Is Expensive Steak actually worth it?

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⏱ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro
2:17 How is Beef produced?
5:00 What is the Beef Cattle lifecycle?
10:38 Does grass fed steak taste different than grain fed?
23:09 Is expensive steak healthier for you?
27:58 Is expensive beef humane and better for the environment?
31:18 Conclusion

MISC. DETAILS
Music: Provided by Epidemic Sound
Filmed on: Sony FX3 & Sony A7C
Voice recorded on Shure MV7
Edited in: Premiere Pro

Affiliate Disclosure:

[EthanChlebowski]

News, notes, and more:
- What type of tests would you want to see me do for a tomato deep dive? I'm thinking a pasta sauce or salsa test with different tomatoes would be fun!

Hope you all enjoyed this one. It was fun to put together and really think about steak from a variety of different angles!

[NE-BO]

My family raises cattle and growing up something that we learned early on is that "happy cows make the best meat." The more stressed the animal is, the worse it is for everyone from the beginning to the end. Now I know not all large scale beef operations are the same, but it's been the case from what I've seen in my area. And as a heads up, "grass finished" doesn't mean the cattle were in a large open field, they were most likely in the same sized pin as the rest, but just had grass in the trough vs a corn mixture.

[PrvtChurch]

I've found Prime/Choice/Select grading very inconsistent at times and I tend to just actually look at the steaks themselves and pick the ones that look good. Some of the best, most well marbled steaks I've had were graded as Select and looked better than any of the Prime steaks in the display case

[asheville]

This is an excellent video, but as someone with a lot of experience in the beef industry I must tell you that you’ve missed a critical variable: length and type of aging. Obviously everyone knows the difference between wet aging and dry aging, but there is HUGE variability in the length of aging in wet-aged beef. If you take a conventional prime ribeye that’s been wet-aged for 14-21 days and compare that to one that’s been aged for 40 days, you will be blown away at the difference. Controlling for as much variability as possible, I did a test between grass finished prime ribeyes and conventional prime ribeyes over a few different aging periods and noticed that conventional steaks have what I call “peak” taste and texture from 30-50 days and grass finished peaks at 21-28 days. Conventional steaks older than 50 days really just get looser and more tender, but the flavor doesn’t really change all the way up to 80+ days. Grass fed really started to go downhill in my test after about 45 days.

Consumers have pretty much zero control over the length of age for wet age steaks, so maybe it’s a moot point.

Just my two cents. Would love to see you add this variable in another text.

[Phil_OG]

Deep dive on fruits would be great! So many things to know like which fruits continue to ripen after they are picked, which skin is edible, how to store them, organic vs non organic, different varieties etc.

[veganmonter]

5:00 - I heard "Cow Café" so I was imagining cows drinking coffee and one of them is on a laptop and giving side-eyes to that "cute looking cow with the black and white patches." Then I realized it was Cow-Calf-Phase.

[johnmiller]

Ethan I'm a (retired) librarian as someone who is trained to evaluate content & having done this for 30 years your stuff is first rate i paste links to discord channels & recommend you so often to not only home cooks but to professional level students & chefs they all agree keep up the good work
One quibble though It's heifer

[GreenT_LoR]

The statement about 1 steak per week being above the average really got me to think about how much steak I intake, and I can't recall the last time I ate a steak. Shocking realization 😂

Another amazing video! Thank you for all that you do! 💚

[ghost]

I'm a huge beef eater and I'm so glad that I live in the part of the country that raises grass-fed beef. I can go to my local butcher and get completely locally raised grass-fed beef for the cheaper price than you would get horrible meat at Walmart.

[moose]

What i do. Is use cheaper cuts as "fillers" for veg, rice, tacos, taquitos etc. And use better quaility as the main and use the veg, rice and pasta as fillers.

[Mutaburasaurus]

Really looking forward to that butter deep dive!

[madisongillam]

As someone who has a degree in and has worked in food science fields, Ethan is my favorite youtuber! He is so thorough, open-minded, and science based. I love to cook and he inspires me and I learn something new with every video. Thank you for all your hard work!

[SnakeAteMyDog]

Ethan just doesn’t miss. One of the few content creators I will gladly lend over my 30 minutes for a video

[victortung]

Would a deep dive on seafood be a good idea?
Atlantic salmon vs King salmon vs Rainbow trout, farm vs wild caught, and Cod vs other white fish etc.

[WheretheJones]

Top soil decimation is a huge consideration. When taking the time to visit different farm and especially CAFO you can see just what a regenerative farm is regenerating. Regeneratively farmed beef rehabilitates the land and captures more carbon in the soil.

[Hortonscakes]

I've been cooking steaks for a long time, I never go to a steakhouse. I started watching Guga 7 or 8yrs ago just to see if I was doing it right (I am). I've tasted steaks from different meat markets and grocery stores here in Oklahoma. Yes, the more expensive meat market ($24 for a 2" NY strip) is the best compared to grocery stores (of course). Butcher box impressed me with their grass fed beef, although the cuts are small. I have found that a 30-60 day dry aged steak is just so damn superior to the rest. Also, doing a dry brine (just salt, refrigerate over night) and cooking in a cast iron with butter and herbs yields the best tasting steak.

[djpaz]

One of the elephants in the room is the ratio and quality of corn in the grain finish. Another is grass-fed operations have a higher disparity in quality which is whether the farmer really was raising grass-fed cattle, or growing pasture land and happen to have lots of cows. It's also worth noting that when dry aging meat, a pure grass-fed piece of beef will lose far less weight and less flesh is removed in the final trim. There is also a difference in flavour of grass-fed cattle where nitrogen ferts have been applied in the field due to. And I highly disagree on the fats entirely making the flavor or the meat. The corn does it. Eat chicken raised with zero corn and you will see the strength of the flavor this gives.

[genorp]

I live in a beef area in England. When I walk for exercise, I go past and often through herds of beef steers happily grazing on the grass. I buy my ribeye and brisket from a farm shop selling beef from their own cattle.

[eloquentsarcasm]

As a former butcher/fishmonger of 10 years, grass-fed beef will always be what I recommend, and I mostly only eat bison as I prefer the flavor. Free range animals raised well and happy make for the best meat as several others have said. In hunting, an instant, humane drop really does make a difference as the hormones released when an animal is stressed can dramatically change the flavor of their meat. Having made my living selling meat and fish, I truly appreciate hunting my own food, out in the woods and streams as opposed to buying a packaged product that came from who knows where. As an aside, a New York makes a better steak IMO, as it has a nice fat content with great marbling compared to a Ribeye. Cheap cuts can end up making great meals, it just takes a bit more effort, something as simple as cutting perpendicular to the muscle grain reduces the "chewy" texture by a lot.

South Americans are devout about grass-fed beef, and their steaks are AMAZING, Chile in particular.

[cryofsolace]

18:01 Hey Ethan, I work in an HEB meat department and regarding the Fresh Ground product, our meat cutters grind these products from larger, 10lb or so clear vacuum packed packages. The consistency before grinding is pretty similar to what you get from the chubs, and if you check actually some of these products are the same price per pound as their chub counterparts! My personal suspicion is that the main difference will be mostly texture based.