You are absolutely correct.

It all starts with better nutrition. CAFO cows that end up at the supermarket are fed low-quality grains and feedstocks, rather than grass that they were evolved to eat. The difference between grain and grass fed beef is amazing.

USDA processing is a complete farce. I can only sell locally, because I am not willing to send my animals to such facilities. Instead, I can only sell here in my home state, because that's the only way I can say that my animals were born, raised, and died humanely on my farm. The butcher will drop them where they stand, eating a final meal in the conditions that they were raised.

If I want to go with USDA in order to sell my products out of state, by the cut, or to resellers (e.g. restaurants), then I must load my animals onto a trailer, haul them almost two hours away, and allow them to suffer the trauma of that experience before finally being slaughtered in inhumane conditions. I can tell you right away: that experience severely damages the quality of the meat.

Big ranches can afford their own USDA facilities, but small farms must share the slowly dwindling number of processors that still serve the public. There are less than two dozen in my entire state, so you currently need to book them further out than the entire lifespan of the animals that you plan to raise. Right now, my processor has completely booked 2022; a new farmer cannot get any animals processed there until 2023!

Seriously, fuck the USDA.

Any thoughts on Mobile Slaughter Units?

Your focus on being less cruel to your cows is pretty admirable, but I don't really see how average consumers could evaluate whether their local farm is:

* Putting in the sort of extra effort that you are

* Following safety protocols more generally

I dunno. I'm not super attached to meat, so I'd probably quit eating it before putting in the effort to eat it ethically. Actually when I put it that way, I should probably quit it...

The USDA allows Mobile Slaughter Units. My state does not have one, because it's too expensive to bootstrap. We're talking millions of dollars of capital expenditures to get one running, because you still need a non-mobile facility in which to finish processing and pack the meat.

None of the existing processors are willing to invest in such a venture, when their existing facilities are increasingly being regulated out of existence. No one is building new USDA facilities to serve small farmers.

One counterexample to this might be the field harvesting of bison. Starting to see more 'artisanal' buffalo ranching that stress the positive ethics and efficiency of slaughtering in the field as needed. Of course, they still do need a partnership with a local processor to make field harvesting work.

The way to do it is to meet the farmer.

We had a nice hour long walk & talk with the farmer we went with here in middle TN. He gave us $50 worth of free samples at the end and checked in with us a few times to see if we were able to get a good meal out of the sample meat.

We saw his process, we met the cows and saw first-hand how he cared for them. We also saw that he cared - he cared a lot.

When you think about it, this is the stuff you're going to feed your family. We put in a lot of effort when buying a car but not when buying our food. It's amazing what a little effort and thought can get you out here though, in "the sticks."

I'm only one guy, but having raised and butchered several of both, I vastly prefer grain-finished steers. The trend toward lean grass-fed beef mystifies me. The fat and marbling with grain-finished animals is much higher, particularly if modestly confined, and that has at least historically earned a better grade. It's certainly easier to cook and preferred in my household.

How did you go about finding a farm to buy from? I'm very interested in doing this.

I'm in Eastern Idaho, and you can find small ranchers to buy meat from pretty easily on local Facebook pages. I even met one at the park and just started up a conversation. In the end it wasn't cheaper (It was about the same price as Costco) and I had to buy at least a half cow, but the quality was so good I can't even believe it sometimes.

I haven't done this yet, but The Omnivore's Dilemma mentions EatWild.com as a resource for finding "beyond organic" food. That might be a good place to start.

In absolutely no way does any beef sold in stores contain artificial color.

I frequently see "nitrites" in the ingredients list, whose main purpose is to color the meat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_nitrite#Color_and_taste

They don’t add nitrites to raw meat, only to processed one. Nitrites is why your ham is pink instead of gray. But, more importantly than color, nitrites are added as a preservative, to avoid botulism.

Wasn't the claim that nitrites help against botulism denied few years ago? According to Guardian: "A bombshell internal report written for the British meat industry reveals nitrites do not protect against botulism"[0]

0. https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/mar/23/nitrites-ham-ba...

Modified air packaging with carbon monoxide is _very_ common in the US. So the “artificial color” isn’t some dye or something… it’s how the myoglobin reacts to the MAP.