What do you think of this article about McD's importing beef from Australia because American beef doesn't meet their standards for leaness?

Surprises the hell out of me, I thought McDonalds wanted fatter beef! But it matters not, I won’t eat there anyway.

McDonalds doesn’t use the whole cow, the best parts are sold off as steaks. McDonalds uses the lesser parts: legs, haunches, cheeks, shoulders.

It’s not cheaper than feeding grains. The US government subsidizes corn so that it’s incredibly cheap. Of course, corn is not the natural diet of cattle, and so they get very, very sick, hence the antibiotics (which are used so heavily, by the way, that they leach into our water table).

Sounds like just another “Let’s boycott McDonalds” initiative. Eat what tastes good. If you don’t like it, don’t eat it.

But grass is absolutely FREE @syz. You just turn the cattle out on the pasture and there you have it. With grain you have to haul it it, portion it out, etc. etc.
Of course they only use the lesser parts, @zenvelo. All hamburger is made of the lesser parts. What’s wrong with that?

I just don’t get it. Why would they feed cattle something that makes them sick. Then they have to spend money on antibiotics. I have to be missing something.

@Dutchess_III I don’t buy hamburger made from lesser parts. I get patties from my local butcher made from top round.

Wait…top round is one of the lesser parts listed in your post, @zenvelo It’s the “inside rear leg ot the animal.” Source. It’s very lean, too. But not as lean as Australian top round, which is what McD’s uses.

At any rate, there is certainly nothing wrong with the “lesser parts” of the cow. It’s where we get our rump roasts and shoulder roasts and good stuff like that.

(We were watching a stand up comedian once. He asked his butcher “Why do they call rump roast rump roast?” Butcher said, “Because if we called it cows ass no one would buy it!”)

It would make no sense to make hamburger out of the parts of the cow,like the T-bone or a filet, that sell anywhere from $8 to $12 a pound.

Aside from grass not exactly being “free”, @Dutchess_III (there being no such thing as a free lunch even on the plains, not even on the Great Plains – grassland leases cost money, after all) another big factor in raising beef cattle is “time”. It takes a lot longer to raise grass-fed beef to market weight than it does to raise the same weight in a feed lot on grain. Another very expensive factor in the ranching business is water. That’s not “free”, either.

Then there is also risk (from predators, winter storms, floods and droughts and, yes, cattle rustlers) and the cost of money itself, as well as the ever-present market risk, should pork or poultry ever regain the overnight favor they had when mad-cow disease was first publicized, and you couldn’t give away beef. Not to mention that vegetable-based diets are always becoming more popular, and imported beef from other countries is an option for all consumers.

Finally, of course, cattle turned out to graze on huge expanses of land have to be managed by humans, and those guys are expensive, too. Cattle in feedlots, though the conditions are arguably much worse for the animals, are much cheaper to manage and fatten to the necessary weight.

Taking all of those actual cost factors into consideration, the ranchers and feedlot owners who can control their costs and more profitably turn over their huge capital investment in livestock to buyers quicker than others in the form of acceptable-quality meat on the hoof, are the ones who will be successful.

I see. Well, I just see cows around here grazing in pastures that (I assume) are owned by the farmers, and they all have ponds dug in them. Also, when you live in the country you have your own wells. You don’t pay for the water, just the electricity to pump it, which is really minimal. I don’t know, but I see what you’re saying. My husband knows more about this stuff than I do. He’s spent parts of his life ranching and farming.

Even if the land is owned by the farmers, many of them have mortgages on the farm, and they all pay tax.

Many of them inherited the farms from their parents who got it from their parents who got it from their parents who homesteaded it. That’s the case with our 5 acres. It’s a small bit of acreage that our neighbor (half a mile up the road) sold off of the overall acreage his great-grand parents homesteaded in 18whatever.

(I edited my post above, re: well water.)

Maybe they’re using kangaroo meat, the cows are hopping mad.

@ucme kangaroo burger is selling for about 4 times the price of hamburger here. McD ain’t gonna pay for kangaroo.

I’m going to have to check on this. I search everywhere for grass fed beef and it is not easy to find. The stock yards here are just as full of cattle being finished on pellets, grains, etc. as they are in the USA. Every time we move, I have to search out the entire town to find a butcher who has grass fed and even then, I think they only have it when they can get it which is not regularly.

It also depends on what kind of grass they feed on. And the grass has to be planted as well. Plus here, most of the country is so dry. We have friends who run about 3000–4000 head of cattle on 75,000 acres. They are grass fed, only get grain when there is drought and no grass available. Anyhow, the grass in that part of the country is pretty sparse that is why so few cows per acreage.

Roo meat is very lean because there are no domesticated (for food) roos. They eat completely natural. And the roo that you buy in the store is either road kill or from the roo shooters. They should make a reality tv show out of the roo shooters, they are kinda like the gator catchers in the bayous of USA!

In Kansas the grass just grows. It’s Prairie. It sustained millions and millions of buffalo. It doesn’t need to be “planted.” Anyway, let us know what you find out!

YOU CAN’T BUY KANGA’S BABY FOR FOOD!! THAT IS JUST HORRIBLE!!

Even assuming complete ownership of the land, sufficient rain or retained water rights or artesian well supplied water (so that it doesn’t have to be paid for by cash outlay or pumped from the ground at a cost), the land could be used for other purposes. There is still “opportunity cost” to consider, because the same resources could be put to other productive (income-producing) purposes. Since the cattle require care, there’s also the lost opportunity cost of the owners themselves, who have to be in attendance (or pay someone else to be) 24×7x365 on the herd.

Another risk I had failed to consider above, but based on the time factor, is simple disease and accident and veterinarian costs for a herd of cattle.

And all this is from someone who knows nothing at all about ranching. I’m sure that a rancher (and his accountant) could give you a very long list of the costs incurred by the operation.

I’d like to hear from a rancher. The cattle I see are unattended. No one is watching over them. (More than once we’ve seen cattle out on the road. We herd them back in with the truck and go get the farmer.)
In Kansas the farmers “rotate” the fields/crops. One year they’ll grow wheat, another year maize, another year cotton, then they let it go fallow for a couple of years and turn the cattle out on it.
My husband says they turn the cattle out on the winter wheat, before it comes to a head.
I’m not a rancher either.
Yes, farming and ranching is very expensive, but they also make a profit, or no one would do it.

@CWOTUS Is pretty en pointe here. The grassfed beef does cost more to raise; even given that the ranchers own the land free and clear, have wells, and overall have healthier meat. It takes longer for them to reach weight, land can only support a limited amount of cattle so they either have to buy grain or limit the amount of cattle they have.

The cattle can be used for breeding, milking or food and they can charge more. But they don’t produce the quantity or have the prices that McD’s would require.

Then in comparison subsidized food sources for corn. I distinctly remember an article posted on Fluther about old Halloween candy being sold and fed to cattle by the truckload. The pens for the cattle restrict movement which helps them fatten up quickly but also maximizes the number of cattle per operation. It is a case of quantity and expedience winning out quality. Trying to squeeze bigger profits by cutting more corner’s. Not maintaining hygenic or clean operation, letting cattle stand in a foot of their own shit, the antibiotics keep them healthy enough until slaughter and then meat gets bleached factory style so no worries about e coli people.

Move along nothing to look at people.

Ich!

Feedlot beef costs in the U.S. are subsidized in multiple ways that make it appear to be lower ‘cost’ (it is lower price). The price does not reflect the cost.
The huge subsidies to corn growers make a lot of that available at low price.
Feedlots externalize a lot of costs like their giant pools of concentrated cow poop leeching into water supplies, and huge amounts of antibiotics that pass through the animals’ poop and urine and get into water too. We all pay for that with the need for water treatment plants etc to get rid of this pollution.
Grassfed cattle don’t create these environmental hazards / externalized costs.

And that’s why McD’s buys from outside of the US.