives).

Painted Hills – The menu lets you know that the steaks from this farm are grass-fed, grain-finished.  The Painted Hills website explains the process of transitioning from grass-fed to grain fed – this is a gradual operation where the diet is switched from grass to hay and roughage then corn is slowly introduced until a level of about 70% corn. Also states no added hormones, antibiotics or animal products.  All this happens over 4 months.  On their website you can also buy their products and interestingly they also have 100% grass-fed product line which they state is 100% corn free.  These products will ship from Oregon, my absolute best preference is to buy products locally from farms in Massachusetts or New England.

Creekstone Farms – The menu just says all natural but the Creekstone website states that their cows are pasture-raised then corn-finished (no hormones, antibiotics, animal products).  They also have a product which has been fed non-GMO feed.  The Creekstone HQ and processing takes place in Kansas City and they say that all their farms are in the USA but they don’t say the locations (did find one section which stated that they are in the mid-west) and no mention of when the corn diet starts and how much of the diet is corn.

Australian Ribeye – Menu doesn’t say the farm but says 100% grass-fed.  I asked the waiter did they know the farm and he told me it was on the Darling Downs.  There is a great article published online from NPR in August which says that 75-80% of the 100% grass-fed beef in the US comes from Australia, New Zealand or South American since these regions have large areas of grass land where cattle can graze all year round. Love that they have this 100% grass fed option – would be great if it was from a local farm rather than flying it all the way from Australia, guess this shows how difficult it is to raise 100% grass-fed cattle in the US.

Mishima grade Wagyu ribeye – Menu says this is is all natural from Strube ranch.  The Strube ranch website says this Texas-based farm raises their cattle on pasture but once they are weaned (usually at 6 months) they are introduced to a grain based diet over 90 days then moved to an Iowa feedlot for 350-400 days – this is apparently a typical process used in Japan .  Their feed never contains antibiotics, hormones or animal products.  Here the cow is moved to a grain based diet much quicker than described above for Creekstone and Painted Hills and therefore lies further on the spectrum towards a factory farm situation.  The quality of the feed is all-natural but is a long way from the natural way of totally grass-fed.   For me this steps over the line.

Mooo does an amazing job at being transparent with the source of their steaks, as good as any restaurant I have dined at.  They state the farm and even the method which the cow was raised in some cases and most people may not even pay attention to these details (I ate here before I changed my meat philosophy and didn’t pay attention either).  However if you are a Selective Omnivore (or carnivore) and will only eat meat that adheres to certain standards you have multiple options here from 100% grass fed for complete purists to grass-fed but grain finished for a short time to mostly grain fed from all natural grain.  Hopefully this article can help you chose where you sit on the meat spectrum and make you make the best choice for your own meat philosophy.

NOTE:  would like to know if any of my information is incorrect or I missed some details on the farms

All your fried chicken dreams come true at the Crack Shack

Fried Chicken is my favorite food.  It brings back so many good memories for me – and the smell of my mother cooking fried chicken in my childhood home is one that I will never forget.  Fried chicken is messy and not so easy to cook yourself at home (at least for me) and tough to cook well.  Also it is easy to buy at any number of fast food and sit down restaurants and is one of the world’s most popular foods.  However most fast food places and restaurants most likely don’t use the most responsibly sourced chicken and don’t fall in line with my new meat philosophy.  It actually isn’t that easy to find restaurants that use antibiotic and hormone free, humanely raised chicken believe it or not.  Previously I had written a post about an amazing restaurant called Crispy Bird in Indianapolis that sold amazing fried chicken that met my chicken sourcing criteria, unfortunately that eating establishment is no longer with us and I also didn’t go to Indy that often.  Fortunately all my fried chicken dream came true when I discovered The Crack Shack in San Diego.

The Crack Shack is a special place, I have actually only been to the one in Encinitas a few times but there is another location in Little Italy San Diego, LA area and Las Vegas.  It is a casual counter style restaurant where you places your order at a window and they will bring it to your table.  The chicken is amazing, perfectly spiced and cooked.  They also sell sandwiches, salads and bowls but I always just go for the chicken and fries, with beer of course.

What makes this chicken ultra-special for me is where it from.  As stated on their website : “We are not your average restaurant —and this is not your average chicken.”  Here is a great snippet from their website:

“Our ingredients are the absolute highest quality that we can source, from mostly organic produce, to antibiotic-free, preservative-free, “beyond free-range” chicken. Our pride lies in our locally sourced, high-end ingredients. We understand that this ethos may not be important to everyone, but we strive to elevate the chicken and the egg by using the same ingredients and chef-driven attitude as we do at Juniper and Ivy.”

The “beyond free-range” chicken that they are talking about is a brand called Jidori chicken.  When I adopted my new Meat Philosophy and I started searching for restaurants that sourced their chicken responsibly, I came across the brand Jidori, particularly in Californian establishments. Again I am going to let the following paragraph from the Jodiri website do all the talking:

“We believe all animals; especially those raised for sustenance, should be treated with respect and raised cruelty free. Our chickens are treated humanely- raised free-range with all-natural feed, that includes no meat by-products, hormones, or antibiotics. Jidori is produced by a small boutique, USDA inspected, company that processes each chicken by hand. We start early in the morning, and guarantee that your whole birds are delivered immediately, making it the freshest chicken there is. The benefits of this freshness can be tasted: creamy yet firm with a natural chicken flavor.”

Further research on Jidori chickens uncovered that it actually is a mixed breed of a cross between the pure Japanese breed Hinaidori and a Rhode Island Red.  From what I can gather, they are sold by one company Hao Foods, a family owned food distribution company that worked with small CA-farms to raise, process and distribute this chicken. Another key feature of the Jidori product is that they are shipped within 24 hours of processing and are never frozen.   The Jidori chicken has become so prized that some restaurants claim it on their menus fraudulently in order to cut costs and attract customers.  I even found this scientific paper which describes a DNA test  to ensure the authenticity of Jidori chicken.

So my fried chicken dreams came true – an awesome fried chicken joint that uses the prized Jidori chicken which is raised without antibiotics and hormones, humanely raised, as fresh as you can get – ‘beyond free-range’.  Just wish this chain existed in Boston….

Just how good is B.GOOD?

B.GOOD is a casual restaurant chain that promotes itself as ‘Food with Roots’ through responsibly sourced food and a strong connection to the farmers that produce food by developing a community spirit.  Grabbing a quick bite at a casual restaurant is part to modern life.  Most people can’t afford some the fancy farm to table restaurants out there but want to be able to good food with meat raised the right way that doesn’t cost a fortune.  Sometimes you need a good place the take the kids as well when you don’t want to cook or you are on road and traditional fast food options are out since they are notorious for using factory farms for meat.  B.GOOD touts itself as that restaurant and with location in 13 US states (primarily on the East Coast), Germany, Switzerland and Canada deserves a closer look at it’s sourcing practices.  The purpose of this article is not to review the restaurants (I have been to a few locations and the food is great) but to look more closely at the food sources and their farming practices.

The B.GOOD website has a ton of information and there is a storing theme that Animal Welfare is very important here.  This excerpt has some of the key information:

Where We Are at Now
Animal welfare has been an important cornerstone of our business since the beginning, and we are proud to share where we are now:

1. Laying Hens: 100% of our shell eggs come from cage-free laying hens and 73% are Certified Humane.
2. Chicken: 93%* of the chicken in our supply chain were never administered antibiotics and were fed an all vegetarian diet. This product is supplied by the Perdue brand Harvestland.
3. Pigs: 80% of our pork is Certified Humane, which does not allow the use of gestation crates or farrowing crates.
4. Beef: 97%** of the beef in our supply comes from cows that were never administered hormones or antibiotics.
5. Turkey: 95% of the turkey in our supply chain is American Humane Certified.

*Indicates 100% of the protein is antibiotic free
**100% of our beef is hormone free

Commendably they put a percentage of their products that adhere to certain guidelines.  Very honest and one must assume they are targeting 100% in the future, but one can’t help but wonder if you are in the unlucky 3% that happened to get the beef that that was administered antibiotics.  There is an emphasis on attaching percentages to Certified Humane or American Humane Certified so is worth digging deeper into what this means.

Certified Humane is a non-profit organization that aims to improve the lives of farm animals by setting standards for the living conditions and diet of these animals.  A lot of thought and effort has gone into creating documents to set these standards through committees comprising of veterinarians, scientists and farmers.  There is a lot of information of the website and it is not the aim of this article to analyze this work.  From what I can gather the guidelines involve a standard of living that the animals cannot be kept in cages, must have a certain level of space to move around and assume some normal behaviors and must be fed a diet that doesn’t consist of animal by-products, antibiotics or hormones.  This is obviously a big step up from the traditional factory farm situation.  However what it doesn’t mean is that animals have complete access to the outdoors or are raised on pasture.  This link is to the Housing Systems page on the Certified Humane website which shows examples of housing which are allowed and not allowed.  While the chickens are not in cages the conditions are certainly crowded.  I like this link to Consumer reports page on Certified Humane labels.  Similarly the American Humane Certification also doesn’t require that animals have access to the outdoors but there are standards that need to be met there are policies that must be adhered to prevent animal abuse.  I couldn’t find any requirements for diet regarding the use of antibiotics, animal products or hormones. Again this link to the Consumer Reports site concisely outlines the Main benefits and limitations.  There is a lot of information out there and a Google search for both will come up with a plethora of articles written both in favor and criticizing both labels.  My intention here is not to summarize all this information but to provide some food for thought.  What I will say is that this a step in the right direction  the labels ‘Humane’ may mean different things to different people and the consumer should have some knowledge of what they actually mean.

Companies like B.GOOD should be commended for their efforts towards providing food that has had some serious thought and effort towards how is was raised.  I definitely like to keep it an option when I need to grab a quick bite with the kids or I just want to have a quick burger or chicken sandwich and know that there was a significant effort to ensure that animal was raised in a humane way.

 

 

 

If you want to buy food that meets the all natural standards then try Copicut Farms

When I first embarked on this journey to find responsibly raised meat I tried the mail order services like Walden Meat Co and Crowd Cow.  Both are convenient ways to purchase meat raised the right way, slightly different business models as I explained in the reviews.  Something struck a cord with me with both was that I was buying meat from locations like California or Virginia and they were shipped by air and packed in dry ice with foam insulated boxes.  Seemed like a lot of packing to buy meat on a regular basis and didn’t flying meat around the country didn’t seem to be in the spirit of sustainability I was trying to achieve.  So I started to look for local farms near my home south of Boston that were raising chicken, pigs and cows in a responsible manner.  The ideal situation would be to find a farm that I could get easy access to and since I live close to the city my best bet would be a farmer’s market.

The closest Farmer’s market to me is the Milton Farmers market (2 miles from my house) and at that market was a meat vendor Copicut Farms.  Copicut Farms is located in Dartmouth, MA and they raise pasture-raised poultry and pigs.  I love this excerpt from their website which explains their animal raising philosophy perfectly:

“All of our animals are raised outdoors, and have constant access to our chemical-free pastures where they are free to forage for grass, legumes, and insects throughout all but the harshest winter months.  Pasture-raised poultry, pork, and eggs, and grass-fed lamb are a healthier choice, containing less cholesterol, less saturated fat, more omega-3, and higher levels of essential vitamins and nutrients than their non-pastured counterparts.”

They also have this paragraph under Human Processing:

“We designed, built, and operate our own State-licensed poultry slaughtering facility. This allows us to maintain an extremely high level of food safety and ensure that our animals are treated in the most humane manner possible throughout all stages of their lives.  Our pork and lamb is processed at the most reputable local Animal Welfare-Approved facilities under USDA inspection.”

This sounded like it checked all the boxes for me.  I visited the Milton farmers market many times throughout the summer to stock up mainly on chicken (parts with bones to make curries or stews) and eggs.  Sometimes the chicken was frozen but often it was fresh which was a bonus.  I also visited them at the Hingham farmers market on Saturdays when I couldn’t get to the Milton market on Thursday afternoon. Buying this meat is now the preferred way for me to buy chicken – responsibly raised with the right ethics and local.  The only downside is that I would buy a big batch at a time so I needed to ensure that there was plenty of space in my freezer and I needed to find the time to go to the  Farmer’s market which wasn’t always possible.  Thursdays I had to take time out during a work day and Saturdays wasn’t always possible with the work schedule.  Also the Milton market is not open during the winter. So some planning is required for sure but the produce is worth it.

BBQ pioneer in Boston – Sweet Cheeks Q

One of America’s culinary gifts to the world is BBQ.  Before I came to the US I had no idea how many styles, flavors and techniques there were that make up this delicious, smoky genre.  Traditionally BBQ was used to make less flavorful, cheap cuts of meat more tasty by cooking slow over a smoky fire.  Note the phrase ‘cheap cuts of meat’ – hence it is hard to find BBQ made from grass fed beef, free range chicken or heritage pork.  I love BBQ and have even started smoking and experimenting with different meats myself.  However smoking a pork butt or beef brisket is a long involved process that can take all day and a lot of prep and cleaning up.  Therefore I limit this exercise to 2-3 times per year.  During the other times of the year I needed to find a place to satisfy my BBQ cravings that was in line with my new meat philosophy.  Sweet Cheeks saved me….

This excerpt from their website was music to my ears:

“Doing it right: For us, it’s using the best of everything possible. All of our meats are responsibly sourced and all natural. Most of our beef is “Never Ever”, meaning it’s all sustainably-raised “Super Natural,” premium Black Angus beef that is NEVER EVER treated with hormones, antibiotics, or chemical additives. Other beef options are from small New England farms adhering to similar practices. Our pork is Berkshire, our chicken and turkey are all natural. We use local farms when possible. We’re committed to doing what’s right.”

I was lucky that I found Sweet Cheeks quite quickly during my search for BBQ constructed from responsibly sourced meat.  I haven’t found another BBQ restaurant in Boston that adheres to the same meat standards.  If I was to be real strict on the Meat Philosophy rules then I would need to ensure the the animals are being treated humanely and free-range, the beef needs to be grass-fed not corn-fed.  But the phrase above from their website is very comfortably and checks a lot of boxes.

I have been to Sweet Cheeks four times now and the BBQ is absolutely delicious – I have tried most the meats and they are all delicious.  The menus has plenty of hints to the meat sourcing philosophy – all natural chicken, heritage-breed pulled pork, all-natural pork belly and the phrase above should confirm your confidence to go all out here.  You order a ‘tray’ which usually consists of one meat and 2 sides – one hot and cold.  I suggest to go for the Fat Tray where you get 3 meats and 2 scoops (sides) – try them all and go back for your favorite!

Sweet Cheeks has been a savior for me – amazing BBQ concocted from responsibly sourced meat right here in Boston.  My search for others continues, haven’t found any others yet….