4 ms·
For me personally it's the same reason for why I don't eat an old cow. It tastes disgusting.
by ranting-moth 3y ago
For me personally it's the same reason for why I don't eat an old cow. It tastes disgusting.
- downWidOutaFite 3y agoHow do you know if the beef you're eating is from an old or young cow?
- TuringNYC 3y agoThey are probably referring to Veal, which is the meat from a calf or young animal. Note there are a number of controversies the other way also, where people oppose eating young cow because of the practices surrounding raising veal.
- jcampbell1 3y agoVeal is male dairy calves.
- tptacek 3y agoNo, the beef you buy at Whole Foods or Safeway has generally been harvested from steers slaughtered at 1-2 years old --- it's all young. Specialty purveyors will sell you beef from much older cows, which is less tender and has a much deeper flavor (there's also a high-end thing right now about eating beef from dairy cows).
- jcampbell1 3y agoYou can taste it. Fast food ground meat has that signature old dairy cow flavor.
- tptacek 3y agoThis seems extremely unlikely, given the relatively small percentage of beef that comes from culled dairy cows, the absolutely vast amount of beef used as an input for fast food, and the named suppliers companies like McDonalds use.
- bee_rider 3y agoI think they just mixed up their heuristic; fast food vendors always do the cheapest thing at scale, this is often sacrifices quality, but clearly the more economical thing to do is to kill and butcher the cattle ASAP. I mean why would they feed an adult cow for an extra year if they could avoid it?
- Detrytus 3y agoThe common practice is that you butcher bulls at young age, but you keep cows for milk - you actually make much more money on milk than on meat. With chickens it's even worse: males are killed immediately after hatching, because their meat is worth next to nothing. Females are kept for both eggs and meat.
- kevinmchugh 3y agoMy understanding is that chickens are bred either for eggs or for meat. Egg farmers cull males as soon as they can (which depends on an interesting technical problem called sexing). Hens that can't lay anymore are called "spent hens", and the meat is not generally liked by Americans at least, so it's probably not what you're buying at the grocery store. Poultry farmers raise both sexes and slaughter as soon as the bird is large enough.
- jcampbell1 3y agoWhat? Cow meat is about 25% of the ground beef supply, with half being dairy culls and the other half being beef cows that fail to get pregnant. It ends up at McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Beef hotdogs.
- tptacek 3y agoThe numbers I got were more like 9%. You can also go to specific chains and look up their sourcing; Wendys sources from "steers and heifers", but all much younger than the average dairy cow cull age. It's not that I have a high opinion of fast food beef. I just think it's unlikely that they could come close to meeting demand by sourcing from culled cows.
- kevinmchugh 3y agoThe distinctive flavor of fast food ground beef is because they freeze the beef. Try the fresh beef quarter pounder at McDonald's - it's good.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> same reason for why I don't eat an old cow There are Iberian preparations for older cattle that are absolutely delicious, FYI. They’re premium priced, however, so I imagine there is care in what they’re fed and how they live.