Ruminations

In exciting news, researchers have shown that frozen semen can remain viable over extended periods. Specifically, scientists from LSU’s Ag Center have produced calves from Angus bull semen that was frozen for more than 40 years.

With such techniques, scientists have developed technologies that have improved the efficiency of livestock production. For example, insemination of dairy cattle with frozen semen has resulted in a marked increase milk production per cow since the mid 1960s.

Read more here from the cattlenetwork.com.

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USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has produced a guide for mobile slaughter units that want to come under Federal inspection. The USDA is seeking comments on the guide before July 26.

For more information  about mobile slaughter units and the compliance guide, contact Mark Cutrufelli at (770) 304-8919 or by e-mail at Mark.Cutrufelli@fsis.usda.gov.

To read the guide, click here: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Significant_Guidance/index.asp

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In response to the New York Times article Oct. 6, Ridge Shinn submitted this letter to the Editor:

To the Editor:

Re illness from contaminated beef, (“The Anatomy of a Burger,” Oct. 6), scrutiny of meat processing will not identify the real villain: grain fed to cattle.

Corn — or any grain —   is not healthy for ruminants. Nevertheless, feedlot cattle are given large quantities of this inexpensive feed, and often endure a condition known as acidosis, or “acid indigestion.” Consequently an acid-resistant strain of E.coli has developed that can survive in the grain-fed bovine. If passed on, it can also survive the acid of the human stomach and cause illness.

In contrast, cattle that live in pastures, eating grass and hay, are likely to have healthy guts and little, if any, of the acid-resistant E.coli, according to a Cornell University study. http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Sept98/acid.relief.hrs.html

When the bovine digestive system, which has evolved to process grass, is allowed to function naturally, it is very unlikely to cause a problem to human health.

Ridge Shinn

Founder, Hardwick Beef

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Recently the New York Times visited Bryn Teg, a farm in the Northern Kingdom of Vermont, that’s owned by Judith Jones. She is a long-time editor at Knopf who edited Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, among many other noted authors, and is herself an author (The Tenth Muse and The Pleasures of Cooking for One). The farm has a small herd of grass-fed beef that includes Black Anguses and Belted Galloways.

Hardwick Beef’s own Michael Gourlay is mentioned in the article as advising Jones’ step-daughter Bronwyn Dunne on the herd and grass-finishing the cattle. Not only does Judith Jones relish the fact that her family is using the land for pasture and raising “contented” cows, but she also enjoys “a return to the true beef flavor that she hadn’t experienced since she was in Paris in her 20s,” as the article notes. “… this is what meat should taste like,” she says.

To read the entire article, click here. 

To read Judith Jones’ blog about her adventures in farming, click here.

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An article at Gourmet Magazine’s website points to one extreme of achieving tender tasty meat. Author Barry Estabrook writes: “Like many people, I am familiar with Kobe lore: These supremely pampered bovines pass their days in almost Zen-like bliss, getting regular massages and subsisting on all the grain they can eat, washed down with cold Kirin beer.”

Upon investigation of the conditions under which Kobe beef are raised, however, he decides he prefers not to order it again at restaurants.

His somewhatdisparaging remarks about grass-finished need to be changed by those of us with Devon beef varieties coming to market with a tender tasty product raised right.

Read the complete article here: http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2007/12/kobe_beef_estabrook?currentPage=2

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According to an article in the New York Times (June 4, 2009), Vermont farmers are experimenting with a change in diet to see if the level of methane produced by cows changes. Methane is linked to global warming, and any decrease in the amount of cows’ methane is a good thing. According to the article:

“Since January, cows at 15 farms across Vermont have had their grain feed adjusted to include more plants like alfalfa and flaxseed — substances that, unlike corn or soy, mimic the spring grasses that the animals evolved long ago to eat.  As of the last reading in mid-May, the methane output of Mr. Choiniere’s herd had dropped 18 percent. Meanwhile, milk production has held its own.

“The program was initiated by Stonyfield Farm, the yogurt manufacturer, at the Vermont farms that supply it with organic milk.”

Results look promising. Of course, we firmly believe that grass-fed cattle are best for lots of reasons, including this one. Less methane is produced from cattle that don’t burp as much.

Read the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/us/05cows.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

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Dan Barber, chef at Stone Hill Barns, says this in an article in Food and Wine magazine:

“Credit for animal ultrasounding goes to Ridge Shinn, a farmer at Out of the Woods Farm in central Massachusetts, who is a part-time livestock consultant and a full-time proselytizer of raising cattle on an all-grass diet. ‘Conventional ranchers rarely understand the quality of what they are producing. The processing centers identify the best meat and grade it ’prime,’ but they do that after the slaughter,” he says, turning up his hands in disbelief. “Works for the processor all right­ — they get the increased profits from the sale of a well-marbled animal, and the customers are happy because they know what they’re getting.”

Read the article in Food and Wine here: www.foodandwine.com/articles/creating-flavor-in-the-field

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by Ridge Shinn

Two recent articles have come to my attention about the bad rap that cows have received regarding the methane they produce. In an article at IndyWeek.com, reporter Suzanne Nelson writes, “The methane cows exude has been blamed as a more potent contributor to global climate change than carbon dioxide, the primary byproduct of burning fossil fuels. … But are cows really worse for the atmosphere than cars and all of the other implements of a global industrial economy? The answer, while complicated, appears to be no.”Finally, someone is talking sense about methane generation by bovines.

In a second report, the San Francisco Chronicle reports, “Pacific Gas and Electric Co. will unveil its latest renewable energy project today, a system that collects methane from manure on a Fresno County dairy farm and refines it into biogas, virtually identical to natural gas. The biogas then flows into a PG&E natural gas pipeline for use in homes and power plants. … PG&E estimates that biogas could one day supply 5 percent of all the natural gas the utility needs.”

Here are links to both articles:

IndyWeek.Com
San Francisco Chronicle

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Author and grass researcher Jo Robinson writes about the current beef industry in the February/March issue of Mother Earth News.  She writes, “Supermarket beef is an unnatural, industrial product. The good news is there are better and safer options. Learn how to avoid hormones, antibiotics and other unwanted chemicals in your food; stay safe from mad cow disease and E. coli, and choose better beef, including grass-fed, organic and locally raised options.”

In this article, she writes convincingly and passionately about returning to the era of pre-industrialized beef. She discusses the widespread use of hormones, antibiotics, and by-products, and the resulting bad side effects of these practices. Read her article here.

In addition to her article are five related articles:

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