Does Grass Fed Beef actually taste different? 

News, notes, and more: - Thanks again to Made In for sponsoring this one, get 10% off off your first order over $100 using my link ➡ madein.cc/0624-ethan - Check out my second channel: youtube.com/@cookwelldotcom?si=ZuDpi4Jp9A30R2KS - For all the sources and additional reading, check out this notion page: www.notion.so/ethanchlebowski/Sources-Is-Expensive-Steak-worth-it-f54e385c1cad441a91a4f46cc6717be9 - What type of tests would you want to see me do for a tomato deep dive? I'm thinking a pasta sauce or salsa test with different tomatoes would be fun! Hope you all enjoyed this one. It was fun to put together and really think about steak from a variety of different angles!

My family raises cattle and growing up something that we learned early on is that "happy cows make the best meat." The more stressed the animal is, the worse it is for everyone from the beginning to the end. Now I know not all large scale beef operations are the same, but it's been the case from what I've seen in my area. And as a heads up, "grass finished" doesn't mean the cattle were in a large open field, they were most likely in the same sized pin as the rest, but just had grass in the trough vs a corn mixture.

This is an excellent video, but as someone with a lot of experience in the beef industry I must tell you that you’ve missed a critical variable: length and type of aging. Obviously everyone knows the difference between wet aging and dry aging, but there is HUGE variability in the length of aging in wet-aged beef. If you take a conventional prime ribeye that’s been wet-aged for 14-21 days and compare that to one that’s been aged for 40 days, you will be blown away at the difference. Controlling for as much variability as possible, I did a test between grass finished prime ribeyes and conventional prime ribeyes over a few different aging periods and noticed that conventional steaks have what I call “peak” taste and texture from 30-50 days and grass finished peaks at 21-28 days. Conventional steaks older than 50 days really just get looser and more tender, but the flavor doesn’t really change all the way up to 80+ days. Grass fed really started to go downhill in my test after about 45 days. Consumers have pretty much zero control over the length of age for wet age steaks, so maybe it’s a moot point. Just my two cents. Would love to see you add this variable in another text.

I've found Prime/Choice/Select grading very inconsistent at times and I tend to just actually look at the steaks themselves and pick the ones that look good. Some of the best, most well marbled steaks I've had were graded as Select and looked better than any of the Prime steaks in the display case

Ethan I'm a (retired) librarian as someone who is trained to evaluate content & having done this for 30 years your stuff is first rate i paste links to discord channels & recommend you so often to not only home cooks but to professional level students & chefs they all agree keep up the good work One quibble though It's heifer

We're so back

Deep dive on fruits would be great! So many things to know like which fruits continue to ripen after they are picked, which skin is edible, how to store them, organic vs non organic, different varieties etc.

5:00 - I heard "Cow Café" so I was imagining cows drinking coffee and one of them is on a laptop and giving side-eyes to that "cute looking cow with the black and white patches." Then I realized it was Cow-Calf-Phase.

What i do. Is use cheaper cuts as "fillers" for veg, rice, tacos, taquitos etc. And use better quaility as the main and use the veg, rice and pasta as fillers.

Really looking forward to that butter deep dive!

Ethan just doesn’t miss. One of the few content creators I will gladly lend over my 30 minutes for a video

The statement about 1 steak per week being above the average really got me to think about how much steak I intake, and I can't recall the last time I ate a steak. Shocking realization 😂 Another amazing video! Thank you for all that you do! 💚

I'm a huge beef eater and I'm so glad that I live in the part of the country that raises grass-fed beef. I can go to my local butcher and get completely locally raised grass-fed beef for the cheaper price than you would get horrible meat at Walmart.

the best thing you can do to make any steak taste like steakhouse prime is dry brine over night on a rack. draws out a lot of moisture to allow more maillard, and the salt diffuses across the entire steak.

As a former butcher/fishmonger of 10 years, grass-fed beef will always be what I recommend, and I mostly only eat bison as I prefer the flavor. Free range animals raised well and happy make for the best meat as several others have said. In hunting, an instant, humane drop really does make a difference as the hormones released when an animal is stressed can dramatically change the flavor of their meat. Having made my living selling meat and fish, I truly appreciate hunting my own food, out in the woods and streams as opposed to buying a packaged product that came from who knows where. As an aside, a New York makes a better steak IMO, as it has a nice fat content with great marbling compared to a Ribeye. Cheap cuts can end up making great meals, it just takes a bit more effort, something as simple as cutting perpendicular to the muscle grain reduces the "chewy" texture by a lot. South Americans are devout about grass-fed beef, and their steaks are AMAZING, Chile in particular.

Would a deep dive on seafood be a good idea? Atlantic salmon vs King salmon vs Rainbow trout, farm vs wild caught, and Cod vs other white fish etc.

Would love a deep dive on peppercorns. Seems like there's a lot there with the different types, and different suggestions for when to apply it.

13:00 I relate and respect so much that he's using deli container lids as plates. I do that all the time

Ethan I was so worried that you hadn’t post anything this past few weeks. I’m so glad you’re back but also I know your vids are a lot of work with all the research, the cooking and the quality. Really hope you are doing great man, thanks for another great peace of content.

I’ve been watching you for about 3 ,4 yrs now you do an excellent job . Love the channel!

I agree with the thinner steak getting more flavor from the Maillard reaction. Sometimes we have some leftover steak as my wife or kids don’t necessarily eat a whole steak. Slicing and searing the rest of the steak to reheat it makes it amazing due to the increased Maillard reaction. It becomes unexpectedly amazing.

Also, the type of "grass" is a variable. Grass in the desert southwest is going to different than in the midwest or out east. I had a co-workers who raised cattle as a hobby (4-6 females, and when they had a steer, that became the meat cow). They would grass feed (pasture) the steers for 2 years and then 3-6 months of grain before slaughter (they said grain added to the marbling). I would get half a steer for my freezer (unfortunately they moved away). They would then hang the beef for 40-45 days before cutting it up (dry aged?). They always said never eat "fresh" meat. That was pretty good beef. So aging is also a variable.

18:01 Hey Ethan, I work in an HEB meat department and regarding the Fresh Ground product, our meat cutters grind these products from larger, 10lb or so clear vacuum packed packages. The consistency before grinding is pretty similar to what you get from the chubs, and if you check actually some of these products are the same price per pound as their chub counterparts! My personal suspicion is that the main difference will be mostly texture based.

Honestly you are one of the best RU-vidrs ever, thank you.

One of the elephants in the room is the ratio and quality of corn in the grain finish. Another is grass-fed operations have a higher disparity in quality which is whether the farmer really was raising grass-fed cattle, or growing pasture land and happen to have lots of cows. It's also worth noting that when dry aging meat, a pure grass-fed piece of beef will lose far less weight and less flesh is removed in the final trim. There is also a difference in flavour of grass-fed cattle where nitrogen ferts have been applied in the field due to. And I highly disagree on the fats entirely making the flavor or the meat. The corn does it. Eat chicken raised with zero corn and you will see the strength of the flavor this gives.

I needed this, amazing video my friend

I've been cooking steaks for a long time, I never go to a steakhouse. I started watching Guga 7 or 8yrs ago just to see if I was doing it right (I am). I've tasted steaks from different meat markets and grocery stores here in Oklahoma. Yes, the more expensive meat market ($24 for a 2" NY strip) is the best compared to grocery stores (of course). Butcher box impressed me with their grass fed beef, although the cuts are small. I have found that a 30-60 day dry aged steak is just so damn superior to the rest. Also, doing a dry brine (just salt, refrigerate over night) and cooking in a cast iron with butter and herbs yields the best tasting steak.

I usually have beef about once a month, and I generally splurge on really nice steaks and cook them sous vide. It's a rare treat, but I make sure I really enjoy it when I do have it.

The best bang for your buck cut of steak is definitely the chuck eye

Another Ethan Banger.

Yesterday, this series was on my mind. It's great to have it back.

33:51 something that could be fun and interesting for summer would be a "gas vs coal" or like generally grilling techniques deep dive

Great topic to discuss. 👍🏻 Thank you Ethan. 🙏🏻

we have a business costco warehouse near us that offers super cheap hallal new zealand grass fed beef. we bought a pichana and it was totally different than any beef weve had. it had alot of interesting flavors that werent better or worse, but totally different. a good way to change up flavors without having to hunt deer, moose, elk.

These informative videos are my favorite from Ethan

I really appreciate your careful and nuanced points. Very refreshing and inspiring in our time of obfuscation and fact hiding. We need more people like you online!

Thank you for making this video. The steak market is kind of confusing to me so I’m sure I’ll take something from this!

So good to see a good non biased explanation that is not beef eaters extremist

Nice! I feel vindicated in the choice I am making in regards to steak, now. Thanks! Will you Everdon a video on soups? Broth, ceamy, with or without meat, veggies and so on, keeping it all whole or pureeing at the end and so on ^^ Your videos have taught me a lot already and I am looking forward to learning more, thank you

thank you for sharing this with the world. It answered so many questions I've had over the years.

Much love for the educational content. Not much on the science of food(but I love science) I think these videos have importance for new cooks.

Knowing a Heffer is a female thats never given birth makes Rocko's Modern Life VERY weird

Side note on Made In: Project Farm tested this and several other brands of non-stick skillets with Made In ranking par for its price point, but easily lost to less expensive brands in most tests.

Excellent work! Thank you for doing these

short answer yes

I would be interested in beer deep dive. Like what are the differences between a lager and pilsner, do certain often called low quality grains actually make a difference (are rice and corn really "bad" for brewing).

Absolutely brilliant well thought out and researched video

Was thinking of this series yesterday. Great to see it back

Reupload?

Brand new beef producer here. We just slaughtered our first steer. He was pasture raised an hour south of SA on native-ish grasses. We finished him with a little grain because we were concerned about marbling; interestingly, he wasn’t interested in the grain because there was a field of fresh oats. He still grazed all day even when supplemented with grain. We did this for the last 2-3 months twice a day. All that to say, the finished product has really nice marbling. However, the taste of the fat is really different. The fat is yellow (not white like traditionally produced beef) and has a faintly fishy aroma that hits at the back of the palate. The texture of the meat is outstanding, but the fat wasn’t what we were expecting. It’s not bad, but we are definitely eating the filets and NY strips more than the ribeyes due to the fat content. Did you notice a taste difference between grass fed beef and the others? Have you tasted this faint fish oil flavor?

You are basically the food scientist we didn’t know we needed

Hey Ethan, as a home cook myself your videos are super interesting and useful as a reference. Gets me to try out some of the stuff myself and see if I can come to the same conclusions. Keep it up dude!

Are expensive steaks worth it? Short answer yes, long answer yes. If you're cooking them straight up, expensive steaks are worth it. If you're cutting them up and using them in mixed dishes like stir fry then no.

It’s crazy how u only have 2mil subs.. your videos are so freaking informative

In the US, there's a beef cartel that has been repeatedly fined for price-fixing.

Super cool deep dive!!! So I was born and raised in Chicago but live in CO. The wife is from a SD ranch family. We raise Certified Black Angus cattle, mainly for the tax write offs. We just slaughtered our first steer last month and kept 1/2, and sold 1/2. The wife spent a lot of time looking at finishing feed blends for protein to fat ratios, carb content etc. Technically, he was grass fed, grain finished but it really wasn't all grain. When we went to have him butchered, the butcher said he was a "big boy" (Certified Black Angus "tend" to be larger than your average black angus.) and if he were to grade him, he would grade him at Prime. My point of this story is that "healthy" also includes, the who, what, where, when and how. We know who raised our beef, we know that all shots were subcutaneous, he was never sick, he had a nice, easy life near a small herd and was dispatched humanely. We know the people who butchered our meat that we are feeding to our friends and family. That matters IMHO. If that matters to you as well, try contacting small beef suppliers that raise beef the way you like it and order some. That's not our primary goal but there are a ton of small farms and ranches that you can build a relationship with. Plus, it's way cheaper than the store.

I'd love to see more content with Fish! maybe something like Salmon, its different varieties and wild vs. farmed etc.

MEAT

I did want to mention that the different cuts are also gonna have a different flavor. So for the grass bad burger you should have made sure that all of it was chuck just happens to be a chuck grass or a chuck grain

Have you ever been to a Brazilian churrascaria? The one with the beef on "swords". They cook the meat on an open flame pit, bring it to you and cut a slice or two of it onto you place then take back the steak to the flame to brown it again. So you always get slices with lots of browning but still very tender on the inside. I think you'd like it.

Man, $8 a pound is too expensive for me, I'm usually waiting to buy beef that's on sale for $4-5 a pound

At this very moment, I am housing the prolific remnants of a steak dinner I bought for my elderly mother’s 77th birthday. It cost more than $100 per person, and I still have not eaten a bite. It is arguably one of the worst meals I have ever experienced. I am furious. The “restaurant” was Taste of Texas, in houston. They are amateurs, charging expert prices. They shaved fresh carrot onto a slice of carrot cake-as a decoration. The shreds are brown, and have a terrible texture. What were they thinking, and why do people enjoy this place? It is a meal I hate. There are more issues, but I will not bore you further.

This is the most informative video on steaks I've ever seen. You out did yourself on this one. Keep it up!

Amazingly detailed video on a subject I didn't even know I was interested in! In Ireland, all our cattle are raised in lush grass fields so I have no comparison. However, I know beef is one of our largest agricultural exports so it's obvious others like it too! Subscribed.

To the discussion of steak being better for the environment, I want to draw from Hannah Ritchie's book Not the End of the World. She argues that land use and yield have the most impact on the environment. If you're using more land to feed fewer people, you're contributing more to climate change. Not saying it's more ethical, but it would be more environmentally friendly for us to eat from brutally efficient and centrally located feedlots than even to eat local. But considering the land use of beef at all, it's actually much better to eat less beef. She shows that a person moving from eating beef to eating chicken has a greater effect on emissions than someone going from pescatarian to vegan.

its crazy how expensive steak has gotten

I done the shallot smash too, and done it like an onion smash mixed with Wisconsin butter burger. So basically just toasted buns in beef fat then followed but butter like a condiments on the buns , and just the shallot smash patty and cheese . Best burger I've had.

Love your test/reviews! Also love your audio production - what mic are you using?

Beef always felt like something that you need to either get the good stuff or not at all. "Bad" chicken is still decent, bad beef is just bad.

A beef farmer once told me many grain finished animals end up having abcesses in their livers. That told me, that grass finishing was more healthful for the animal. What is more healthful to the animal is more healthful to me, in my opinion. Maybe not the most healthful to my wallet...lol!

This is the best RU-vid video I have ever seen. Very informative and entertaining.

Ethan, please, I watch your videos in a way unlike any other RU-vid cooking channel. I feel like I learn so much. Please, I love tomatoes and red sauce, I need you to do that deep dive on tomatoes. I feel like I would learn everything I've never even thought to think about asking about tomatoes... if that makes sense. Thank you so much for your videos it's really reshaping my relationship with the food I cook for myself and my family! Much love.

so what is the answer, is expensive steak worth it. Choice vs Prime? you never answered the question.

$28 a pound?! Not on my fixed income. Nope.

Another fantastic content. Thank you!

Absolutely terrific! Great job, Ethan, as always!

It always frustrates me when people are like: I don't like beef and it's bad for the environment, so I eliminated it from my diet to save the planet. I am now going to grandstand about how everyone else needs to make the same sacrifice I made even though I'm giving up something I don't like anyway and you're giving up something you do like.

asmongold should watch this video

A test that you should try is on leftover beef, grain vs. grass. I've noticed that grass-fed beef develops far more warmed-over flavor than grain fed. This is anecdotal, but I've noticed it every time I've cooked grass-fed beef and had leftovers.

For climate impacts, typically people use CO2 equivalent for greenhouse gasses like methane (CH4) over a specific time scale. Typically 10-50 years when talking about ways to avoid warming by more than 2 C. As pointed out in the video CH4 eventually oxidizes in the atmosphere to CO2 + H2O. The water quickly precipitates out so the "CO2 equivalent" over time changes, from CH4 with 100% probability upon emission to CO2 with nearly 100% probability in dozens of years. In the first year, most of the CH4 is still around so you get equivalences that look like 70x more powerful - because CH4 traps heat much more than CO2 while it's around. Over a 100 year time scale most of the CH4 has long since been converted to CO2, so the equivalence is more like 17x more powerful: total heat trapped by CH4 versus CO2, accounting for the fact that the CH4 is likely converted within a dozen years or so. The detailed math way to derive the CH4-to-CO2 warming ratio is a calculus and statistics problem, an integral of the expected time at which CH4 gets oxidized. Take a semester of calculus, learn about the exponential distribution, and Bob's your uncle. As for time scales: as with most things in physics there are natural "time scales" at which key climate impacts happen. If you emitted a gigaton of CO2 into the environment that would warm the surface starting pretty much immediately. Over a few decades that CO2 would equilibrate with the carbonate content of the oceans: this is why the oceans are slowly acidifying, more CO2 in the atmosphere drives ocean chemistry towards having lots of H + HCO3, carbonic acid. Over even longer time scales (order million years) some of that H2CO3 in the oceans turns into seashells and gets deposited on the sea floors. And over even LONGER time scales we get "sillicate weathering" where rain water, slightly more acidic than average in high CO2 conditions, weathers silicate rocks a bit more and forms carbonate sediments that wash into the ocean and sink to the bottom. This last time scale, super long, is interesting for long-term cycles of "hothouse Earths" and "snowball Earths." Periods with many ice ages have much of the land surface covered in snow, not water, so silicate weathering slows down. The typical CO2 fraction of the atmosphere rises. In high CO2 environments there's little snow, lots of water, silicate weathering speeds up, and the atmosphere loses CO2 to rock weathering (slightly) faster. So the reason people talk about CH4 and CO2 over different time scales is because sometimes people care about what the weather effects will be in 5 years. Others care more about what the overall impact will be over 100 years. This consideration of time scales is also part of the discussion on how to mitigate climate change in various ways. Especially CO2 capture and storage. The storage mechanism usually will leak trapped CO2 back to the atmosphere over time. If your goal is to trap CO2 to mitigate spikes in a few years then it makes sense. But if you're pumping CO2 gas into a cavern that will leak it all out in a 100 years, and your goal is to mitigate long-term climate impacts, then it's a total waste of time.

Great video, thanks for the reaserch.

Honestly, it very much comes down to the cow breed and how it was raised. Happy cows are tasty cows as my grandparents say, who run a small cattle operation and sell the animals after the calving stage. Wagyu will almost always have more intermuscular fat than a black angus, it's just how the breeds are, and honestly, I'm a huge fan of the butcher cuts (hanger, skirt, flank), than the typical strip or tenderloin.

Loved this video great information

love these deep dives

I'd love to see a video like this comparing organic vs conventional fruits and vegetables. I think sometimes people are misled by the labels. I recently bought some conventional apples which are considered "bad" by people who buy organic but the apples are absolutely delicious. I would like to know if pesticides being sprayed on produce is bad for us and is organic really any better? I mean organic farms do use pesticides so it's confusing.

I remember as a kid, the packaged beef at the grocery had stickers that proudly proclaimed 'Grain Fed'. I grew up on a small farm and we raised our own, and they were indeed, grain finished w/ corn sometimes mixed w/ molasses. (they go nuts for the the stuff w/ the sugar....kinda like human kids and cereal).

For these sorts of comparison tests in the future, please make sure to standardize the cuts of meats as much as possible! Though these are all ribeyes, the 2 prime cuts appear to be cut from the end, with 3 distinct muscles in the steaks, as opposed to the 2 choice steaks, which only consist of the rib eye and cap

I love that you showed a Polish store. Would love to go back to Poland some day.

Great video! For a suggestion, I'd like to see a video on cooking with (using?) raw cuts of meat, whether it's a steak or fish tartare, a civeche, homemade sushi, etc.. I learned from a biologist that she would not use the frozen tilapia I previously was using for civiche, and I think an overall video on consuming raw meats would be great.

I live around a lot of beef farmers. Every single one of them says they prefer the taste of corn-fed beef, and they are often talking about their own cows. Namely, they’ve tried both with their own heards, and found that when beef is fresh the corn-fed meat tastes much better.

My retired admiral uncle is in La Grange, texas. He raised Limousin cattle, exclusively. I have never seen it highlighted on a menu, so I have wondered, my entire adulthood: where did his special cattle end up? Were they ground into patties, with lesser cows? He hated his cattle-he said so, freely. He has given me a very ugly image of ranchers. They are evil.

These videos are the soundtrack of my life 😅 thanks dude 👊😎

love your channel and all the deep dives in info. One thing i think that a lot of people could benefit from is proper meal planning/prep to eliminate waste. I'm personally bad at it and end up throwing away so much produce because i just don't get back around to it.

Thank you for the frank and well researched conversation about the topic. Many adjustments to my mindset to buying beef... From environmental to my own health. Thanks!

I love Ethan and his videos. This video was interrupted 4 times by 1 minute of ads. I stopped before it was finished.

I applaud your approach to presenting the facts. Do many pick on one very narrow tact point and get religious about it. Reality is no simple answer and we are fortunate to have choices that allow us to focus on what is important to us. Key is everyone needs to respect the different perspectives and lifestyles.

Please do a video on tomatoes! There are so many different kinds out there, especially if you are growing them yourself. I'm sure most of us think we know a lot about tomatoes, but after your videos we generally realize we didn't know squat. Lol

Dude, this is an amazing video!!👏👏 As an almost daily steak/ beef eater, I really appreciate your research!! You've given me a lot to think about and research🤔 Keep the great content coming!!❤❤

Another great well video!

I like your nuanced take in this video. I especially like your question of "how much beef do you eat?"