This is a sponsored video about Crowd Cow. Most of my life, I think I've eaten too much
meat. That might seem like an odd way to start a sponsored vid about an online meat market.
But to me, Crowd Cow is part of the solution, or a solution — my solution. The solution I've tried
to enact in recent years has been to buy much nicer meat from producers whom I know and admire,
have it less often and enjoy it a whole lot more. Whom exactly am I doing a favor by shoving garbage
down my gullet? Myself and I think most people watching this, we eat too much food, period.
So a shift from quantity to quality makes all the sense in the world. It's probably better for your
body and the biosphere. It's certainly better for animal welfare and it's a wash for your wallet.
So let me give you an example of what quality over quantity looks like, take you to visit the
kind of farmer you can buy from via my link in the description, crowdcow.com/ragusea.
Here we are in Floresville, Texas, and the ranch owned and operated by this guy, Larry Tebben.
Larry and his three-legged dog are out minding the ranch and they have come across
a stray calf. It would be best if said calf could get into the same enclosed pasture as its herd.
Other ranchers might use significantly rougher and more immediately effective means to achieve this,
but Larry is basically just asking it nicely to go back in. It doesn't really work.
"I guess his mama told him not to go. I think he'll be fine."
"Alright." Now, contrary to how this might look,
Larry is actually very good at his job. The light touch he takes with his animals is strategic.
"It starts on these baby calves. They're gentle. They see their mothers not run from us
when we pull up to them. So then as they grow up,
they have no reason to be in fear. So the heifers that we retained for breeding stock out of a crop,
they're going to be just like this." Indeed, these are simply the most chill
beef cattle I have ever been around. Usually when I film farm animals, I use this big honkin' 300
millimeter telephoto lens, because animals are skittish and I can't get very close to them. But
Larry's cattle came right over to me and got literally closer than the minimal proximity at
which this lens can focus. "Oh, hello."
Why so close, cow? Why? "To achieve their genetic potential, one of the
most important things is they need to be raised in a stress-free environment. You, a perfect
stranger to them, have walked out within feet of them today, okay? That tells its own story."
"It does." "Yeah."
When he says genetic potential, he's serious. Tebben Ranch raises pure-bred
Japanese Black cattle. Wagyu. Full-blood, American Wagyu. I have a whole vid about
Wagyu that is linked in the description. But the short version is these particular breeds of cattle
have the genetic ability to grow an almost comical amount of intramuscular fat. It's basically beef
butter. You wouldn't want to eat a ton of this. A little goes a long way. Insanely delicious.
Now, the cattle get fattest and tastiest when they are happy and they live a somewhat
longer life than your typical beef cattle. So a rancher like Larry invests a lot of resources
into keeping his animals happy. That's a good thing if you like to eat heavily marbled beef.
It's also a good thing if you think that humans should provide the animals we eat with a lot of
good days, up to and including that last one. "When an animal is stressed, the first part
of their energy comes from the fat that's stored in the muscles, which is the marbling.
So if you go chase a steer around the pasture four or five times before it's harvested,
you'll have some disappointing results."
Indeed, maintaining a happy herd is about some obvious things like not pushing them around all
the time. But it's also about protecting them from predators and parasites. It's about making
sure they have access to water or shade, like under these beautiful Live Oak trees.
In the cold months, it's about making sure they have shelter. The barn is always open to them.
"They can get under our roof if they need to, but they never do.
You got to remember, a cow's temperature is 105 degrees to start with. So we as humans,
we seek shelter from the cold or cold and wet, either one. You'll see a cow standing out in the
10 degree weather and don't look like it bothers her at all."
In contrast, the heat there in south Texas can be a problem. Larry says the
key is basically don't ask the cattle to do anything when it's really hot.
"You certainly don't work your cattle or bring them up and de-worm them or anything like that
during the heat of the day, or preferably not even in the hot months."
Of course, stewardship of the land on which the cattle graze is paramount.
"You're a grass farmer, because the cows eat grass. So you have to keep healthy soils and
well-kept pastures, keep invasive species out." As you can probably imagine, Larry's approach here
differs somewhat from more industrialized mainstream beef production. Now, I am not
here to trash more conventional beef production. Especially from an environmental sustainability
standpoint, there's an argument that productivity is the most important thing. The more food you can
make from fewer head of cattle in less time with less input of resources, that's going to be less
taxing to the environment on a per-pound-of-food basis. These are very complicated issues. Again,
the best I've come up with is to say that if I'm going to eat meat, I should do it a little
less often and invest in stuff that is raised in a manner consistent with my values. Such product
usually tastes a whole lot better too. So where do you find it? Well, here's
Tebben Ranches right here on Crowd Cow, the marketplace for high quality meats that helps
forge connections between farmers like Larry and eaters like you and me. It's not just American
or Japanese Wagyu. It's pretty much any meat, poultry or seafood that you could think of.
Pasture raised, sustainably caught — people working really hard to produce animal protein
the right way. Crowd Cow connects you to them. And hey, sometimes things are
going to be sold out because this is not fully industrialized food. The products are seasonal.
"Our product sells out pretty fast." So if you want to get yours in time,
this is what you do. I would suggest you start by building a really big box. I say order a bunch of
stuff at one time far in advance because it'll arrive vacuum sealed and frozen solid on dry ice
or some such so it will keep in your freezer until you need it. If you join the herd and become a
Crowd Cow member, you get free shipping on orders over 99 bucks, plus 5% off everything. Get that
membership for free and you can save $15 on your first order by using my link in the description,
crowdcow.com/ragusea. For a limited time, Crowd Cow is putting free items in the box for new
members. Hit my link in the description to see what's being offered right now,
crowdcow.com/ragusea. Thanks to Crowd Cow for sponsoring me and supporting this channel.
The more of us who support ranches like this, the better IMHO.