While The Dairy Show is usually focused on Dairy for obvious reasons, about a year ago I decided to expand the scope of the site to include more areas of agriculture.  At that time I started working on a report about grass-fed beef.  While I wanted it to follow the same basic format as the typical episode of The Dairy Show, I also wanted to expand it to include some information about public health and public policy issues.  The result is a 40 minute news magazine style report following the production of grass fed beef from the pastures of Grazin' Angus Acres to the plates of restaurant Local 111.  Along the way we talk about the science behind the ability for ruminants to eat grass, the history of beef in America with Betty Fussell, Climate Change with Author Anna Lappe, Animal Welfare with AWA program director Andrew Gunther, and nutrition with expert Professor Marion Nestle.

As this point the video is just about finished, you can get a sneak preview in the trailer above.

As some of you may know, I've been spending a lot of time working on a project on Grass-Fed and Finished beef.  Those of you who didn't know that are probably saying-'wait a minute what does beef have to do with Dairy?'  Well that's a fair question, but the reality is that the dairy industry wouldn't exist if there wasn't also beef being produced.  In this video, however, we don't focus on beef derived from Dairy farms, but instead take a look at Grazin' Angus Acres, a completely Grass-Fed and Grass-Finished cattle ranch in Ghent NY.

On Wednesday April 21st at a Slow Food NYC University Event, an advanced preview of the film was shown followed by a great discussion with Dan Gibson from Grazin' Angus Acres, Betty Fussell, Jake Dickson of Dickson's Farmstand Meats, and Josephine Proul, the Chef at Local 111.  Overall the evening was a great success and the panel discussion added further context to the video. 

In the video we take an in depth look at raising grass-fed beef and in addition to visiting, we also visit with Betty Fussell to talk about the history of beef in America, Marion Nestle to talk about Nutrition, Anna Lappe to talk about climate change, and Andrew Gunther to talk about Animal Welfare Approved. The video shown at the event was about 80% done and should be completed sometime by the end of May.

Some of the topics discussed by the panel after the video included:

• Why grades like prime and choice aren't relevant to locally sourced beef.
• • These are designations based on fat content of beef that are applied by USDA inspectors and require an extra fee to be paid get (not done as part of the normal inspection at slaughter plants).  According to the panel these designations are only relevant for industrially produced beef and not to smaller produces who both can't afford it and measure their quality in other ways.
• The challenges of local processing and distribution of locally raised meats.
• • There aren't enough small slaughter houses available according to Dan, because they are too basically too expensive to run.  Jake added that one of the big problems is that small slaughterhouses can't handle the slaughter and processing well.  They are severely slowed down by the processing/butchering steps and this is one of the reasons he started Dickson's.
• Where the flavor in beef actually comes from.
• • According to Betty, flavor is not in fat, but fat does convey flavor. 
• Can our system of industrial agriculture actually change to more sustainable system and what are organizations like Slow Food doing about it.
• • Too big a topic to write about in this blog.

Also as part of the evening Chef Proul created a tasting of Grazin' Angus Acres beef for everyone to try.  She made a Braised beef brisket with marinated radish and fried sourdough and Roast beef with local basil aioli and potato cake.  Both were delicious!

Photographs Courtesy of Corey Young

In this Bill introduced to the NY State Assembly on March 5, the sponsors Assemblyman Ortiz and Assemblywoman Markey propose a law that would prohibit restaurant workers from using any salt while cooking.  Under the law, salt would still be available in restaurants, but only for customers to apply at their own discretion.  The justification for this law is that it would give customers more control over the amount of salt in their food and that reduced salt in food would translate into less heart attacks.

This Bill seems quite extreme.  Certainly fast food and packaged foods have too much salt in them, but salt is an important part of cooking from scratch as well.  The proper seasoning of food with salt make it taste better.  It is often helpful to add salt throughout the cooking process and not just at the end.  The fact that this bill targets all restaurants seems inappropriate.  I doubt this would pass into law--perhaps it is to be used as a tool to draw more attention to the issue and to get food producers to voluntarily reduce the salt content of their prepared foods.