Does the Green Dinner Plate Have Room for Steak?

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If you’re not inclined to go vegetarian, then at least assure that the cows providing the beef on your plate are.

Unless you specifically seek out free-range, grass-fed, hormone-free beef from a local provider, you’re probably buying industrial beef, from cows that are fed the wrong diet and are kept in crowded, disease-friendly conditions (and given high doses of antibiotics to fight them off).

Modern agriculture has gone the mechanized route, and cows are given chemical-based feeds to make them mature faster, meanwhile neglecting their basic nutrition. Cows become very sick on grain-based, drug-laced diets (their required natural diet is actually grass). Cows raised in industrial conditions are extremely stressed, making them more susceptible to illness, and the stress hormones become part of the meat itself. Plus, common sense says not to eat the flesh of sick animals, and unfortunately, USDA standards don’t protect you from this as much as you’d expect.

The best way to ensure that you are eating healthy, top-quality beef is to buy only from suppliers that ensure the cows are grass-fed, free range and hormone free.

You might think of this as "artisan beef". Industrial, factory agriculture is not good for you, the environment, or the animals. Though thousands of small farms have been squeezed out by large agribusiness in the last century, there has been a recent resurgence of small, sustainable, humane beef farming in response to consumer demand.

Locally-grown, sustainably-raised, humanely-produced meat will not only be better for your body and be richer in valuable fats and vitamins, but it will taste better too, just as nature intended. And by consuming a more healthy, more humane, more richly-flavored beef, you’ll find it easy to reduce portion size (and your carbon footprint) and simply accent your meals with meat.

Helpful resources:

West Coast grass fed beef sources
East Coast grass fed beef sources
Midwest grass fed beef sources

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