Grass-fed beef
USA Industry
American Grassfed Association
Food Miles
About 75% to 80% of grass-fed beef sold in the U.S. is grown abroad, from Australia, New Zealand and parts of South America, according to a 2017 report from the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture.[1]
Corporatization
Meat processor JBS USA now has a grass-fed line, Tyson Foods is planning a Texas grass-fed program and earlier this year, Perdue announced it was getting into the market.[2]
Greenwashing
According to a 2014 study published in the International Journal of Biodiversity[3]:
Some suggest that grass-fed beef is a superior alternative to beef produced in confined animal feeding operations. However, grass provides less caloric energy per pound of feed than grain and, as a consequence, a grass-fed cow’s rumen bacteria must work longer breaking down and digesting grass in order to extract the same energy content found in grain, while the bacteria in its rumen are emitting methane[4]. Comparisons of pasture-finished and feedlot-finished beef in the USA found that pasture-finished beef produced 30% more greenhouse gas emissions on a live weight basis[5].
General Mills
As a major supplier for General Mills, White Oak Pastures is "not just a small local farm, but actually part of a powerful and massive multinational company, and an important arm of its branding and marketing." Its claim to produce "carbon-negative beef" through regenerative grazing[6] has been conclusively disproven, after General Mills-funded research was found to have "significant lapses that grossly exaggerate or misrepresent the true SOC sequestration capacity of their farming techniques." [7] This research was cited by the Savory Institute as part of the Climate Collaborative, financed in part by General Mills, in their 2020 report on Regenerative Standards.
McDonalds
McDonald’s and A&W are promoting their grass-fed and sustainable beef on a massive scale. There is a strong mega-corporate branding strategy for “sustainable beef” at work[8]
- ↑ https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/13/746576239/is-grass-fed-beef-really-better-for-the-planet-heres-the-science
- ↑ https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/13/746576239/is-grass-fed-beef-really-better-for-the-planet-heres-the-science
- ↑ https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijbd/2014/163431/
- ↑ K. A. Johnson and D. E. Johnson, “Methane emissions from cattle,” Journal of Animal Science, vol. 73, no. 8, pp. 2483–2492, 1995.
- ↑ N. Pelletier, R. Pirog, and R. Rasmussen, “Comparative life cycle environmental impacts of three beef production strategies in the Upper Midwestern United States,” Agricultural Systems, vol. 103, no. 6, pp. 380–389, 2010.
- ↑ https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/climatecollaborative/mailings/1633/attachments/original/PPT-FINAL-Regenerative_Mapping-min_compressed.pdf?1579205603; p. 41
- ↑ https://plantbaseddata.medium.com/the-failed-attempt-to-greenwash-beef-7dfca9d74333
- ↑ https://sentientmedia.org/another-failed-attempt-to-greenwash-beef/