Cooking Guides
How do I cook this cut of beef?
How do I cook this cut? So you bought half a cow, and you’ve eaten all the bits you know and love.. and now you’ve
James - Founder
1 November 2023
Given the growing customer sentiments towards fully grass fed and grass finished livestock, it is a fair to wonder why farms choose to grain feed their cattle.
When I first started the Half A Cow marketplace, I assumed that grain fed cattle were also always feedlot cattle. I had also assumed that feedlot cattle had a very poor quality of life.
Both of these assumptions turned out to be totally incorrect!
Many cattle which are ‘finished” on grain or other feeds are also totally free range / pasture raised.
This means that they can wander around eating grass and enjoying the wide open spaces, and if they wish, can also take a snack of grain. My assumption was that all grain fed cattle were held in small pens and not able to move around. Yes, I eat meat, but I would prefer the animals had a happy life!
Many animals on the site will be described as “grass fed, grain finished” or some combination of the two.
Finishing Type refers to what the animal eats in the last 30, 60, 90 or 120 days of its life. The longer the finishing time, the more pronounced the impact of that feed type. Animals which are just finished on grass, don’t have a ‘finishing time’ listed.
A grain fed animal will typically put on more weight, and more fat then a grass fed animal. So the longer the animal is grain fed, the more ‘intramuscular fat” will be present. This is how we achieve the very high marbling scores with Wagyu cows. There simply isn’t enough nutritional content in grass to achieve the same goal.
Grains are tested and graded for feed quality, and can be sourced outside of the immedate area.
How do I cook this cut? So you bought half a cow, and you’ve eaten all the bits you know and love.. and now you’ve
The start About 18 months ago when I started this company, I had no idea how little I knew about the challenges I wanted to