Grain-Finished:
- Grain-finished beef is less healthy for you.
- See the Top Ten Health Reasons to Eat Grassfed beef above.
- Grain-finished cows are unhealthier.
- Grains, which are simple carbohydrates, were not intended for a cow’s diet. When fed grain, it changes the natural bacteria and digestive process in the intestines making them prone to acidosis.
- Cows are confined in a feedlot in very tight quarters which promotes infections resulting in the use of sub-therapeutic antibiotics, and are fed grains to accelerate the process of finishing.
- Grain-finished beef is not as good for the environment.
- Feed for grain-finished cows has to be planted, harvested and shipped using large sums of fossil fuels.
- Many grain and vegetable crops require from 5 to 10 calories of fossil-fuel for every calorie of food or fiber produced.
- Growing corn and soy causes six times more soil erosion than pasture.
Grass-Finished:
- Grass-finished cows produce healthier beef.
- It has been scientifically proven that grass-finished beef is healthier than grain-finished beef.
- Grass-finished cows are healthier.
- Our cows spend their entire lives on open pasture living in the environment nature intended for them.
- They forage on complex carbohydrates which their digestive system is developed for.
- Nothing about the grass-finishing process is accelerated – it happens in due time.
- Grass-finished cows are better for the environment.
- A diet of grazed grass requires much less fossil fuel than a feedlot diet of dried corn and soy.
- Beef from grass-finished cows requires only one calorie of fossil fuel to produce two calories of food.
- On pasture, grazing cows do their own fertilizing and harvesting.
- Grazed pasture removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere more effectively than any land use, including forestland and ungrazed prairie, helping to slow global warming.
- For more information on the research behind these benefits see the Eat Wild website.