There is a lot of conversation about food ethics. I am all in favor of the conversations!
I have siblings who have chosen to be vegetarian largely because they don’t want to participate in the Confined Animal Feed Operation (CAFO)aspect of how most of our supermarket meat, milk, and eggs are produced. Me neither. What is ethical meat?
We were raised with the ethic; if you aren’t willing to kill and process an animal, you shouldn’t be eating it. Animals should be able to forage most of their food. They shouldn’t be afraid of you. They should have a calm, peaceful death.
I prefer to eat things I know personally. Carrots, tomatoes, eggs, chicken, beef, lamb, all things I raise. In my personal view, a carrot has as much right to life as a fish or sheep.
We sell lamb and beef. Not as meat but as shares of animals. Right now we have shares of several cows for sale. Not steers, cows. These two have been culled from a local herd because they aren’t good at reproduction. In the world of cattle, you only live past two years if you produce milk or babies.
They got to spend their last few months on our good, organic pastures with a herd. Contented cows, living in an extended family group as is their nature. They get to die in the field amongst the herd without stress or fear. There is only a brief kerfuffle among the herd when they fall. An hour later all is calm and peaceful. The herd moves on.
These are large adults, 1,700 plus pounds. 4 and 8 years old. The best-flavored meat comes from mature, female mammals that are gaining weight. They are fat and sleek coated cows. These were not 16-month-old feedlot steers with estrogen ear inserts. You will never get beef like this at a supermarket.
Very few butcher shops deal in beef like this. Some T-bone steaks that last I saw at a market were $22/lb for Organic, grass-fed. That was from an animal that went through the stress of being taken from its herd and being hauled to a slaughterhouse. The ground beef was $6/lb. You get both for the same price. Farmer direct, no big ag corporations involved. Three family operations making a living.
We sell shares that are 1/6th of an animal. In this case, the end result is almost 100 lbs. approximately $6/lb.
We are keeping shares from each animal for our family. They are both delicious. When I cook steaks and hamburgers, the only seasoning allowed is a spoonful of Glop at the end of cooking. DO NOT insult these animals with steak sauce, seasoning, or other amendments. They have flavor grown in. I don’t even use salt.
We start by selling the shares to the animal. $425 for 1/6 of the animal.
$140 slaughter fee divided by 6.. $.90/lb for cut wrap, freeze .
The total is $578.75 per share.
How much is that physically?
An apple box is 12x12x20 inches, it will not hold an entire share and will be too heavy to safely pick up. So it’s split into two. The total volume tightly packed is more like 12x16x20, 3,840 square inches, call it 4,000. The space occupied by 17 gallons of liquid, 17 gallon jugs of milk. It can fit in most newer refrigerator freezers if they start empty. Ours is 18x18x28, 9,000 cubic inches. Plenty of room if I got rid of the stuff that has been in there for over a year!
What’s in those boxes? 20 odd lbs of really high-quality ground beef in 1 lb. tubes. The other approximately 75 lbs. are T-bone steaks, sirloin steaks, arm roasts, cube steaks, stew meat, etc. and a few soup bones.
Just in case you are curious, here is a link to someone else selling beef so you can compare prices.
