How to Make Sure Your Grass Fed Beef is Tender

I was doing my usual stint at Internet research recently and found an interesting article about grass fed beef tenderness and its relationship to tasty beef.

Meat Tenderness, by Richard J. Epley of University of Minnesota Extension.

While I earlier had found an article from the University of Missouri, where studies of grass-fed and corn-fed beef (Martz) showed no real differences of when processed using methods to increase tenderness on both types of beef. Simply put, corn fed beef will result in more fat on a carcass which will allow it to be processed and prepared faster. The loss is in the taste.  Corn fed (IMHO) has little to no taste compared with grass-fed.

Now the disclaimer I have to make right off is that there are differences from farm to farm and from season to season. The idea is that you find a variety of beef which you are happy with and then stick with that producer and processor. As you know your farmer, you'll know your food.

To explain this, let's use the Minnesota article as a base to develop a checklist:

(For more on grass fed beef tenderness, see below PDF...)

How to make sure your grass fed beef is tender

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