By Stan Smith, OSU Extension PA, Fairfield County
Do you remember when nearly everyone had a friend, neighbor or relative who had farm raised eggs, fresh from the farm raised meat, or milk straight from the cooler that you could make ice cream with? What about the days when no one questioned your livestock or crop management practices, didn't question why you treated sick animals with antibiotics, and simply knew that if you were feeding it to your family, it was equally safe and nutritious for their family?
Unless you're at least 40 or 50+ years old, perhaps you don't.
Today is the first issue of the 19th year of this publication . . . issue number 901. The only thing that's really significant about that is what I see as I reflect on all the changes - especially in consumer attitudes - that have occurred over those years.
In 1996 there was no Ohio Livestock Standards Board.
Livestock Quality Assurance wasn't taught to every 4-H and FFA member . . . repeatedly . . . each and every year of their involvement in a livestock production project.
The phrase "social license to farm" didn't exist!
At that time a national TV personality had yet to offer her thoughts - negative as they were - on the wholesomeness of beef, ultimately costing cattlemen literally tens of thousands of dollars from the fall in prices those comments triggered.
The phrase "pink slime" wouldn't even be coined for another 6 years.
Back then if it wasn't Where's the Beef!, it was Beef. It's What's For Dinner.
Add it all up and over that time frame we've essentially lost another generation of American's who were either directly or indirectly from a farm. Or, as I sometimes put it, another generation of those who understand the most basic concepts of animal agriculture . . . in fact, to some of us, it seems perhaps even the knowledge that simply everything around a cow's tail is beef.
Perhaps the most telling story of how things have changed over the years is a recent episode that Francis Fluharty, Coordinator of the Ohio Beef Industry Center, shared.
Fluharty and his wife Janis went to dinner at a 'steak' restaurant. As he describes it, perhaps "not a great steak restaurant, just a restaurant we hadn't been to for years . . ." Janis ordered a filet mignon. When her meal came, it wasn't a filet, but a really small Delmonico.
A Delmonico is a great steak, but valued at least $10 less!
If you know Francis Fluharty, then you likely know what happened next . . . he asked to see the manager. When she came and was questioned, she said ". . . that's a filet, we don't serve Delmonico steaks here . . ."
Again, if you've ever enjoyed one of Fluharty's Ohio Beef Feedlot Schools, his response to that won't surprise you either: "That's not a psoas major, that's a longissimus dorsi with a spinalis dorsi on the top. Also, that's about 8 to 9 square inches, and I don't know how big the steers are that your steaks come from, but a 1300 pound steer would have, at best a 4 square inch filet."
Needless to say, the restaurant manager offered no further response.
And, the point of sharing this story, you ask? It's simple. If there was ever a time to step up our 'game' it's now! When a 'steak house' doesn't understand what they are serving - or perhaps decided they couldn't afford to correctly identify a filet?? - imagine how confusing it must be for consumers. Consider that few understand even the basics of beef cattle production. Imagine how gullible they'd be when offered misinformation about anything from meat cuts to production practices.
Back to the story . . . As Francis shared his experience he quickly went on to suggest that anyone can learn about meat cuts, etc., thanks to the Beef Checkoff! Anyone going to http://beefretail.org can find everything they'd ever need to know about various cuts of beef. Also, there's the bovine myology web site http://bovine.unl.edu/ where one can see how Land Grant Universities and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association have worked to make exceptional materials available to beef consumers, producers, processors, and food service and retail. And then there's Beef University (http://www.beeffoodservice.com/beefuniversity.aspx), a one-stop shop for retailers looking for training on beef from farm to plate, fact sheets and videos to use for self-directed or store training. Going even further, Fluharty said it was obvious the restaurant didn't have the chart shown found at: http://beefretail.org/CMDocs/BeefRetail2/Education/RetailBeefCutChart_Handout_FINAL2013.pdf
Was it simply a "bait and switch" tactic on the part of the steak house the Fluhartys visited, or simply a lack of knowledge? Does it really matter?
If the wholesale price of a tenderloin PMSO is over $12.00 per pound, with the side muscles and silverskin still on and the filet still needing to be removed, a $30 filet meal in a restaurant probably isn't real . . . or won't be for long. The restaurant is losing money at that price. In a large part as a result of our dollars invested in the Beef Check-off, the information to correctly identify cuts of meat and where they originate from is readily available. It behooves us all - as cattlemen, educators, beef cattle industry, or simply consumers - to continue to be sure the information is being discovered and researched, and perhaps most importantly shared far and wide!
While some of us continue to long for the days when the entire family came together - including the multiple generations - on the farm to harvest enough livestock to feed the entire family for the winter . . . those days when the ladies of the farm were turning the tapes while the men were grinding the trim so the sausage could be stuffed and smoked . . . it needs to be accepted that with the passing of time, each generation is more removed from the experiences and first-hand knowledge that life style allowed in the past.
As cattlemen, educators, or beef cattle industry professionals, the task of teaching the growing generations who are now removed from the farm that everything around a cow's tail is beef falls to us.
Source:osu.edu