Health & Fitness

A Cut Above

A guide to America's best-tasting—and healthiest—beef

These days, knowing exactly where your meat comes from is a matter of safety, not snobbery. Books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, and Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser, have exposed the dirty little secrets of the factory farm industry, such as feedlots filled with dead horse and pig remains, and manure runoff that leaks dangerous nitrates and drug-resistant bacteria into our drinking water. The public reaction to news of such unhealthy practices has ranged from the basic (consumer demand for free range and hormone free labels) to the extreme: Chef David Burke, owner of New York City’s David Burke & Donatella restaurant, paid $250,000 for a prize black Angus bull to produce genetically superior offspring that become his restaurant’s steaks. But there’s a world of eating opportunity between “mad cow with a side of fries” and investing in a DIY operation. A national network of small family farms and expert breeders are using the Internet to market their boutique brands of beef, and any responsible backyard barbecue pit master can improve his game by purchasing from them. The methods used to raise grass-fed beef are better for the planet and better for your body, and, if you buy in bulk, it’s only slightly more expensive than that hormone- and pesticide-ravaged T-bone at your local supermarket. Since the biggest hurdle to buying healthy is learning to speak farmerese and knowing what to look for, we’ve done the legwork for you. Read on for a roundup of the juiciest, healthiest cuts out there—Cryovac sealed and delivered to your door on ice. Just make sure you’ve got some free space in the freezer.

Grass Fed
Unlike cattle that are fattened up with corn and milk, those raised solely on grass produce meat that’s leaner and healthier. A 3.5-ounce serving has only 2.4 grams of fat, compared with 16.3 grams for conventionally raised beef, and is higher in omega-3s, vitamin E, and beta-­carotene. American Grass Fed Beef is a 4,000-acre farm in the rolling hills of the southern Ozarks, where Mark and Patti Whisnant have been raising a closed herd of Angus and Beefmaster (a hybrid of Indian Brahman bulls and English Hereford and shorthorn cattle) for 20 years on a steady diet of Bermuda and Eastern gama grasses.

A 100-pound order, called a “generic quarter,” consists of 70 percent ground beef (about 150 big burgers), plus 30 of the best cuts from the front and hindquarters, including tenderloins, NY strips, and rib eyes. Generally, 30 pounds of beef requires one square foot of freezer space ($700, americangrassfedbeef.com). For milder, fattier cuts, California-based Tawanda Farms raises a small herd of grass-fed and grass-finished Australian Murray Greys—a century-old breed from New South Wales that’s prized by breeders for the ability to marble well on grass alone. The cuts are tender thanks to the gentle, stress-free disposition of the breed (stressed animals result in tougher meat), and only four to eight animals are butchered a year. If you have a second freezer, go ahead and buy a whole cow. Sure, it’ll set you back $2,000, but at 330 pounds, it will feed a family of four for an entire year (tawandameats.com).

Heritage
Heritage cattle are the heirloom varieties of the beef industry—rare and endangered breeds that are being kept alive by small specialty producers. Four such breeds— Hereford, Devon, Highlander, and Galloway, an ancient Scottish breed—are among those offered by the boutique butcher Lobel’s, in New York City, which gets its beef from small family-owned farms in New York and New England. The animals are raised on a strict diet of vitamin-packed greens, and when you order a half steer (starting around $2,500 for 163 pounds), you get to choose how it’s cut: into tenderloin and strip steaks, or porterhouse and T-bones. lobels.com

Wagyu
Wagyu cattle are raised in many regions of Japan, including Tottori, Tajima, Shimane, and Okayama, and were first imported to the United States in 1976. They are prized for producing buttery, marbled meat with thick veins of fat that melt at room temperature. It’s some of the most expensive on the menu—a 28-ounce Australian Wagyu porterhouse sells for $290 at the Kobe Club, in New York City—but buying directly from the source can translate to huge savings. Yama Beef, in Mabank, Texas, will deliver a “private stock” of four filets mignons for a relative bargain of $150. The meat comes from a closed herd of American-bred Japanese cattle raised without growth hormones or supplements and then slaughtered according to the strictest Japanese standards (meaning that the meat is safe to eat raw as steak tartare, which is how the Japanese prefer it). Before it’s shipped, it’s dry aged for 30 days in underground caverns for greater tenderness and flavor. yama-beef.com

MEAT MAP
The most common cuts and how to cook them