"
'Today we’re going to beat our record with a 350-pound burger.'
I turned on the
local news last night to catch the weather forecast – and there was a three foot
tall hamburger staring back at me.
It sells for
$2,000.
'It’ll have 20
pounds of cheese, 15 pounds of tomatoes, and 10 pounds of bacon. And it comes
with a free drink.'
I chuckled at
that. But all I could think of looking at the reporter and the restaurant owner
was, if you only knew what was in all that commercial burger meat, you might be
amazed for a different reason.
Sure, restaurants
and grocery store chains go out of their way to assure you that their beef is
pure and natural. It’s all USDA top grade, thoroughly inspected, supplied by
accredited “farms,” and so on.
But factory
farmers have been known to feed cattle:
-
Recycled
human food like stale candy, potato chips, brewery wastes, and burger
buns.
-
Parts of
fruits and vegetables we don’t eat, like orange rinds, beet pulp, and
carrot tops.
-
Random
garbage you don’t even want to know about, including chicken manure,
chicken feathers, newsprint, cardboard, and “aerobically digested”
municipal garbage.
And here’s
something even more disturbing, as if passing on an end product to your family
with what I just mentioned isn’t bad enough.
The slimiest,
nastiest slaughterhouse leftovers are put together by a company called Beef
Products. Inc., (BPI) who then takes the dirty, feces-stained scraps and turns
them into dirty, contaminated burger filler.
How is that
allowed?
The government
lets them use this filler because it’s treated with ammonia.
The harsh chemical
with the horrible smell that’s used for fertilizers and oven cleaners kills the
harmful bacteria swimming around in the slimy meat soup. (It doesn’t get rid of
it, of course. You’re still eating it, it’s just dead).
What they do is
pass the pink slime through a pipe where it is doused in ammonia gas. You would
never know because they don’t have to mention this on the label. And you
probably never think about it… until you buy some meat that stinks so bad you
have to return it.
Beef Products
invented the process so they could find a way to use and make money from the
absolute last and cheapest scraps of the animals. This meat is so cheap and
popular that the National School Lunch Program forces schools to use it so they
can shave a whole three cents off the cost of each burger fed to your kids.1
And it’s in up to
80% of the ground beef you can buy at restaurants or stores.2
Can you imagine
how much ammonia is in a 350-pound burger? That’s a dirty secret I don’t want in
my beef.
Fortunately, there
is a source of beef that doesn’t have any of these fillers.
Pasture-raised
organic beef couldn’t be more different than that pink stuff. Instead of eating
what I described above, animals raised in pastures eat their natural diet of
high-quality, mineral filled grass. And they’re healthy because they can do what
they normally do, like walk around, root and graze.
Grass-fed animals
also get no antibiotics, hormones, or pour-on insecticides.
And if you haven’t
tried it, let me tell you, it really tastes great. Serve it rare if you like the
taste. It will preserve more nutrients. You can braise it, roast it, or throw it
on the grill. That’s what our ancestors did.
One thing about
grass-fed beef is that it usually takes a third less time to cook. That’s
because it’s leaner and richer in healthy fats. They melt quicker at a lower
temperature than contaminated fats from conventional beef. So you have to be
careful not to overcook it.
You can get some
of the best grass-fed beef delivered to your home, ordered right from the
Internet. There’s:
-
US
Wellness Meats
– One of the original grass-fed meat suppliers, and the one I use, with
a unique way of raising cattle to have more CLA and omega-3 (www.grasslandbeef.com)
-
Alder
Spring
– This Idaho ranch sells only dry-aged, hand processed beef (www.alderspring.com)
-
Weatherbury Farm
– This Pennsylvania farm also has grass-fed lamb (www.grassfed.weatherburyfarm.com)
-
Good Earth
Farms
– A family-owned Wisconsin farm uses only green compost, manure and
minerals for fertilizer (www.goodearthfarms.com)
-
Wise
Organic Pastures
– Also in Pennsylvania, this farm’s beef is double-certified… organic
grass-fed and certified kosher (www.wiseorganicpastures.com)
-
Crossroads
Ranch
– This California ranch mimics the animals’ natural setting and uses
sustainable grass farming practices (www.bestbeefever.com)
The good news is, these are only a few of the places you can get
pasture-raised meat. New grass-fed ranches are springing up all over the
country. And you don’t even have to stick to beef. Try buffalo, pork, venison,
or other responsibly raised meat. You can find more resources at
grasslandbeef.com, eatwild.com, and onlygrassfed.com."
