My understanding is that USDA grass-fed labelling is dubious at best since late 2016. You need to look at trusted 3rd party labels, looking for grass fed, grain finished, or grass finished to get a sense of what was actually fed. Most cows will eat grass at some point in their lives (especially as calfs, from what I've read).
One trouble too is that grass fed NEVER strictly means pastured, and in fact, it rarely does. It can even mean they've been fed grass-based feed, which isn't whole grass but a processed feed containing grass. This is a feed that might be implemented in a feed lot, for example.
That's the next issue. When consumers think of grass fed, they imagine open fields, space, etc. No, this is not how it works; grass is still used in feed lots, and the vast majority of beef in North America comes from feed lots (recent figures indicate 95% or more). Depending on the country and farm, animals may spend the beginning of their lives with pastures, but many don't. They may then spend anywhere from a couple months to over half a year in a feed lot for finishing. These conditions are absolutely brutal, and not worth supporting in my opinion. The externalities of feed lots are absolutely absurd.
> It's still a tremendous amount of grain.
Up to 10lb per day, apparently. Imagine, in a week you could have roughly ten pounds each of 7 nutritious grains and legumes saved for a human being to eat. Lentils, peas, millet, wheat, oats, etc. That would go really far for a human being, and actually provide a lot of nutrition as whole foods. Somehow we've meandered so far from that kind of diet, but science backs it up in spades: we should be eating those things instead of using that land for feeding soy and corn to cattle.
One trouble too is that grass fed NEVER strictly means pastured, and in fact, it rarely does. It can even mean they've been fed grass-based feed, which isn't whole grass but a processed feed containing grass. This is a feed that might be implemented in a feed lot, for example.
That's the next issue. When consumers think of grass fed, they imagine open fields, space, etc. No, this is not how it works; grass is still used in feed lots, and the vast majority of beef in North America comes from feed lots (recent figures indicate 95% or more). Depending on the country and farm, animals may spend the beginning of their lives with pastures, but many don't. They may then spend anywhere from a couple months to over half a year in a feed lot for finishing. These conditions are absolutely brutal, and not worth supporting in my opinion. The externalities of feed lots are absolutely absurd.
> It's still a tremendous amount of grain.
Up to 10lb per day, apparently. Imagine, in a week you could have roughly ten pounds each of 7 nutritious grains and legumes saved for a human being to eat. Lentils, peas, millet, wheat, oats, etc. That would go really far for a human being, and actually provide a lot of nutrition as whole foods. Somehow we've meandered so far from that kind of diet, but science backs it up in spades: we should be eating those things instead of using that land for feeding soy and corn to cattle.