Beef and Grasslands

Here is one thing I love about blogging and reading and connecting with other bloggers - there is so much knowledge out there, and one thing leads to another, snowballing into even more knowledge.

I was reading over some of the blogs I follow, and this one from Bevson at Murmuring Trees caught my eye. If you are interested in saving money on meat, I'd suggest taking a look. Her sister recently bought a side of beef, farm raised and fed grass and alfalfa in the pasture. Not pumped full of hormones, and artificial garbage, etc. What caught my eye was, well, the picture of that freezer packed full of meat. Wow. Also, the fact that it wasn't raised on a feed lot. I have always had a problem with feed lots - I'd much rather animals were raised out on the range. And finally, the price she paid per pound - awesome!

So I had this all in the back of my mind as I continued browsing through blogs. And then I came to Brenda's blog: Alone on a Boreal Stage. Brenda is a writer, a painter, a bird watcher... She posted yesterday, among other things, about a new book order she just got in. And one of the books caught my eye: Grass, Sky, Song by Trevor Herriot. The tital interested me, so I did a Google search to find out more.

Interestingly enough, the first link was to Trevor Herriot's blog where he discusses more about his book. And what is the first post I read about? Grass-fed Beef. And how the best way to save grasslands, and grassland birds, is to buy more grass-fed beef. If just 10% of people made the change to grass-fed beef, it would make a huge difference. The demand would require there to be more grasslands to raise the cattle. And that would directly affect not just birds, but biodiversity as a whole. And of course our meat would be better for us.

But since you can't generally buy grass-fed beef in the grocery store, I guess I need to start looking into ways I can find and purchase beef this way. Maybe from a local farmer, as Bev's sister did.

Interesting how so many things come together in such unexpected ways.