Cattle

Harborside Farms Beef


A major benefit of raising animals on pasture is that their products are healthier for you. For example, compared with feedlot meat, meat from grass-fed beef and goats has less total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and calories. It also has more vitamin E, beta-carotene, vitamin C, and a number of health-promoting fats, including omega-3 fatty acids and "conjugated linoleic acid," or CLA.

Raising animals on pasture requires more knowledge and skill than sending them to a feedlot. For example, in order for grass-fed beef to be succulent and tender, the cattle need to forage on high-quality grasses and legumes, especially in the months prior to slaughter. Providing this nutritious and natural diet requires healthy soil and careful pasture management so that the plants are maintained at an optimal stage of growth. Because high-quality pasture is the key to high-quality animal products we like to refer to ourselves as "grassfarmers" rather than "ranchers". We raise great grass; the animals do all the rest.

When you choose to eat meat from animals raised on pasture, you are improving the welfare of the animals, helping to put an end to environmental degradation, helping small-scale ranchers and farmers make a living from the land, helping to sustain rural communities, and giving your family the healthiest possible food. It's a win-win-win-win situation.

Products from grass-fed beef are safer than food from conventionally-raised feed lots. This is especially reassuring now that mad cow disease, or BSE, has been confirmed in this country. Countries that conduct more rigorous testing for BSE have identified hundreds more cases. Many experts agree that if we were to test every one of our cows for BSE (the protocol in Japan), we, too, would find more diseased animals.

100 percent grass-fed animals have an extremely low risk of BSE. That is because their diets contain no animal by-products or other unnatural ingredients. They eat what nature intended: grasses and other green plants. Choosing products from grass-fed animals may lower your risk of two other food borne illnesses, campylobacter and E. coli.