Red meat: a rare occasion

Monday, August 11, 2008

I don't eat much red meat at all, due largely to the enormous strain our industrialized beef places upon the environment. (For for information, check out the New York Times article 'Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler'). Many estimates of the way we raise cattle here in the US put the figure at 10 to 1. That is, we could feed 10 people with grain, or we could feed that grain to a cow, whose meat would feed 1 person. Just 1.

(photo courtesy of Farm Sanctuary)

However, as detailed in The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (referral link), there are many small farms out there producing beef in ways that do not impact the environment (and almost seem to enhance it?), notably Polyface Farm (150 miles outside of D.C.).

One of the key distinctions is diet. Grass vs. Corn. For a variety of reasons, all industrial beef in the US is fed with corn even though this is not a natural food for the cows. They get fatter faster, but literally cannot properly digest it, which leads to antibiotics, etc. Cows were designed to eat grass, which turns out not only to be far healthier, but also far more environmentally sustainable.

(photo courtesy of eekim)

So we bought some ground beef for $3.99/lb from Natural Homestead Beef. As you can see on their website, the beef was not entirely grass fed, but rather dined on a combination of grass and grain feed. Not ideal in our minds, but certainly better than what we had been eating.

Using a Weight Watchers recipe which included adding carrots and scallions to the patties, as well as lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and chopped cucumbers on top, and some buns from the local Wild Oats (which has been acquired by Whole Foods), I could hardly wait to start eating. The result?

Frankly, I think there was too much going on in this recipe. Much like my french toast, the burgers needed no fancifying (which we proved the next night by having them again without all the dressings. And they were fantastic!). The greatest benefit was that even after eating two burgers (and salad), I felt ready to leap from my chair and take on the world! (Sadly, I cannot remember what I actually did, but likely carried my chair upstairs and typed out another blog post!). Afterwards, we agreed that seeing a little bit of pink in the middle was far less troubling than it might otherwise have been.

But seriously, I've felt light as air after both meals so far. Is it just me, or did you also think that food coma was natural?