Free range and grass fed at Morton’s, Ruth’s Chris and BLT Steak House? Sadly, that’s a tall order, one that appears too rare for the tastes of these popular dining destinations.

You have to wonder why when considering the health of  loyal customers lapping up ten ounces of beef in one sitting, washing down the seared flesh of a hormone-induced, antibiotic injected feed lot animal with a glass of bold Cabernet.

Most of the high priced U.S. haunts of meat connoisseurs cite several excuses for not making the shift to ethically raised, drug-free, grass fed cattle, which scientists tell us are much healthier animals at market, and healthier food on our plates and in our bodies.

For Morton’s, the rationale in selling Midwest grain-fed prime is widespread availability and consistency of flavor. It’s the wonderful flavor, it says, which has famous athletes and businesspeople seeking out the ritzy restaurants in the towns they visit.

Morton’s The Steak House, 76 Restaurants in the U.S. and abroad

“We have to have a consistent product because we ship all over the world to 76 owned and operated steak houses,” explains Roger Drake, Chief Communications Officer. “Beef is 80 percent of what we sell and we have to have the availability. With organic I know you don’t always have that availability. ”

Drake describes the meat as aged prime, the top two percent of all beef available in the U.S., and says it is purchased from two purveyors in Chicago whom the company has partnered with for more than 30 years.

“Its the best of the best as far as beef goes,” he says. “In order to supply all the Mortons, including Singapore and Hong Kong, we need a large supply.”

He says they have tried different types of beef, such as grass fed, but the public company, led by co-founder Klaus Fritsch, prefers the good old grain fed. And how do they know the beef they buy is from cattle raised ethically?

“We go by USDA requirements, rules and regulations,” he explains. “Our two purveyors in Chicago have stringent rules.”

Still, those trusty, longtime partnerships can be broken if discerning customers start making a fuss, according to Dr. Michael Greger, Director of Public Health and Agriculture of the Humane Society International.

A leading world authority on the link between inhumane conditions for farm animals and human health, Greger argues most consumers don’t know what they are eating. He points out that the reason cattle are fed grain is to marbleize the flesh with saturated fat, which is the number one contributor to the top killer in the United States: heart disease.

“For people who have grown up eating that fatty beef, switching to grass fed is like going from whole milk to two percent and it doesn’t have the same feel,” observes Greger, a specialist in Zoonotic diseases. He adds that three-quarters of all emerging diseases come from the animal kingdom, including Swine Flu, Bird Flu, Monkey Pox, SARS and West Nile.

Greger says education is key to help consumers understand that their health is more important than the taste they are used to – and that grass fed can be just as appealing.

He cites additional risks involved with eating grain-fed factory beef, even those aged prime fillets that run $60 to $100 a slab, that go beyond heart disease. The cows spend the first six to 12 months of their lives in a calm existence doing what comes naturally, grazing in the field. But once they are carted off to the feedlots in crowded, hot conditions and castrated, branded and de-horned without anesthesia, the real risk begins: The mass feeding of an unnatural daily diet and preventative drugs.

“When you feed them a high concentration of starches and cereal grains, they get an acid build-up and it disrupts the function of the rumen, the first stomach, and this leads to a long list of disorders like liver abscesses, hoof ailments and acidosis,” explains Greger. “The reduction of the pH of the rumen because of fermentation acids from the grains causes cows to become clinically ill, suffer intestinal damage, dehydration, loss of appetite and even death. The foot ailments also result, causing lameness or for animals to be either euthanized or dragged to slaughter.”

This is where the drugs come in, and do they come. Greger says 70% of all antibiotics given in the U.S. go to farm animals to prevent disease or promote growth in a stressful environment. The mass feeding to cattle may allow them to grow two percent quicker, but it also fosters the development of resistance to many of the same pathogens that cause inborn illness in people.

As Greger sees it: “The problem is these are human antibiotics, and this is why humans are running out of good resistant antibiotics. When you start treating cattle with antibiotics, human health problems come in, particularly because of liver abscesses. Five human antibiotics are widely administered as a prophylactic specifically to prevent the abscesses they know will develop from feeding them grain.”

So what about the argument that organic grass fed meat is too hard to get? The Humane Society boasts huge strides in the cage free industry working with producers and suppliers, even getting the Compass Group – the world’s largest food service provider – to pass and implement a monumental cage-free shell egg policy in 2007, effecting nearly 50 million eggs annually.

This move clearly improved the welfare and conditions of farm animals while protecting human health from disease caused by inhumane conditions wherein chickens spend their entire lives not being able to sit up and turn around in their metal stalls.

“If there is a demand, supply will be set up,” says Greger, reminding us how Chipotle fast food chains have had great success accessing Niman Ranch pork and meat for its dishes. The chain has been getting some criticism lately for its tomatoes from Florida where slave labor may farm them, but it still serves as a nationwide example that grassfed suppliers want to make money just like everyone else.

“If someone from one of these restaurants contacted the coops of producers and said they wanted to buy the grassfed organic beef, they could do it,” insists Greger. “It’s a business and producers will meet any demand out there.”

Main Image: Celesteh

Images: Humane Society

The post America’s Priciest Steak Houses Still Serving Factory Beef appeared first on EcoSalon.

We all use paper. We write on it. We read things on it. We wipe our butts with it. So it’s worth asking – what is the most eco-friendly paper out there?

This topic came up recently when I wrote about green travel magazine Wend. I commented that, while it was laudable that Wend was printed on paper certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), I hoped to see a move to recycled paper in the future. This prompted some discussion in the comments section and I thought the topic warranted a follow-up post.

Last year I wrote about how to choose a commercial printer but it’s not something that comes up very often for most people. On the other hand, we all make decisions about paper usage in the home all the time.

Certification methods such as FSC or PEFC (Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) aim to provide assurance for consumers that the paper (or other forestry products such as wood) comes from sustainably managed forests and is not contributing to the destruction of old-growth forest. FSC is the best known certification.

Some proponents of FSC paper argue that it’s environmentally superior to recycled paper because it makes the plantation timber industry economically viable, in turn ensuring that trees are planted and carbon dioxide is sucked out of the air and transformed into life-giving oxygen. They point out that recycled paper could be made from paper that originally came from old-growth forest, effectively only delaying the destruction of ancient woodland by one generation of paper usage.

There are also claims that manufacturing FSC paper is less energy intensive than making recycled paper – a concern that recently prompted the British direct marketing industry to adopt FSC rather than recycled paper as the gold-standard.

On the other hand, environmental groups and independent researchers say otherwise. The truth is when you take the entire life cycle of the product into account, the recycled product trumps in terms of energy usage. While timber plantations are far better than logging old-growth forests, they do have their drawbacks – they tend to be monocultures of either eucalyptus or pine that don’t support wildlife and are often doused in pesticide.

Most crucially, what else are you going to do with the waste paper if there’s no market to recycle it? The main alternative is sending it to landfill where it will release methane – a potent greenhouse gas – as it rots.

The Waste & Resources Action Program (WRAP) in the UK, a non-commercial organisation, has a useful fact sheet on the environmental benefits of recycled paper (PDF). There is also a useful run-down dispelling the myths and misinformation about recycled paper on PPE – a website maintained by the print buyer for Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

The problem is that we are not yet recycling enough to meet all our paper needs. Also, every time paper is recycled, the fibers get shorter, so it cannot be recycled indefinitely. After several cycles the pulp is suitable only for making cardboard or other packaging materials.

Unless we solve these two problems, there will always be a need for some virgin fiber (meaning it’s come directly from a tree and is being made into paper for the first time) in the system. And if you care about protecting old-growth forests around the world, it’s important to make sure that virgin fiber comes from sustainably managed forests. That’s where FSC comes in.

Buying 100% recycled paper is a great option for yourself and the environment – you can buy high-grade recycled paper suitable for almost any usage at a reasonable price.

But buying paper that is, say, 70% recycled and 30% FSC-certified virgin fiber is still 100% ancient forest friendly, and endorsed by the likes of Greenpeace. It turns out that Wend magazine is actually using paper made from a blend of recycled and FSC-certified virgin fiber, which is great news.

Just to confuse matters, the FSC does certify recycled paper – you can even buy 100% recycled paper with the FSC logo. Some people seem to think this means the original paper source (prior to being recycled) came from a sustainable forest but this is a misconception.

Recycled paper made from post-consumer waste comes from thousands of individual households and businesses who have put out for collection all of their waste paper from a myriad of sources. Even if you knew the original soure for all of that post-consumer waste, the most environmentally friendly thing to do at that point is to recycle all of it.

To get FSC certification, a mill needs to be able to vouch for the source of all its paper and, whereas this means drilling down to fine details for the source of any virgin fiber, post-consumer waste counts as a single source.

What FSC-certified 100% recycled paper actually means is that the paper mill has the FSC certification – and they are then allowed to use the name and logo on an agreed percentage of their paper, recycled or otherwise.

I personally think it’s confusing for consumers to have the FSC logo on recycled paper but on the other hand it does mean that you know you’re supporting a mill with good practices across the board.

Of course, you could always buy paper that’s made from other materials such as bamboo, hemp, or even elephant or wombat poo.

Image: Pink Sherbet

The post The Facts About Paper appeared first on EcoSalon.