Hot Dogs and Salami
In November I decided we needed to try making a holiday product with a small amount of our beef. In order to get a USDA certified product we had to use our regular butcher and ALSO a USDA certified sausage plant which are almost 200 miles apart. Due to a comedy (or tragedy) of errors on the part of all involved, we ended up with too much, too late, and missed our holiday window. We now have a fairly large inventory of really good Hot Dogs and Salami that we need to sell. It is made from our own great beef, including the steaks and roasts (unfortunately). There are no by-products in this. It is 100% grass finished beef and the taste is terrific. This stuff is fully cooked and vacuum sealed so we can ship almost anywhere. As with all products of this type, there is a nitrite compound added as a preservative. If we sell most of this batch, we may try again and have some of it done without nitrites. The drawback is that without nitrites it has to remain frozen in storage and transport. Time will tell if we ever do it again. In the mean time, enjoy some great salami and hot dogs. They’re great with cheese and crackers, sliced for sandwiches or pizza, or added to a salad, etc.
Grass finished beef in the winter
Lately I have had a few questions about what grass finished means when we have snow and winter weather. It is obvious that there is not a supply of fresh green feed this time of year. Our cattle were doing some grazing up until the last week of December. The second week of December we started feeding some supplemental hay and now in the second week of January we are providing hay for all their feed because the snow is deep enough that all the pastures are covered. Where does our hay come from? All of our hay comes from the fields that we graze the cattle on in the summer–right here on our farm. It is the same mixture of plants that the cows get in the summer, only it has been dried and stored. Even in the winter we do not feed grain. We only use high quality hay. Look at the early part of this blog for pictures of cows last winter. I will try to get some updated photos here in the next few days.
Idaho Grass Finished Beef–why it pays to know
Do you know where your beef comes from? Do you care? Should you care? One of our loyal customers sent us this information. If you eat at fast food joints or let your kids eat school lunchs that include hamburger you may be exposing yourself and your children to this. Copy and paste this link to your browser. http://www.naturalnews.com/027872_ammonia_beef_products.html
Our hamburger is pure clean 95% lean muscle meat with no additives. The other 5% is high omega 3 content fat. I just saw a grocery store ad offering 80% lean ground beef. What’s the other 20%?
Check our website and contact us for Idaho’s best beef. www.bradysbeef.com
Food Inc.
Have you seen this movie/documentary? You will think twice about eating beef again and you may never eat chicken again. This is now available on DVD. My wife rented it from Netflix last week. It is a must see for anyone who cares about what they eat. Just another reason to choose Brady’s Idaho Beef. We also have a neighbor who raises and processes his own chicken. His processing plant is immaculate. Let us know if you would like to try chicken again.
What does organic beef really mean?
I read an article today regarding a violation of law by a large organic company which was trying to pass off its product as organic. You can link to what I read at
http://wincustomersusa.com/stockman/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=0&Itemid=9
Here at Brady’s Beef we have never represented ourselves to be certified organic even though most of our practices would certainly qualify. There are a number of reasons we have not and will not certify our farm in the current political climate. The first reason that I mention most often is that we are short on phosphorus content in our soils and we have not found an economicly sound way to rebuild this component without some commercial phos fertilizer.
A second reason is that we are skeptical of government programs and national organic standards backed by the full faith and credit of the US Department of Agriculture. If you reference the above article you will learn two things that should be glaring inconsistencies. First, the agency doing the certifying is paid by the farm being certified. Where’s the logic in this? If my certifier threatens to decertify me, who is going to pay him his fee? The second glaring inconsistency is that if the USDA is the party with the teeth and has the final say on enforcing the National organic standards, why don’t they do it to the maximum allowed by the law? Who is buying off whom?
Once again we see the logic in getting to really know your farmer. Talk to him, go see his farm, tour his processing facilities, and take a little responsibility for knowing where your food comes from.
Chicken bacteria?
Did you see the news article Nov. 30 about the percentage of chickens contaminated with salmonella and camphylobacter? The jist of the report is that 60% of all chicken in the store is contaminated with it, which is a lower percentage than a few years ago. I don’t think this is really news or newsworthy. Salmonella and chicken have been synonomous for most of my lifetime and that is why we have been instructed by those who know that we should cook chicken products thorougly. Proper cooking will kill all the bad bacteria if it’s done right. We need to use some common sense in these matters. The government solution is to increase the inspection bureacracy. If chicken farmers are required to pay for all of that inspection overhead, it will drive more of the local producers out of business, especially the small ones. The net effect will be that more chicken will come from overseas (see my Chinese food blog) where we have no control over inspection or food quality. Let’s be smart, take control over our own food, and avoid the clammer for government solutions.
Sheep?
Here are the woolleys
We have had a traveling band of sheep visit us this week. There are about 1500 using up our last bit of pasture before the winter. The cattle can’t utilize this last bit of low growing feed. Question? Why can’t we find american lamb in our grocery stores?
Denver trip
Me on the right, with Allan and Carolyn Nation in Denver
Last week I spent a couple days in Denver with a bunch of “cowboys” learning from each other about better ways to add enough value to our beef products that people will beat down our door to buy from us. Well, I’m sure I didn’t get all the answers. But, I believe I got some things that will propel us forward and help us serve you better. The guy who brought everyone together was Allan Nation, owner and editor of “The Stockman Grass Farmer”. Much of what I know about grass finished cattle can be attributed to his excellent authorship and editorializing of this publication. Learn more about it at www.stockmangrassfarmer.com and go over to Allan’s blog.
Local food vs. “chinese” food
Here’s another in a long list of reasons to buy locally produced foods. Cut and paste the following link to your internet browser.
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/10/29/chinese-chickens-which-fast-food-chain-may-serve-you-this-scary/?icid=main|compaq-laptop|dl4|link4|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.walletpop.com%2Fblog%2F2009%2F10%2F29%2Fchinese-chickens-which-fast-food-chain-may-serve-you-this-scary%2F
Whose welfare is the government really looking out for?
French film crew visits us
A week ago Saturday, we had a visit from a French film crew (France’s M6 TV). They were here to look at the way we actually raise grass finished beef. We will be featured on a program similar to our US tv show “60 minutes”. It was a delight to spend the day with Claire the reporter and Matthew the cameraman. We went to the farmers market in the morning and back to the ranch in the afternoon. After the filming we enjoyed a dinner of roast beef and vegetables, all grown right here on our farm.
They came to our farm to film the contrast between grass finishined beef protocols and the more typical giant feedlot finishing protocols and the resulting effects on the food, people, and environment. They had spent the first part of the week in a large Texas feedlot. They were so suprised that we could actually get close to our cattle without them running away scared as they did in the feedlot. They got tons of film footage of the cattle close up and personal. Unfortunately, I didn’t have MY camera to record the results of our jersey steer licking the cameraman. Claire’s comment as we were finishing the day was, “this has been such a peaceful, low stress day”, as opposed to their hectic, niosy, dusty schedule at the feedlot. I replied that the cows feel the same way. Because of the low stress levels and calm surroundings, we can actually produce beef with out drugs (antibiotics), and hormone implants. Cattle get to eat what they were designed to eat–grass instead of copious amounts of grain.
Well it was lots of fun having them here. The show will air sometime between November and January. Claire promised us a copy of the finished version. I’ll comment on that as soon as I see it.