this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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Grass-fed beef was supposed to be better for the environment? Before I gave up meat, I just assumed it was better for the cow.
I have never heard anyone claim grass fed beef is more environmentally conscious.
I just heard it was better tasting, regardless of the environment or the cow… who I assume it treated poorly regardless.
It has flavor. Corn-fed beef is bland in comparison.
It's a very common misconception and lobby talking point.
I can believe that, I just have never heard it before and would have assumed whoever said it was either lying or mistaken. It's not a credible claim.
I would say it puts a lower upper limit on the amount of cattle a certain area can feed, unless the cows don't get extra food. This results then in fewer greenhouse gases being emitted.
Grass fed doesn't necessarily mean grazing. Capitalists gonna capitalize, so factory farms will buy grass grown elsewhere and stuff it into the cattle troughs with candy factory seconds and all the growth hormone they can legally ingest. If farmers clear cut old growth rainforests to grow grass feed because it takes more space to get the same output, then it's very bad for the environment.
This is the argument I've heard. You get more nutrition from a field if you grow feed crops and less if it's just grazed, so grass-fed yields less cows per acre. It doesn't change the amount of methane per cow.
While I generally agree, I have seen the argument that grass will grow in thin soil where crops will not, so you can theoretically turn land that's unusable for crops into being usable for producing beef...
But that was more of a land use argument than an environmental one.
This is literally the origin of livestock farming. And it isn't just about infertile soil or difficult terrain - it's a simple matter of scale. If you have more land than you can farm, you graze livestock on it. Livestock also acts as a super important calorie sink over the winter when you can't farm.
Then there are places like Iceland, where large scale agriculture is literally impossible, and the only way to produce food domestically is to graze sheep on the small bits of vegetation which can grow in volcanic rock.
I think it's better for the human, it tastes better than beef from cows that have been fed corn husks, bone meal, and cough drops.
Lots of people think naturally grazing cattle is somehow less resource intensive than the alternative.
It's the "yeah, factory farms are bad, but I get all my beef from my made up neighbor who runs a sustainable farm" crowd.
It's better than burning down the Amazon to grow food for the cow, but then that only works if you only have as many cows as natural grassland supports.
At a large scale you could stuff a bunch of cows in small boxes and feed them corn. Which is space efficient and government subsidised in the usa. It's probably worse for the environment because of it.
Grass fed means the cows are let out to roam free. What's better about it is that those animals are not forced to be locked in a box their whole lives