What's in Your Beef?

I’m sure we’ve all heard of people eating strange things before; grown men eat rats, squirrels, goldfish.... (We could provide YouTube links, but you know what? We're not gonna.)

But now people are eating grass... well sort of.

Clyde's recently switched their beef to the all natural, grass-fed persuasion, coming from Piedmont Ridge in Maryland and Glenn Young Farm in southern Pennsylvania. The beef is 85 percent lean consisting of chuck, hip and round cuts that are all fresh. Clyde's grinds their beef daily for burgers and chili, serving up about 5,000 pounds a week.

“Since 1985, we’ve been working with local farms in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland to supply Cylde’s with fruits, vegatables, potatoes and fresh herbs from April until October, and root vegatables in the winter months," said Clyde’s President Tom Meyer. "We are excited to be able to provide out guests with beef from local farms.”

Meyer notes that although the price is a bit higher, the support for the smaller community businesses is important. “Why serve a strawberry from California when they are being grown an hour away, which supports our local farmers’ businesses? Likewise, this new beef source is a win-win for Clyde’s, our diners and the farmers.”

The cattle are born and raised in a “stress-free” environment, where they are switched from grass to grain at the age of 18 months. So in actuality... grass-fed still sort of means grain-fed. Go figure.


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