Ask the producer if they ultrasound test their cattle
Grass fed beef has a reputation of being tough, dry, and stringy. While that can be true, it doesn’t have to be. You can enjoy a juicy, tender, and delicious piece of meat while reaping the enormous health benefits.
In order to ensure adequate marbling and tenderness some producers ultrasound scan live cattle to determine parameters like: Intramuscular fat (marbling), The size of the muscle that comprises the Rib Eye, thickness of back fat (edge fat), the tenderness of the Longissimus (Rib Eye) muscle, and the amount of stress the animal has had.
The same technology used on pregnant women
Most pregnant women in the U.S. have at least one ultrasound scan during their term to assess the health of the fetus and possibly its gender. Ultrasound scanning of cattle uses the exact same technology that is used on pregnant women to get a look at the inner anatomy, under the skin. A probe is placed next to the 11th rib, and transmits a picture to a computer screen.
Just as with a human ultrasound scan, a highly trained technician must be present to read and interpret the picture, but to the untrained eye it’s fairly easy to see the difference between fat and muscle in the picture. The computer program can detect the areas of intramuscular fat (marbling) and calculates the percentage.
The tenderness of the meat
The probe also sends out a specific form of shear wave into the muscle, and detects how easily the wave can penetrate the muscle, which can then determine the tenderness of that muscle. In the U.S. people want tender beef. That’s one of the reasons grain feeding became so popular and the industry standard. Because grain feeding causes bloating in the tissues, and makes the fat a more watery consistency, it’s easy to make almost any beef tender by feeding grain.
Producing tender grass fed beef is more of a challenge. The greatest influence on tenderness is the genetics of the individual animal, but unless a producer has very controlled line breeding it’s hard to know a steer’s genetic predisposition for tenderness. With ultrasound scanning the tenderness of the meat can be known while the steer is alive, and therefore the producer can make the decision to keep it to process into beef or to sell it commercially to end up in the feedlot.
Working cattle with a computer
It’s not your stereotypical ranch scene! It’s somewhat humorous to see a table with a laptop computer on it set up next to a cattle chute, but by ultrasound scanning our calves we can determine the best calves to keep for our grass fed beef enterprise so that our customers can be assured of tender, juicy steaks. We also keep the best heifer calves as our replacement heifers so we continue to breed the best genetics into our herd.
Know what you’re getting before you buy
When you buy grass fed beef from a producer who ultrasound scans their cattle, you can know before you buy that the meat you’re buying will tender, juicy, and marbled.
