USDA weighs label for beef from cattle fed only grass

Courtesy of Matthey Chayes, Chicago Tribune

Under proposed U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations, beef farmers could soon be allowed to apply a special "grass-fed" label to their meat. Nutrition activists and government officials say these labels would help consumers ensure that what's called grass-fed actually comes from animals with exclusively grass diets and not some mixture.

To be eligible for the new label, a cattle's energy source would have to be 99 percent grass or other forages under the rules proposed this month.

As it stands now, any producer can label his or her beef grass-fed. Even once the regulations are finalized, producers will be able to label their beef grass-fed, but the new regulations will cover labels with the imprimatur of the USDA.

Most of the beef Americans eat comes from animals who spend the twilight of their lives in feedlots to be "finished"--fattened up with feed consisting largely of corn--before slaughter. Advocates of grass-fed beef call this process unnatural for the animal and say it leads to fatty, less healthful meat.

The specialized beef market has benefited from negative publicity about mad-cow disease and the way traditionally raised beef cattle spend their last days in huge feedlots after being pumped with antibiotics. Activists contend that the antibiotics are necessary only because cows aren't built to eat feed grain that way.

As grass-fed beef becomes more common, Mellon said, research could show more conclusively that the specialized beef is healthier. At the very least, she said, it's less fatty.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said this month that one of the components in grass-fed beef--omega-3 fatty acids--shows promise for treating Alzheimer's disease.

Steve - we have said for years that grass-fed beef is much healthier than conventional beef. The omega-3 to omega-6 ratio is much more balanced. In addition, it is the way cattlewere meant to eat. We applaud this effort.