The Shocking Truth About Grass-Fed Beef | Cloe Parker DSH #758
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Oh, wow. Versus like, okay, well, what's, where is it at the other 50% of its life? Um, but most people think like grass fed, uh,

means like it's on grass its entire life, but unfortunately it's not the truth. I thought that to be honest. Yeah, but it's, it has to be grass fed and grass finished. That means grass finished means they spent their entire life, even the end of their life on pasture.

All right, guys. Got Chloe Parker here today from Parker Pastures. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me. This is awesome. Yeah, we're going to talk about the meat industry. Let's do it. A lot of stuff going on there. Yeah, there's a lot of disgusting things going on with our meat. It's crazy. Yeah, I go to grocery stores now and I can't even buy most of the meat.

Yeah, no, I will avoid that at all. I mean, it helps that I have a lot in my freezer. But yeah, just the things you just don't know where it's coming from. The fact that the fact that always grossed me out is it's all raw, like our meat's all frozen or that's all raw. So it's like, who knows how long it's been sitting out for? Right. Yeah, there's a whole there's a whole list of all the things I'm like.

oh, I don't want to eat that. Yeah. Even the coloring, sometimes it looks off. Like when I go to Whole Foods and I look at the coloring of the meat, it's like kind of dark. Yep. Yeah. They use something called modified...

it's MAP, Modified Atmospheric Packaging, where it's carbon monoxide is kind of like the main ingredient and there's a couple different gases. And if they package it with that, it'll keep that dark red color. And there's some crazy comparisons of like...

when it's packaged with that versus when it's not, it'll be like gray and oxidizing a lot faster. So that's another thing where it's like, well, it might not be as fresh as it looks because of that packaging. Wow. That's crazy. What do you think about the meat grading system, the USDA prime and the choice and all that? Um, that's a great question. Um, I mean, I think it definitely has some, uh,

benefits to it, honestly, I don't grade any of our meat. I mean, we're kind of going off of like, when I'm looking at an animal out in the pasture, I'm like, is this animal plump? Is this like, I look for something called bubble butt. So I want them to like have kind of almost like bubbles around their tail. And it's like, I'm looking for that to be super marbled. And that's more of what we're kind of going off of. It's like an animal that looks healthy and is fully finished.

So I think the meat rating system definitely has some say, but I'm just coming from like a rancher's perspective. That's kind of what I'm going off of when I'm like, okay, that animal's ready to be harvested. That's going to be really good beef. Yeah. I was talking to a butcher in San Diego. He owns a butcher stop and he was saying he'd rather eat Creekstone Choice than Costco Prime. So I thought that was interesting. Yeah, that is. Because he was saying the source matters a lot.

Totally. Yep, it does. Because, yeah, there's so many different ways that take cattle, for example, can be raised. But how they're raised, where they're coming from affects not only the quality of the meat, but the nutrients of the meat as well as the flavor of the meat. Like even just the label grass fed. It just means they're 50 percent of their life was spent on grass. Oh, wow. Versus like, OK, well, what's where is it at the other 50 percent of its life?

But most people think like grass fed means like it's on grass its entire life. But unfortunately, it's not the truth. I thought that to be honest. Yeah. But it's it has to be grass fed and grass finished. That means grass finished means they spent their entire life, even the end of their life on pasture grass.

Right. And that's definitely where the like nutrients are in that meat because meat is super nutrient dense. And you rarely see grass finished anywhere. No. Yeah. It's less than like I think it's less than 5% of all beef in America. Yeah. It's a very, very small percentage. Yeah. I've never seen it at Costco. At restaurants, I almost never see it. Why do you think it's so rare? Is it more expensive, way more expensive?

Well, I mean, there's a few different reasons. Because most animals, like they'll say a calf is born on usually a ranch. It's going to spend...

three to six months with its mother, and then it's usually weaned. And normally it'll either continue being on grass or it'll go to, like they call it, a backgrounding yard, so kind of where they're going to be given corn or hay. And then they'll usually be back on pasture for a little bit. And then the final stage of most cattle, like,

85, 90% of cattle is in a feed yard. And that's just kind of the system we have. And like it's, we grew America raises a ton of corn, like the size of California and corn each year. And then that's cheap feed that can go to cattle. We can get them fattened fast. And then you have,

that beef. So it's just the system is so broken and that's why it's like, yeah, most, but versus if it's grass finished, grass fed, like it takes way more time. Um, it's just different. So it's just not really the norm, but grass finished grass, grass fed grass finishes where the nutrients is. That's where the flavor is. That's where like the health benefits are. Um,

That makes sense from a business point of view, why they would prefer the other route because it's quicker turnaround, more money. Yep. Exactly. The corn has GMOs in it. They don't care. Yep. That's nasty. And people are eating that. And I heard some cows are being injected. Have you heard about this? With like the mRNA vaccine? Yeah. Vaccines, hormones. Yeah. I mean, hormones are definitely used a lot because it just helps with that growth. Antibiotics as well because it's like they're in a feed yard. They can get sick. They're in confinement. Yeah.

And then the mRNA vaccine is don't I don't think they're injecting anything yet, but they're testing it and trialing it. And that's going to be a whole other can of worms. And I'm like, oh, boy. Do you treat all your cows as naturally as possible when it comes to the injections? Yeah. Yeah. No growth hormones, no antibiotics. I'm going to do everything in my power to stay away from the mRNA vaccine. I love that because that gets in the food. Yep.

Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, it's like what it does to the human body. And then what if we're eating that? Like, what is that going to still do to our body? That's nuts. Yeah. I'd imagine they're going to pressure farmers into getting some sort of vaccines.

In the future. Yeah, it definitely seems to be rolling out that way, which is like control the food, control the people. So I don't know. That's nuts. Did you see a bunch of chickens died like a month ago? Like millions? Yeah, it's definitely got because we're it's interesting because they're kind of rolling out the bird flu, tying in the mRNA vaccine. And it's all like this thing where I'm like, hmm, this doesn't make sense. And the other crazy thing is like the beef vaccine.

You look at the cattle market of like live cattle, it's at a record high. But beef prices are kind of like a low. And 85% of beef is controlled by four companies. Wow. And they're all processing companies, not all U.S.-based. Some ones in Brazil, like they're all over. And so they can afford to lose a bunch of money on beef to push all the small producers out.

and then really control that entire market. So there's just a lot of interesting things happening. And I just find it ironic because beef, especially like take beef liver, it's one of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet. It's like you can attack that, but it's like, well, that's where all the nutrients is versus like you take corn or some other product. Like there's not nutrients. There's not the health benefits. There's also not the environmental benefits of like

Cows can be really healing to the land. They can reverse degradation. They can sequester carbon, all those things. So it's just interesting how everything's aligning and the tack on it. Follow the money, right? Yeah. That's super concerning that four companies control 85%. It's wild. Has it always been like that or is that recent? I mean, in the last, it kind of started in the 19, I want to say 70s, and they've kind of built up.

over that period. But yeah, now we're at, I think, 85, 90%. They're trying to get that last little bit of control. Wow. Yeah, it makes sense because they're in all the grocery stores. They got mass distribution. Yep. And they use all kinds of different logos and labels. So you don't know that it's from one of four companies. Right. And they buy out companies, right? Yep. And then change all the ingredients. Yep. Yep.

So even if you're like a healthy mom and pop, they're going to buy you out and then remove all the healthy ingredients to make more money. Mm hmm. Yeah. Crazy. It's definitely about the money. That is nuts. How long have you been doing this at Parker Pastures? My entire life. Yeah. Yeah. My parents started it when I was super little. And so I've kind of just grown up branching and like growing.

having meat in our freezer and selling meat. And then after I graduated high school, I kind of went away, worked on some other ranches. And then my mom actually was diagnosed with cancer. So I was like, I need to come back. And I was running our ranch and meat company. And I was like, wait a minute. I actually like this. Like, I feel like this is what I'm supposed to do is provide people with nutrient dense food because our food system is so corrupt and so broken. And so I took over

And ever since just been, yeah, it's like I want to put good, put nutrient dense food back on the table, but also raised in a way that's like healing to the environment, the earth, not degrading it like most food is. I love it. They tried telling us meat was bad for you a couple of years ago. Yep. I mean, there's, they're still pushing it and it's like, yeah, if cat, it's all, there's a saying, it's not the cow, it's the how, like cows in them of themselves, like they're not good or bad. It's like how they're managed and like,

If they're managed in a way where they're overgrazing or they're like staying in that same area and grazing it again and again or whatever example you want to use. Like, yeah, that can cause problems to the land. It can cause deserts to be created or they can be managed in a way that is...

healing, regenerative, restorative, whatever word you want to put on it. But the concept of just like, I like to take the idea of like there was millions upon millions of bison roaming across the plains and the wolves were keeping them on the move. So they would graze an area of grass and then they'd be on the move and that grass could regrow and recover, put those roots back into the ground, bring that carbon back into the ground and

And then when it was fully recovered, then those bison would come again and graze that. And like, that's what we like. We want to replicate nature. Like nature has a good model. Right. And so like, for example, we use like electric fence and we're moving them daily or every other day or however often. Oh, wow. But we're keeping that like same mentality of like bison and wolves, just a little bit different approach. I didn't know that went into raising bison. That's crazy. Yeah. So you got wolves too? Yeah.

I mean, there is some in Colorado, but we just, it's like just the idea of like keeping a group of animals in a smaller space and getting, keeping them on the move. Just like bison and wolves, like similar idea. Cause like, that's how that we had all that top soil and the land was abundant. Makes sense. Rogan's big on bison.

Really? Yeah. Do you like eating bison? I mean, if I had to choose, I'm always beef. But yeah, definitely bison. Bison is the same thing as cattle. Most of them are finished in a feedlot at the end of their life. They're fed grain. So it's definitely being aware of where you're getting it from. But yeah, bison can be a really good...

source of protein and nutrients for sure yeah so feedlots are just what like slaughterhouse what is that feedlot is um feedlot or CAFO confined animal feeding so it's usually like multiple they're like a big one is going to be tons of different pins of animals they're going to be in a tight space and they're going to be fed a ration of usually like corn some hay like a whatever that

whatever protocol they're on to get them to gain weight as fast as possible. And then once they're reached...

Whatever poundage or whatever ratio they're going off of, then they'll go to the butcher or slaughterhouse. So it's mostly just like a tight area where cattle. Sounds traumatizing for the animal. Yeah, it's really bad for cattle. And it's even worse for like chickens and pigs. Like they won't even see the light of day and they spend their entire life in one of those. Cattle usually spend just a little bit of their life. That's concerning. I wonder if the animals know what's going on.

think they do more so than we think. Yeah? Yeah. Because I see videos of, like, pigs looking upset for the slaughterhouse, and I wonder if it's real or just propaganda. No, I think, I mean, pigs are very, they're similar to humans in, like, they definitely can, like,

I don't know if emotions is the right word. Yeah, maybe energy. Yeah, but there's definitely like I know what you're talking about where it's like that just they don't look good. And then you look at like the meat or even taste it. It's like it's not good.

Doesn't have flavor. It's it just doesn't seem good because the animals wasn't the animal wasn't a good life No, there's not spiritual component in food. People don't even realize yeah, it's so true Yeah, they're not eating locally or like from a good source like it's draining energy out of you. Yep in my opinion No, I 100% agree. Yeah, damn. That's concerning. Yeah, I gave up pork to be honest. I

Yeah, I I we have pastries pork. I work with somebody and they raise it for Parker Pastures. And I'm like, I know how those animals are raised. I'm like, OK, I'm OK to eat that. Same with chicken. But otherwise else, I'm like, no, I know. Yeah. Just how they're raised. Yeah. Chicken eggs that are not pastures are actually bad for you, apparently. Yeah. Yeah. Just don't because they inject the chickens.

It's wild. It's a scary time. And most people buy their meat at grocery stores, so they're not even aware that this is going on. Yep. I mean, it's convenient to just go to the store. But yeah, it's like there's so many hidden secrets. And like you take meat or vegetables or anything, it's like, I mean, in 2020, 50% of organic labels weren't compliant. Wow. So it's like... 50%? Yeah. It's like, well, what is happening to our food? Like if the labels aren't even compliant...

What does that even mean? Like we says organic, but is it? Yeah. And now they're spraying stuff on the vegetables. Did you see that? Yeah. So crazy. Oh, whole foods are literally spraying. People thought it was water, but it's not. Yep. Yeah. I was looking, I've always wondered about that. And then I saw that I was looking into it. I'm like,

Now I have to buy all my vegetables from a farmer. Yep, totally. That's like the safest way to go. I don't know what else you do. Yeah. I mean, it's tougher in Vegas, but. Yeah. Hopefully I could find someone for some raw milk too. Yeah, that one's a tricky one. That's a tricky one legally. Yeah, we just had a guest on and their baby had eczema and they were giving it dairy from like the grocery store. Switched over to raw milk, gone in three days. Wow.

Wow, that's wild. Just from raw milk. Yep. Now that stuff is powerful. But if you sell it on your site, the FDA comes knocking at your door and bans you. Yep. The regulations around it are ridiculous. It's crazy. I used to order from an Amish farm and they got banned. Oh my gosh. The FDA came on their door. Dang. I mean, I don't know what they're trying to hide.

Yeah. Raw milk's good for you. No, it's so good for you, which is probably why there's so many people trying to control it. Well, when big food's in bed with big pharma, it's a tough opponent. Yep. Yep. And that's exactly what's happening. It just gets worse and worse. Two of the biggest industries in the country, maybe in the world. You're fighting a tough battle.

Yep, it definitely is but it's like who who else is gonna do it's like we need food. We need nutrient-dense food Yeah, cuz like just look at all the health problems It's like how much of that is directly tied to where our food is coming from a lot of it a lot probably 80% Yep What are your top selling cuts and steaks and everything? Definitely, I mean my personal favorites always ground beef, but definitely ground beef and

like a New York strip steak or ribeye steaks. Those are classics. Or another one that's definitely popular is our ancestral blend of like 10% heart and liver ground beef. Because like I personally can't eat

organs, especially liver. It's just too strong. I'm like, I know the nutrients are there, the health benefits, all of that. So this is just like a good way to mix it in so that it doesn't taste livery. It just tastes like ground beef, whether I'm making a burger or whatever. Yeah. But the thing is like a whole cow, like there's so many different cuts from one animal. It's usually like 40% of ground beef, 10% steaks,

Then it's kind of like 30-ish percent of like roast or short ribs or stew meat, fajita meat. And then you have the bones and then the organs. So there's so many different cuts from one animal. It's like everyone loves steaks and like steaks are amazing. But there's some other cuts that have like ground beef is a great cut because it's easy to cook up. But it's got a ton of nutrients. So it's always like trying to –

think about how to use that whole animal and get that diversity of all the different cuts. I always wondered what part of the cow was the ground beef. Do you know? Yeah. I mean, there's,

a couple of different ways. Like sometimes they'll just like an entire cow will just be ground beef. Um, but usually like for us, it's kind of, it's called like the trim. That's like this. You have your like steaks. They kind of come from the, like the back. Um, and then your roast can either be ground into ground beef or you can keep the roast. Um, so the ground beef is kind of just like the, um,

whatever isn't your classic cut. It's usually ground into ground beef is a kind of a good rule of thumb. Yeah. That makes sense. Are you on the carnivore diet?

Pretty much. I mean, yeah. It's like I pretty much just eat meat for the most part. It's like, yeah, that's where I feel best. I have a freezer full of it, which helps. You got to send me a photo of your freezer. You keep bringing it up. Yeah, well, I mean, there's like multiple freezers of meat. So it's like I can kind of, my favorite part is just going into the freezer and

I like to rob the freezer of whatever I need. People probably love coming to your house for barbecues and stuff. Yeah, it's always good meat. There's always a running joke that it's from Walmart when in reality it's like, no, it's just from right out in the pasture. I would never eat meat from Walmart. Oh my gosh. That's like just disease waiting to happen. Oh yeah. Yep. Oh man. Let's see. Anything, any new launches, products coming out soon? Any partnerships? Yeah.

I'm excited. I partnered with a ranch that does grass-fed, grass-finished bison, so I'm pretty excited about that. Just have a little more diversity, and then we'll have pasture-raised pork and grass-fed and grass-finished lamb in the fall. So those are all kind of exciting products, just a little something different than the beef. Yeah. What do you think of the plant-based meat movement, like beyond meat? Yeah.

I think it's very interesting that some of the four companies that control 85% of beef are invested in those. And I think it's just another way to...

Just kind of get people off of what's actually healthy and nutrient dense. I mean, I get the environmental side of like, yeah, cows, like somebody coming from that point of view of like, I want to eat healthy. I want to do what's like good for the environment. But in reality, it's like eating beef raised in a way that's

was healing to the environment is like a better thing you can do than eating plants that probably killed hundreds upon thousands of insects or birds or whatever. So I don't know. I guess I don't try to think about it too much. Just try to think about real meat because it's like that has one ingredient versus those have like 30 or 40. Insane. It's crazy. It's like, how is that even food? It's not. And they marketed it in a way where it was healthy. That was a part that annoyed me.

Because I believed it at first. You know what I mean? A lot of people did. And then you read all the seed oils and whatever else is in there. It's like, wow, this is actually bad for you. It's not even neutral. It's like bad for you. Crazy. It is. And the vegan diet is a tough one because if you're not getting the greatest source of

It's actually really bad. Yeah. Like all the heavy metals and everything. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely some of our customers who were vegan and then like for health reasons had to start eating meat again. It's like. Yeah. It's hard. Like you can't get that.

the nutrients that you need or also it's like plants in our body break down versus different than meat. Like meat, it's easy for our body to convert into the nutrients we need versus plants have all those chemicals and things that are protecting them.

When an animal or whatever eats them, like they're trying to protect themselves. So it's just like what's going to be best for your body to break down? Where are you going to get the most nutrients out of? Yeah. And like meat is a really good one. It's hard to beat. It is. Do you guys ship everywhere?

Yep, everywhere in the United States. Okay, for people watching this in Canada or something, what are some tips to get in touch with someone like you? Yeah, Canada is definitely tricky because you have to be in your province. You need to find somebody. But usually if you can Google and do your research of like, okay, are they grass-fed and grass-finished? Could you go and visit the place? Like I just ask all the questions, do they do grass?

growth hormones, what do they feed the cattle in the winter, what are other things. Yeah, and just like I think usually when you're knowing your source versus just the store, it's usually a better option because there's less mystery around it and you can usually get a higher quality product. And like one thing I like do is like take a, it's like if you go to a restaurant versus if you eat our beef, you'll taste it.

flavor difference and flavor and nutrients are directly tied together so if it's rich in flavor then that means it's got a lot of nutrients so you're usually pretty good to go wow that's good to know good rule of thumb i didn't even think about the winter so yeah when there's no grass what do you feed it

Yeah, we try to go elsewhere. We have a few different ranches that we work with and just so they can be on pasture. Oh, so you move them? Yep. Oh, wow. Yep. That's crazy. That must be a process. It can be, but it's usually not as bad as you think. But yeah, it's like they just go up, go on the cattle semis, take a little...

Road trip, usually not too far away. And then it's usually green grass wherever. Dang, I did not even think about it. I just take it for granted that it's on my plate. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of parts that go into it, which is why it's like, yeah, it's easy to go to the store and grab something. So how long is the life cycle? Because I know there's a lot of criticism on how they're shortening it, especially for chickens. So for cows, what kind of time frame are you dealing with?

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, most, if you're kind of taking the commercial approach, usually it's going to be like 18 to 20 months. With grass-fed, grass-finished, it's usually more like

20 to 24 months or even past that um so yeah we want like we want that animal to live out its full life but also like get it needs to fully develop yeah once they can fully develop then they can put on that fat which will create that marbling which creates like that buttery right rich flavor the wagyu yep exactly so about two years wow that's shorter than i thought yep

Yeah. I know chickens are like months now. It's crazy. I think they're like six weeks. Holy crap. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's kind of – it's wild. That is concerning. That's like a baby. Yeah, and the crazy thing is if they go over that six weeks and they don't get harvested in time, they'll like die because they're so fat and so big they can't even walk. Oh, my gosh. So it's like that, and then we eat that. It's like –

That doesn't seem like a good idea. Yeah. I had to stop eating chicken at restaurants, actually, because I know they're not using the highest quality. Yep. Yeah, chicken's definitely the ones where I'm like, I will stay very far away from that. Like, beef, because cattle have the four stomachs, and, like, usually they are on pasture for most of their life. Like, it's usually, if you're going to go for a meat, like, usually beef's, like, the safest option. Wow. Mostly because of, like, just how the animals can convert that.

that whatever they're eating, I mean, obviously you want to stick with like grass fed, grass finished, all the things. But it's like, if you have to make a choice, it's like beef usually is the best option, but versus like chicken, pork, it's like usually they're fast growing. Who knows what they're fed? It's just, and they don't have like the nutrient profile that beef does. Even like if it's,

not ideal beef like it still has a lot of nutrients that's good to know i always thought chicken was the safer play but recently i'm learning it's not yeah it's really not or the fact they like bleach most chickens at processing bleach yeah they'll wash them in like a bleach solution why just to clean them it's kind of just like a protocol of like once yeah they'll just like rinse it

I don't know if they soak. I think they just like rinse it in bleach and then package it. That's disgusting. That's getting in the food. Yeah. So it's like there's just some things with chicken where it's just, I mean, they're just foul. Yeah. That's concerning. Can you even eat out like at a restaurant? Yeah, I will. I mean, usually I'll go with beef and then I just judge it against what I have. Have you ever been shocked at a restaurant where the beef was actually really good quality?

Not unless it was at a restaurant that had our beef. I love that answer. I love that. Yeah, we'll end it there. Anything else you want to close off with or promote? I think if you're looking for a source of good meat, it's going to be a rabbit hole. You're going to probably learn some things you don't want to learn. But if you're looking for a source of chicken and pork and lamb and all the things you just want to go to,

One place, buggerpastures.com, like all about nutrient density. It's like, let's get nutrient dense food, which also means it's going to be flavorful. It's going to be good, delicious. So perfect. Yeah. We'll link it below guys. I've been eating it. It's amazing. Definitely try it out and I'll see you guys next time. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Peace.