A Tale Of One Man And His Cattle

Author: Frank Mack
Our food chain is sick.
The wheels are greased by waste, pollution, and misery.
The proof is all around us evidenced by human obesity and animals raised under
brutal conditions. All of this leads from a huge trillion-dollar industrialized
system that goes about feeding over 300 million Americans every day.
Every bit of this is understandable. We have to eat, make a living and survive
within the same food chain. I like to believe in human decency, and I don’t
believe that most folks go into a business to be purposefully cruel to animals.
It’s a tough business and like many, operates on slim margins.
A solution, however, would be nice. A solution to just a little part of the
beef industry would be great. People try. We all see the “farm to table” label
these days. What does that even mean? It all comes from a farm somewhere and
yes eventually lands on a table so isn’t it all farm to table?
I started asking around, to folks I
trust, about farm to table, in an effort to understand just what is going on. I
followed a lead about a different guy and a world-class steak. I fully expected
to find a bunch of bull. And boy did I find it.
The Man
Meet Steve Whitmire of Brasstown Beef just across the Georgia border in the
North Carolina Mountains. He’s a tall, no BS, good ol’ American rancher who
talks like Twain, walks like Wayne and invents like Jefferson. He is a man on a
mission to reinvent the cattle industry. He’s a man changing how we raise,
feed, and care for feed animals from the ground up. His Brasstown Beef is
producing world-class beef that we can all buy and enjoy guilt-free. Oh, and
don’t let me forget to mention he has a pet bull weighing a mere 2,800 pounds.
His name is Ulysses and he actually comes when Whitmire calls. The beast is as
gentle in his hands as a new puppy.
But this story is about the best beef you can buy, and it’s being raised just a
couple of hours away. At present there are only a few local restaurants and one
grocery store (Whole Foods) that carry Brasstown Beef, which is processed in
their own family plant and sold here in the Southeast. At the end of this
story, and through it all, you really only need to know that it’s about you
eating the most succulent, perfectly marbled, all natural, good for the cow and
you, beef.
You see Whitmire may have found a very large part of the answer but first we
need to understand some of the problem. A concept like farm to table (F2T) is
brilliant on the surface. We all get it, fresh is best, one taste and no smarts
can tell us that. I love the idea of local producers selling to local retailers
selling to local residents. Keeping the dollars local is always good but
business is business and it’s hard to have serious standards and keep them away
from the accountants. A trillion dollar system like the beef industry doesn’t
change easily, if at all, just because we wish they would.
Another difficulty in this is that it is so easy to just BS the whole thing. I
wish I didn’t have to say it but most places will put minimal resources into
F2T just so they can put a logo on the menu without doing the required work to
truly source their food. To be real F2T you must source, prepare, and serve
carefully grown, handled and or raised products whether they be plant or
animal.
Millions of people are involved in this. We eat a lot of beef, 28 million tons
annually. That’s a lot of cattle, feed, land, hormones, antibiotics etc.
Whatever it is, however, it is used, if it affects this industry, it is huge to
us and even bigger on a planetary scale.
The Formula
What goes into the cattle is just half the story. What comes out and into our
ecosystem is just as big a story and just as important. The science behind this
is huge. At major universities reports inches thick are coming out but it comes
down to this. Steve Whitmire has figured out the perfect balance of what goes
into one end of the animal. His cattle eat 100% organic without drugs, hormones,
or antibiotics. He raises the best beef on the planet with 99% of its USDA
Grade A mouthwatering delicious.
Whitmire can see through the hide to tell you what kind of beef is in every cow
he raises. While they may not live to see old age, the cows are happier and
healthier than any you’ll ever see. How Whitmire and Brasstown Beef change the
cattle industry is still to be seen but let me give you the highlights, which
cannot capture the totality of everything I’ve learned but should give you a
taste.
☛ Beeves (cows to y’all without poo on your boots)
have several stomachs. Whitmire found a waste product that when added to feed
provides an unusual enzyme, which produces desired marbling and flavor to the
beef. The net result is better tasting feed, it’s cheaper to use, replaces
several supplements, saves money, and removes waste from another industrial
system. It also cuts down on the methane from the other end.
☛ Grass-fed is a myth. No grass by itself carries the
nutrition needed to raise a half-ton animal. But if you assist Mother Nature by
replanting with the best grasses, weeds, and natural mix available, the animals
in return will self- feed the best mix for the best results.
☛ Free range is a myth. If what you want is tender,
marbled beef, it is best they don’t have to travel like Gazelles to find food
and water. The cattle know where the best feed is and will move along to it by
themselves.
☛ Cattle are stupid but like most of Mother Nature’s
creatures they instinctively know more then we can understand. Whitmire
harnesses the animal’s own instincts to their furthest advantage. It’s what he
calls Free Choice Feeding and Free Choice Grazing.
I could go on and on but if you add another ten secret feeds that Whitmire has
come up with in some wonderful version of Yankee inventiveness and good old boy
understanding of the world around him and couple that with his sixth, seventh,
and eighth senses about his charges, the world may change yet. Understanding an
animal at a deeper level allows your animals to choose by their own senses and
intuition. Being able to turn that intuition into measurable science that
others can duplicate is both genius and priceless.
The End Result
Bragging about a good steak is easy. I’m not talking about just one steak; I’m
talking about never having a bad steak again. Now that’s a goal!
Locally, you can find Brasstown Beef at several restaurants. The Castellucci
Food Group serves it, Sugo in Johns Creek, Double Zero in Sandy Springs, The
Iberian Pig, and Cooks and Soldiers in Midtown. These guys run some of the best
restaurants in Atlanta and if they don’t know good from great then no one does.
“This is the best beef in America. Period,” said Federico Castellucci. “Serving
the best is what our customers expect. It all matters, everything we do, every
choice and Brasstown is the best.”
But don’t just take his word. In Roswell both Table & Main and Osteria
Mattone serve Brasstown Beef. Chef Woody Back at Table & Main grilled us
burgers for a talk about all of this. Over dripping hot burgers, we went into
quality, what it means and how it matters.
“The best out of a kitchen starts by letting only the best into the kitchen.
Brasstown is the best, hands down, that is easy to say,” Back stated.
Quality to me is nice because it leads to consistently great food. But to guys
like these, it is way more important. It is their business, their lives, and
their families depend on their taste. Me? I just have opinions, but those
opinions are now based on dozens of meals at the ranch, out on the town or in
my own kitchen. I can honestly say this is the best beef on the planet. Whether
you grill, pan, stew, pot or burn it, the beef is all 100% perfectly marbled
and flavorful all the way through. Brasstown isn’t just good beef, its good
ranching and good animal husbandry. It is great for the environment and your
family. I had to convince myself first. Now I want to convince you. This is the
real farm in farm to table.
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