Organic Beef Matters
News from Alderspring Ranch, with an occasional rant about American agriculture
Ever wonder what beef labels really mean? Legally? Â What is grassfed beef? Â Organic beef? Â Natural beef? Â How about a "grassfed organic" label (which is what Alderspring is). Â More and more lately, we've been seeing unsuspecting consumers paying a premium for a product that is really not much …
Continue Reading about Savvy Beef Label Reader: Decoding “grassfed,” “organic,” and “natural”
I have been seeing the phrase "Beyond Organic" and similar phrases more frequently lately while browsing cyberspace to see what other grass fed producers have been doing. What does it mean? Absolutely anything. Or nothing. Let's start with the word "beyond".  Defined by the dictionary it …
I mean as in Mad Cow Disease. Not anger. We don't see anger much in Alderspring beeves except like this spring when E69 rolled Ethan across the field when he tried to put an ID tag on her newborn baby. It surprised him a little because she was ancient in terms of cows. She is around 17 years old, …
The age-old question revisited: What's the beef on dry or wet aging? At Alderspring, we have always considered dry aging an important part of our process because of the flavor and moisture concentrating effects. We dry age the entire carcass. Most dry aged beef is only the high end primals …
Michael Pollan's fascinating biography of a steer describes the fate of a steer he purchased from a ranch in South Dakota, and followed through the feedlot and into the packing plant. Pollan's article clearly portrays in a readable and interesting way the current model of beef agriculture that we …
Continue Reading about Life of a Steer: The Industrial Model
Alderspring Ranch Production Methods History. Our beef is born to mother cows here at our ranch. We know the history of our animals from start to finish. Feed. Cows and calves are grazed on pasture from mid to late April through October. At the beginning of November, calves are weaned …
