Steak is the pillar people expect us to be loud about. The part we actually care about is quieter: how the animal was raised and what it did to the land along the way.
Everything below is our view. Some of it is well supported, some of it is argued over, and we'll say which is which. Sources are at the bottom.
Not all beef is the same
"Beef" covers very different systems. Most cattle spend the last part of their lives in feedlots, where they're typically finished on grain. That puts them right back into the corn-and-soy system. Other cattle spend their lives on pasture, and on some farms that pasture is managed deliberately: animals are moved often, grazed in dense groups for a short time, and the grass gets long rests to recover. That's usually what people mean by regenerative grazing.
These aren't interchangeable, and we don't want to pretend a feedlot steak and a well-grazed one carry the same story. Practices vary a lot from farm to farm, and "regenerative" isn't one regulated label.
What good grazing can do for soil
Researchers who study managed grazing argue that keeping land under permanent grass and moving animals well can cut erosion, rebuild soil organic carbon, and improve water infiltration and wildlife habitat (Teague et al., 2016). One whole-farm study of a Georgia farm converted from degraded cropland found soil carbon rose steadily over 20 years of multi-species rotational grazing (Rowntree et al., 2020).
To be honest about the other side: that same study found the system needed considerably more land than conventional production for the same amount of food. And a large review from the Food Climate Research Network concluded the soil-carbon gains from grazing are real in some places but small, time-limited and reversible, and don't make beef a climate solution (Garnett et al., 2017). We think rebuilding soil is worth doing for its own sake. We just don't think it needs exaggerating.
One animal, or a lot of field
Here's the argument we find persuasive. Row crops like corn and soy aren't free of harm. In the US, the push to grow more of them turned millions of acres of grassland, including long-undisturbed prairie, into cropland in just a few years (Lark et al., 2015). Plowing, spraying and harvesting kill field animals and wipe out habitat.
An animal scientist, Steven Davis, argued in 2003 that a diet including pasture-raised cattle might cause fewer animal deaths than a crop-only diet, because one large animal feeds people for a long time while each acre of crops takes its own toll. A philosopher, Gaverick Matheny, answered the same year that the math changes once you count how much more land grazing needs. We lean toward Davis's side of that debate: one animal from a well-managed pasture, rather than thousands of small animals and whole ecosystems lost to the plow. But it's a debate, and you should read both.
Beef is a nutrient-dense food
This is the part we feel at the table. Ounce for ounce, beef, and organ meats in particular, are among the most nutrient-dense foods there are, and much of what's in them comes in a form the body absorbs well.
- Heme iron. Meat carries heme iron, which the body absorbs better than the iron in plants. The gap is big enough that people who skip meat are advised to get 1.8 times as much iron (NIH, iron).
- Vitamin B12. It only occurs naturally in animal foods. Three ounces of ground beef covers about a day's worth, and three ounces of beef liver covers it many times over (NIH, vitamin B12).
- Vitamin A. Beef liver is the richest common source, with roughly seven times the Daily Value in three ounces. That's also why we eat liver in moderation: a small serving now and then, not every day. The body stores this kind of vitamin A, and too much is a real problem, especially during pregnancy (NIH, vitamin A).
- Creatine. Red meat and fish are the main food sources. A pound of uncooked beef has about 1 to 2 grams, and about half of what we use each day comes from food, with the body making the rest (Kreider et al., 2017).
- Collagen. Tough cuts, shanks, oxtail and bone broth bring collagen and gelatin, rich in glycine and proline. Your gut breaks it down into amino acids and small peptides like any other protein, so eating collagen doesn't send it straight to your joints or skin, and the research on what it does for connective tissue is still early (Holwerda and van Loon, 2022).
None of this is medical advice, and no single food fixes anything. But we think real food like this supports human flourishing, and it's one more reason we care how the animal was raised. If we're going to eat the whole animal, nose to tail, we want it to have lived well on good land.
Buy from a farm you can visit
The practical version of all this:
- Find a local farm that grazes. Farmers' markets and local farm directories are a good start. Ask how they move their animals and how long the pasture rests.
- Buy in bulk if you can. A share of a whole animal from one farm is often how small ranches sell best.
- Ask your butcher where it came from. A good one will know.
Bring a bag. Our Happy Healthy Wealthy Tote was more or less designed around that run.
Then cook it simply
Pat the steak dry. Salt it well. Get a cast-iron pan properly hot with a little high-smoke-point fat. Lay it in and leave it alone until it crusts, then flip. Check it with an instant-read thermometer and cook it to the doneness you're comfortable with. Rest it a few minutes, slice against the grain. Good beef doesn't need much help.
Next week: steel, and why consistency beats the perfect program.
Sources
- Teague, W.R., et al. (2016). "The role of ruminants in reducing agriculture's carbon footprint in North America." Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 71(2): 156-164. https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.71.2.156
- Rowntree, J.E., et al. (2020). "Ecosystem Impacts and Productive Capacity of a Multi-Species Pastured Livestock System." Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 4:544984. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2020.544984
- Lark, T.J., Salmon, J.M., and Gibbs, H.K. (2015). "Cropland expansion outpaces agricultural and biofuel policies in the United States." Environmental Research Letters 10: 044003. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/4/044003
- Davis, S.L. (2003). "The Least Harm Principle May Require that Humans Consume a Diet Containing Large Herbivores, Not a Vegan Diet." Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 16: 387-394. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025638030686. Response: Matheny, G. (2003). "Least Harm: A Defense of Vegetarianism from Steven Davis's Omnivorous Proposal." JAEE 16: 505-511. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026354906892
- Garnett, T., et al. (2017). Grazed and Confused? Food Climate Research Network, University of Oxford. https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/grazed-and-confused
- National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements. "Iron: Fact Sheet for Health Professionals." https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Iron-HealthProfessional/
- National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements. "Vitamin B12: Fact Sheet for Health Professionals." https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminB12-HealthProfessional/
- National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements. "Vitamin A and Carotenoids: Fact Sheet for Health Professionals." https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminA-HealthProfessional/
- Kreider, R.B., et al. (2017). "International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 14:18. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5469049/
- Holwerda, A.M., and van Loon, L.J.C. (2022). "The impact of collagen protein ingestion on musculoskeletal connective tissue remodeling: a narrative review." Nutrition Reviews 80(6): 1497-1514. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9086765/