Grass-Fed Beef Labels Explained: 5 Tricks That Are Technically Legal

Grass-fed beef labels look reassuring. Most of them are also technically legal AND actively misleading. Here are the 5 most common tricks the industry gets away with, plus how to spot beef that's actually what it says it is.

5 grass-fed beef labeling tricks that are "technically legal"

Everything Big Food does is technically legal. Here are some of the more common grass-fed beef labeling tricks they get away with:

• Calling something "grass-fed" when the cow ate grass for 6 months and then steadily more corn for the next 8? Legal.
• Putting beef in a bag to stew in its juices for weeks and rebranding it "wet aging"? Legal.
• Pumping cattle for of glyphosate covered grain, antibiotics, and hormone implants to get them to gain weight with industrial precision? Legal.
• Meat glue (I thought this one was made up, but apparently it's real)? Legal.
• Beef labeled "Product of USA" that spent its life in Uruguay and got repackaged in Texas? Legal for decades (only just got tightened up, and the loopholes are intentionally wide enough to drive a sketchy hay wagon through).

All of it is 'technically' legal.

But none of it is something they're eager to throw up on a billboard, which is why they are constantly inventing new sub brands and greenwashed buzzwords to mask what they're really up to.

Part of the problem is that the label physically cannot capture what matters. Not all grass-fed beef is the same, even when the packages say the exact same thing.

Oh and they also do a ton of very NOT legal things, and occasionally they get caught and pay hysterically teeny fines (which our Fake General Counsel has asked me to clarify is NOT the result of their extensive political contributions, which are NOT just legalized bribery).

The whole system hinges on everyone not knowing, not paying attention or just plain not caring.

Since the label won't tell you, your eyes (and your dinner guests) have to. Here's how to tell if beef is actually good.

(For the deeper version on one of the biggest of these tricks, here's why grocery store beef is watery and who's profiting from it.)

Why I'm thinking about this from under a hay trailer

I love folksy sayings.

Love them.

One of my great aspirations in life is to be a folksy old grandpa. I yearn to sit on my porch and that back in my day I was "tougher than woodpecker lips" or that "it's hotter than two squirrels screwin' in a wool sock" outside.

I do not understand our cultural fixation on youth, teenage slang is ridiculous, grandpa slang is amazing.

Anyway.

Last night I was hauling hay when I was reminded of one of my all time favorite proverbs….

"If it don't look right, haul it at night."

The over-stacked hay trailer that started this whole thing

Last night was the night I finally decided to throw on an upper row.

The bales we make on this particular field are our "wet" bales, which have to be stacked on their ends. So putting a second layer on feels a little funky.

This is a perfectly legal thing to do. Everything was tied down. None of the axles were overloaded. I'm a farmer with a piece of paper in my glovebox that says "I'm a farmer doing farm things" so I'm covered.

Still, something about the upper deck always feels sketchy to me.

Plus we're only about 8 minutes away from our hay fields, so a couple saved trips every year has never felt like it was worth all the hassle of climbing up and down and strapping everything and worrying about it.

But we are having a banner hay season, which means like 50ish trips back and forth in just the next month.

Each trip takes about an hour by the time you drive down, load the bales, strap them, drive home (slowly), unstrap everything, unload the bales, and drive back.

So if an upper row can save me 8 or 10 trips, then by Jove an upper row it will be. I've got kids to hang out with and freezers to give away!

And the second I stacked those bales on top, and stepped back to assess the situation, I was officially in "I really hope nobody looks too hard at this" territory….

In my context, that means driving 10 minutes home with my hazards on and halfway into the shoulder so maniacs can pass at insane speed with no consideration for the tower of hay next to them.

What "haul it in broad daylight" beef actually looks like

Meanwhile on a small farm, we might occasionally feel a little squirrely about our hay trailer, but our beef? Our beef we are proud of.

Because it is ALWAYS 100% grass-fed and grass-finished. Raised without any kind of chemicals, sprays, antibiotics, whatever. And processed by a small butcher who takes the time to do things right.

(For the deep version on why "100% grass-finished" matters so much more than just "grass-fed," here's the difference between grass-fed and grass-finished beef.)

No greenwashed sub-brand we can hide behind when somebody starts asking questions. Just a small team of people happy to tell you anything about our operation.

(And if you don't know what to ask, I made a list: the questions to ask a farm before you buy.)

We would gladly put every detail of our business up on a billboard in broad daylight (literally, Jesse is desperate for a billboard).

So, if you want beef you can trust (that also happens to be nutrient-dense AND absolutely delicious), you can reserve a Half Beef Share with a free chest freezer here.

P.S. If you order a Half Beef Share at night, no one will notice…. JK please talk to your spouse about it, they will ultimately come around, and then the beef will blow them away, and then you'll be a hero with a ton of credibility to deploy the next time you want to make a big purchase. Trust me.