A Happy Cow Is A Tasty Cow

It was moderately warm out last night, warm enough for an excuse to use the grill. And grill we did, loyal readers, my boyfriend and I barbecuing up some thick but simple burgers. The starting point for this meal came from the fact that we both wanted something meat-like and grillable, however, my eco-concious boyfriend was adament that we either eat vegetarian or some sort of meat that has been raised humanely and ecologically.  It was late when we started shopping, so to Whole Foods we went to make the trip quick and easy, picking up a package of ground-beef patties and a pack of beer-infused tofurkey brats to boot.  As an FYI- don't ever bother buying the Tofurkeys. They were exponentially mediocre.

At home I was in charge of grilling, and I do have to pat myself on the back a little: I NAILED the medium rare on both burgers. And they were beyond delicious: the two of us couldn't stop oohing and ahhing after every bite, dripping with juice and swiss cheese (organic, of course).  I dare say it's the best burger I've had in a very, very long time.

You probably want to know what we did to these burgers that made them so amazing.  Other than rub a tiny bit of olive oil on both sides to keep them moist and from sticking to the grill, absolutely nothing. I credit the cow itself, and the rancher who raised him, with providing all the flavor.

You may remember the 5-step Animal Welfare Rating system from an earlier post.  You see, the only way we were going to find ground beef quickly that met both my bf's ecological and my Au Naturale standards, without running around to every butcher or small market in town, was to rely on this system to help us pick the right item from Whole Food's meat counter.  After perusing both non-rated and "1" and "2"-rated meats, we finally found ourselves some burger patties that were designated a 4 on the scale: "Pasture-Centered".  This means, among other things, that our cattle and his friends and family:

• Must spend at least 3/4 of their lives on range or pasture when seasonal conditions permit. Removing an animal from range or pasture for more than 4 months in any one year or for more than 1/4 of the animal’s life is prohibited. 
• May be removed from range or pasture only when seasonal conditions compromise the welfare of the animals or during extreme weather conditions when the outdoor environment is poses a risk to welfare 
• Housed cattle must have continuous, unobstructed access to the outdoors
• May not be confined to an outdoor area that is less than 250 ft²/24m² per animal.
• Whenever confined outdoors, they must have a clean, dry place to lie.

No CAFOs to be found here, folks.

And you know that when these cattle are outside, able to grow at a natural pace, able to eat grass instead of grain, and not pumped full of hormones or antibiotics, they tend to taste wonderful-- or in another manner of speaking-- taste how cattle are supposed to taste.

Happy, healthy cattle = healthy, tasty meat = happy, healthy human. 

It's official: I'm never going back to mass-produced meat again.  I encourage you to support your local farmer-- and your stomach-- and do the same.

As an aside, we also made some homemade sweet potato chips and regular potato chips with a variety of seasonings.  They tasted great but never got quite crispy enough.  When we figure out the right combination of time and heat, I promise to share it with you all here.  Bon Appetit!

Meat: The Next Frontier

In one of my earlier posts I mentioned that I was unsure of how to judge the chicken breasts I was getting from Whole Foods in terms of their Au Naturale-ness.  They are unbelievably delicious, yes, probably because they are raised better than your garden-variety Purdue chickens, but I wasn't so sure I was trusting all of the claims on the packaging.  As we all know, just because something says "free range" doesn't mean that it is necessarily running around a pasture somewhere.

Recently, though, I noticed that my chicken now come with a rating system on the package.  Hmm, perhaps the poultry version of "Hot or Not"?  Of course, I had to know more, so off to the internets I went.  And boy, was I pleased with what I found: A 5-step Animal Welfare Rating system.  Quite simply, it takes a lot of the guesswork out of guessing how your dinner was raised.  I praise both Whole Foods and the Global Animal Partnership for creating more transparency on these issues, and it really goes to show that consumers are caring more about what they are putting in their bodies.

Sadly, my tasty chicken breasts are only rated a 2.  While I'm glad they're getting an enriched environment, and apparently you need to have strict standards to even make the list, the fact that you need to rate a 3 to even get a mention that you have access to an outdoor environment still doesn't quite meet the Au Naturale standard I have set for myself.  And so I seek the next level in my poultry consumption.

In the research, however, I found this nifty website for Eat Wild.  It's a source for learning about where to find all-natural, humane, and sustainably raised meat, as well as links to find farms that are local to you.  You may not know that farmers and ranchers who are raising animals in a truly sustainable fashion are not only doing well by the animals and our taste buds, but often are doing well by the terrain itself as their farming practices actively promote the health of the land.  With grilling season quickly coming upon us, I look forward to making much use of both this information and many of these tasty animals.