Beyond organic
Farms near Dallas are bringing grass-finished meats to area shoppers and restaurants
By KIM PIERCE / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
8/12/2003
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The kiosk by shed No. 2 at the Dallas Farmers Market looks about as cutting-edge as cotton candy – a snack you might have gotten there 20 years ago. But Texas Meats, the tenant since January, is leading the way in Dallas with the kinds of artisanal products that are captivating consumers across the nation.
Texas Meats sells chicken, beef, lamb, pork, goat and eggs that are "super natural" – beyond organic – because of the way they're raised. They come from farms and a ranch in the Greenville area, east of Dallas, and they're a first for the farmers market. "People are in love with the idea," says Washington writer Jo Robinson, author of Why Grassfed Is Best! (Vashon Island Press). "There is so much bad news about meat," she says. "To find something that's wholesome and healthy, that doesn't abuse the animals and does right by the farmers – it's very exciting."
It's a world where chickens waddle, wings akimbo, through waving grass; sheep and cows leap to forage on fresh pasture; and baby goats frolic with their human caregivers. With careful management, the land is renewed, not depleted. And the final product contains more nutrients than its confinement-raised, grain-finished counterparts. Ms. Robinson calls it a "super-niche," but how big it is, exactly, no one knows.
Think a fraction of organics, which amount to only 1 percent to 2 percent of overall food and beverage sales, according to The U.S. Market for Wellness Foods and Beverages, published by Packaged Facts, a division of MarketResearch.com
But the super-niche has powerful pull: Artisanal products are the foodie's holy grail, and pastured products score additional points for nutritional, animal welfare and environmental appeal.
"I like the concept," says Texas Agricultural Commissioner Susan Combs, "because it provides consumers with an additional choice. ... I also believe it's gaining in popularity."
Deborah Madison has seen it coming for several years.
"Everywhere you go, there's grass-fed meat of one kind or another being offered, especially at farmers markets," says the author of Local Flavors (Broadway Books, $40). "Vermont, Colorado, Washington, Minnesota, New Mexico," she recounts. "In my farmers market travels, I saw it everywhere."
Technically, it's grass-finished meat and pastured poultry, Ms. Robinson says, and the fascination is understandable. On these farms and ranches, grasshoppers aren't a scourge; they're an asset. Animal waste isn't a problem; it's a treasured resource. Nature isn't an adversary; it's a partner.
Restaurants blaze the trail
Then there's the flavor. Math-teacher-turned-pastured-poultry-farmer Mike Hale says he'll give you your money back if his Windy Meadows chickens from East Texas aren't the best you've ever tasted. So far, he has put his birds to the test with some pretty highfalutin palates.
Adolphus Hotel executive chef William Koval – the first Dallas chef to discover Mr. Hale's broilers two years ago – has them on his French Room and Bistro menus. Kent Rathbun features them at Jasper's, his new Plano restaurant. The Green Room, Nana, York Street and Jeroboam also buy Mr. Hale's chickens, as do a handful of smaller establishments through a wholesale distributor.
That distributor, Winn Meat Co., looked up Mr. Hale a year ago after restaurateurs began talking about the chickens.
"The most common comment was that it was very fresh and reminded them of chicken they remembered from their grandparents or the old times," said Todd Winn, one of the owners. (The company has no tie to Winn-Dixie supermarkets.)
Mr. Hale beams – the same way he beams at Windy Meadows outside Greenville when oldest son David, 20, whistles for the cows, sheep and goats to come graze a fresh, 2.5-acre paddock. The cows and sheep are rotated with the chickens on the 42-acre family farm to create an integrated grazing system.
The cows snap to attention, staring down a point in the fence. They moo in anticipation. Behind them, sheep queue up and bleat and cry. When David pulls the fence back and whistles, a blur of hooves and leaping animals swarms past into the lush, new grassy patch.
To a grazier, one who raises grazing animals, Mr. Hale says, "that is the apex right there."
A troika of passions
"People have different hot buttons," says Robert Hutchins, owner of Rehoboth Ranch outside Greenville. "To some people, the humane treatment of animals is supremely important. Then some are concerned about nutrition. Some are concerned about the environment. All are important to us, and that's how we operate."
The philosophy unites the two farms and ranch that make up Texas Meats. Windy Meadows, Rehoboth Ranch and Truth Hill Farm in Farmersville formed the marketing alliance to sell their products at the City of Dallas Farmers Market. Because of health regulations, the meat and poultry sold at the market is frozen. The group also sells pork raised at Dominion Farms in Denison, and each sells its products individually away from the market.
Last year, the Dallas Farmers Market set up a pilot program in response to requests for more natural produce, organic produce and natural foods, says market administrator Troy Thorn, and Texas Meats was included.
On any given Friday or Saturday, Mr. Hale, Mr. Hutchins or Truth Hill partner Christy Cox can be found behind the Texas Meats counter explaining how their products are different from conventionally raised and organic meat, eggs and poultry. They explain why they cost more than conventionally produced items – whole chickens are $2.99 a pound and ground beef is $3.69 a pound. And they tell why availability varies; steaks and bacon, for instance, are particularly popular and sell out quickly.
Selling directly to customers is a part of the grass-fed ethos.
"These people are taking these animals from the day of birth to market," Ms. Robinson says. "And they're getting to know the customers who are eating the meat. They are connected to every aspect of that product. Their name is on it. You don't have to have fancy tracking systems to tell you where it came from. It came from their farm."
Animals, not commodities
Sometimes, the owners have hand-raised the animals.
"The calves will suck on your knees," says Ms. Cox, looking out over the herd she and Truth Hill owner Terry Pillard started in 1998 with 12 calves.
Shortly after that first dozen arrived, she started raising "bottle" calves. "The dairies take the babies from their moms as soon as they're born," she says. Now, her bottle babies have grown up and are having calves of their own. "We leave our babies all on their mamas."
Today, their herd is 108 strong and roams over 139 acres plus an additional 280 leased nearby. Hills and lush pastures dotted with stands of trees stretch in every direction. It almost seems more like Tuscany than Texas.
Formerly the nanny to Terry and Shelley Pillard's two sons, Ms. Cox now is "nanny" to the animals. She manages the farm, where the Pillards built a house in 1996. Both the Pillards work full-time.
Like many in the grass-fed movement, Ms. Cox and Mr. Pillard don't have a lot of previous farming experience. They gravitated to grass-finishing because its credo of respect for the animals and the land sounded right. Eventually, they became passionate proponents.
For the moment, they slaughter just enough animals at a U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected facility to sell at the market plus a few more. They're building an on-site dairy facility, commercial kitchen and store, where Ms. Cox will sell raw milk, dairy products and meat.
"We don't do any hormones, antibiotics," she says. "No vaccinations. We do give the bulls a tetanus shot because they get tagged later in life."
She says the farm uses only organic fertilizers, such as molasses and fish emulsion, to build up the pasture, and the animals graze on spring grasses 60 days before they're slaughtered. They are never shipped to feedlots.
"The animals are healthy and happy," she says.
You are what they eat
Cattle, goats, sheep and other ruminants were never meant to eat grain, Rehoboth's Mr. Hutchins declares, bouncing over rutted roads in an old flatbed truck on his 300-acre ranch. It's a long way from his suit-and-tie days as a defense industry executive with a six-figure salary. He moved his family to the ranch in 1995 – there are 12 children now – and quit his job in 2000. Faith figured prominently in his and Mr. Hale's decision to adopt integrated grazing; both see themselves as God's stewards.
He stops to point out a field of grass that's about waist-high and just starting to show seeds at the top – at its nutritional peak for his goats, he says. The quality of the grass is all-important to graziers.
"Originally, we thought if you can simply get the chemical residues out of meat, then it was as good as you can make the meat," he says. "Then we began to learn." He believes keeping animals in their natural environment produces more nutritious meat.
"The key is keeping all animals on green pasture all the time," he says, "because from that green pasture, they get vitally important nutrients." These nutrients, he says, are passed along to people in the meat.
Besides protein, iron, zinc and B-complex vitamins that Ms. Combs notes are abundant in all beef, these include omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E, conjugated linoleic acid and other micronutrients.
"Studies have shown that grass-fed beef has from two to six times more omega-3 fatty acids than grain-fed beef," says Ms. Combs. "The cattle get omega-3 directly from the grass, and the benefits of omega-3 fatty acid on the human body have been well documented." Omega-3s may help reduce the risk of stroke and heart disease, among other benefits.
But Texas Cooperative Extension District livestock specialist Ron Gill cautions that the nutritional differences are relatively small.
"There will be more beta carotene," he says, "because the cattle consume green forages. ... That's why grass-fed cattle have a yellow fat color."
He says consumers prefer the white fat and the flavor of grain-finished beef. And the flavor of the beef is different – nuttier, even a little gamier – and requires different cooking techniques because it is so lean.
"Finishing beef with grain is a relatively recent practice, although for most of us, it's the only beef we've known," says cookbook author Ms. Madison. "I've had a local rancher tell me I wouldn't like the taste of grass-fed – it's too strong. So that's why he finishes it with grain. But all that aged Argentinian beef that people pay huge sums of money for is grass-fed."
Working with the land
Graziers contend that nutritional benefits are one result of raising contented animals in ways that restore and replenish the land, rather than depleting it.
"We have beef, lambs, broilers, layers and dairy goats all integrated together in a holistic manner," Mr. Hutchins says. He estimates the ranch has about 100 head of cattle, 50 sheep, 1,000 chickens and 20 dairy goats that are rotated over the pastures. What one animal loves another species disdains so the pastures are never stripped. What's left behind helps all the grasses regenerate.
Nothing is wasted. "Even the water from chicken processing is spread back on the pasture," he says, all in accordance with state and federal regulations.
After the truck gets back from the pasture, excitement erupts when 10-year-old Stephen leads a dozen baby goats to a grassy, shaded area by the small, rustic store. He runs. They follow. He jumps. They leap. He is the Pied Piper of baby goats.
In a few weeks, Mr. Hutchins expects Rehoboth Ranch to become the sixth grade-A raw goat milk dairy in the state and the only one near Dallas-Fort Worth. It will be run and inspected according to the rules and regulations that govern the production of raw goat's milk in Texas. He thinks goat's milk has gotten a bad rap. In the fan-cooled house, he offers guests a glass of fresh, chilled goat's milk.
"There's no goaty flavor, no off-flavor, no twang," he says, noting that these would be indications that the milk isn't fresh. Indeed, this goat's milk is sweet and smooth.
Grasshoppers as assets
Back at Windy Meadows, the pasture is alive. One step and all manner of hoppers – grasshoppers, katydids, crickets – squirt up from the grass.
Mike Hale doesn't despair. His chickens love insects. "They just go wild when they see grasshoppers," he says.
Chickens are the backbone of Mr. Hale's operation. He's got 1,600 living in six "hoop houses" – so named because the sheet metal is laid over hoops bent in semi-circles. The chickens, grouped by age, are closed in the houses at night to protect them from predators. But come sunup, the wire mesh doors are opened and they rush out to a patch of grass roughly the size of a Little League diamond.
Over the course of their two-month lives, they forage and fertilize new land weekly as the grazing patch is moved. Unlike sheep and cattle, grain is a significant part of their natural diet, so here they are free to choose grasses, bugs or grain.
Like Rehoboth, Windy Meadows is a family project. The eight Hale children help out – whether it's moving fences or giving buttermilk to the baby chicks for healthy flora in their gut. Oldest son David is in charge of the small on-site processing facility, where the chickens are prepared to U.S. Department of Agriculture standards under the supervision of a state inspector. Less than 24 hours after slaughter, Mr. Hale delivers the chickens fresh to Dallas restaurants.
As visitors continue across the pasture, 7-year-old Andrew bounds up, cradling something in his hand: "I found a grasshopper that's just changed its skin!" he says, gently stroking the soft green insect. On the farm, the field is the classroom, and herein lies another reason why some people embrace this labor-intensive super-niche.
"What we're really growing out here," Mr. Hale says softly, "is children."
Kim Pierce is a Dallas freelance writer.
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