The best steaks for grilling are the ones that will return the best flavor and nutrition while retaining moisture and tenderness. To accomplish the best results, I always start with the best ingredients I can find.
Because grilling is direct, conductive, intense heat, it will never tenderize a steak during cooking. For the best beef meal, you need to start with the most tender and flavorful beef. You needn’t use heavy marinades or even long cooking times when you begin with the best ingredients. You don’t even have to worry if you have the best grill or not. Better ingredients are easier to cook, it’s a fact.
John Wood of US Wellness Meats is a fifth generation cattle rancher who has broken from traditional thinking and stopped feeding corn to his cows. The natural foraging diet returns a more flavorful steak that is higher in nutrition and even cooks faster!
This method of raising cattle goes back as far as cows and farmers, and is better for the animal, the land, and human beings. John’s pasture is separated into 36 paddocks, and the herd is moved from section to section to dine on fresh, nutrient rich clover and grasses.
“It’s cookies and ice cream time,” says John as the cattle hurry to the undisturbed pasture for an afternoon snack, “the energy in the grass is highest at 4pm, so that’s when we move the herd”.
To over-simplify the explanation, John Wood and grass fed beef farmers like him use the cow to convert grass energy into steaks for grilling for human beings. Cows have 4 stomachs, the first is a fermentation stomach called the rumen. It breaks down the grass to digestible material.
Bacteria in the rumen help in this natural process that keeps the cows happy and healthy. However, most beef for slaughter in the US spends the last weeks of their lives being fattened with steroids and corn.
The bacteria in the rumen don’t like corn as well, causing sickness in the animal, causing the rancher to give it antibiotics and other un-natural elements. This is a vicious cycle that harms the animal, the planet and human beings. Even if you’re unconcerned about those things, the steak has much less flavor too.
The result breaks all conventional thought about having beef as the main part of your diet. There’s a prevalent belief that eating too much red meat is bad for you. This may be the case when we’re talking about feedlot beef that’s fed corn, however the opposite is true of grass fed beef.
Grass fed beef has an ideal Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio of 2 to 1. This is equal the nutritional qualities of fish. This type of steaks for grilling has 1/3 less calories than grain-fed beef, contains no antibiotics, no hormones and has 4 times the CLA than grain-fed beef.
What’s CLA? It’s Conjugated Lenoleic Acid. It’s believed to be an anti-carcinogenic, increases lean body mass, prevents arteriosclerosis, and slows or halts the onset of diabetes. Grass fed beef produces higher levels of CLA than grain-fed beef and can play an even more prominent roll in cancer prevention than fish oils.
The best steaks for grilling are the ones that will nourish your body and senses most completely. Grass fed beef farmers like John Wood are working hard to supply wholesome, natural food products that improve our health, not endanger it.
See the grass fed beef interview video with John Wood of US Wellness Meats
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