Choice

[Gonna Smoke]

Hmm
"Certified Angus Beef®" is a brand owned or listed by JBS USA.
Fox in charge of the henhouse or is it a licensing agreement?

I've often wondered that...

 

[SmokinEdge]

When I was a boy my dad would buy bottle calves from the dairy. They were 50 bucks a piece, these were Holstein calves. We raised and ate these because they were cheap. The calves we raised were more valuable and went to market. My dad was funny that way, but he was raised on a sheep ranch where they only ate the old mutton because they were not valuable but the lambs were $$$ so they sold them and ate the old ones, go cheap.

For a hundred years before I was born we had Longhorn or Herford beef and Herford being the dominant in later years. My belief is that there was a huge publicity campaign launched to bring in the Angus. They trade market the name pushed it everywhere. We just called them all “black cows” and at market those black cows Brought premium, while off colored cows were always lower. It was crazy to watch that market, they almost forced the entire market into black Angus because of money. They throw small calves (easy calving) the calves grow fast and they are generally a hardy breed, but in my book the Herford is all the same attributes and much better flavor, best beef I’ve ever eaten was Herford. It’s a corporate thing or a marketing thing these Angus.

We eventually started raising Romangnola cattle in a cross. These are an Italian breed that are cousins to the Piedmontese. These were excellent beef. Sirloin steak would cut with a fork with a little effort. The beef flavor was incredible. They threw small calves, were very hardy and easy to manage with great disposition and had half the marbling of Angus, they say fat is flavor, but meat has a lot of flavor too.

In the end I say we are all pawns. They sell us what they want us to eat, and we buy it. Coming off a farm/ranch I know better, there is a whole world of flavor out there.

 

[Cajun Smokes]

A couple of years ago, I read an article online about the different breeds of cows sold here in America for consumption. For the life of me I can't find that article again and I've tried numerous times, but the one thing that I remember most was that over 60% of beef sold in grocery stores and restaurants, regardless of grade, is Angus, specifically Black Angus, and has been for decades. Suddenly years ago, there was this huge marketing campaign promoting something we'd all been eating all along and trying to make us think it was something special, something different, something better, something new. I wish I could find that article again...

It all started in the 70's when beef market share was falling due to competition from other meat sources and a perceived decrease in tenderness and value. It was around that time that a suddenly health conscious public was switching to leaner, "healthier" sources of meat such as B/S chicken breast, fish, and pork. Remember the marketing slogan "Pork...the other white meat"? It was also around that time when beef and pork were being bred to have less fat because of the public perception that fat was unhealthy. I remember when the standard trim for pork chops and steaks was ½" of fat LEFT ON. Now you can't find any commercially available untrimmed beef or pork with that much fat. Remember when you could buy pork fatback that was 3"-4" thick or thicker...or thickerer...?

So along came the CAB, Certified Angus Beef, program in 1978. The USDA regulates the criteria by which Angus beef must meet in order to earn the CAB label. The CAB program was one of the main promoters of this new marketing strategy to increase or gain back beef market share. Their expectation was that by 2005, have 50% of beef all sold be branded as CAB. There was THIS study done by Ok St. (OSU) in 1999 and commissioned by CAB where blind tasting resulted in a better Warner-Bratzler shear (WBS) tenderness score for CAB steaks over commodity choice steaks. As for juiciness, tenderness, connective tissue amount, and flavor intensity, the final ranking was CAB first, then commodity choice, and then select. A summary of sorts of the study as well as some other info can be read HERE. Interesting fact about CAB is there's not a Wikipedia page for them. Go figure.

One more interesting fact about Angus cattle. The breeders/ranchers DO NOT have to prove lineage, pedigree, or genetics to be called Angus. The cows only have to exhibit the Angus characteristics with hair color being the primary one. Here's a FAQ article from CAB explaining it. Another article that reiterates the same info. But all Angus beef will not be CAB.

So to answer your question directly, I don't think I could tell the difference between commodity choice, which is most likely Angus, and CAB. But there was a study done where others could. And don't confuse breed with grade, one does not necessarily equate with the other. Prime, Choice, Select, and sometimes Standard and Commercial grades are sold directly for consumption as beef. The lesser grades end up in some kind of processed food such as hotdogs, bologna, soup, pasta sauce with meat, pet food, etc.

My take on it all is I don't spend the money at the grocery store on CAB, but rather I buy choice grade. I find it interesting that stores that sell CAB don't sell another choice grade, only select. No competition allowed?

Enough of my rambling, time to cook a steak...

Thank you for the info, very informative

 

[DougE]

When I was a boy my dad would buy bottle calves from the dairy. They were 50 bucks a piece, these were Holstein calves. We raised and ate these because they were cheap. The calves we raised were more valuable and went to market. My dad was funny that way, but he was raised on a sheep ranch where they only ate the old mutton because they were not valuable but the lambs were $$$ so they sold them and ate the old ones, go cheap.

Makes perfect sense when farming is your income. I want my balance sheet to be on the plus side each year because farming at my own expense is, well, stupid, but I can still stay in the black by taking a nice beef calf for my freezer.