- My name's Chris Cosentino.
I am the chef owner
of Cockscomb Restaurant in San Francisco,
the Acacia House in Napa Valley
and Jackrabbit in Portland.
Eating meat is a very important part of what I do.
I do use the whole animal.
I wrote a book called Offalgood.
I felt that it was really important to really embrace
and give respect for an animal's life by using all of it.
Sustainable eating embodies many, many things.
Not only how you choose to purchase your products,
who you purchase them from, but also how they were handled.
And that to me is one of the most important steps
in choosing meat.
So the reason I came here to C2 Ranch in Medford, Oregon
is to check out this piece of technology called HerdDogg.
It's such a cool piece of technology
that it can actually take temperature,
tell if the animal's acting erratically,
if it's been drinking water,
if it's missing from the rest of the herd.
And it's all gonna show up on a phone.
I'm really excited to meet Melissa
and just go through the HerdDogg process.
- HerdDogg is something like the Fitbit for cows.
The tag is attached to the animal's ear
and from there you're collecting biometric data.
The data actually can generate answers more quickly
than if a producer was out in the field.
- My name's Shawn Jones.
I'm the Manager of C2 Cattle Company.
My job is bein' a good steward of the land and the animals.
Melissa's HerdDogg technology helps us monitor the cattle
more efficiently and know when they're getting sick.
Healthier, happier cows make healthier, happier people.
- HerdDogg is helping to eliminate some of the challenges
that producers face.
The primary way of detecting ill animals
is visual detection.
The animals are trying to, by nature, hide their illness
so the likelihood of detecting illness early is very slim.
So once the data's collected to the phone
it gets pushes directly to the cloud
so then we create individual animal profiles
for all of these girls.
If you're trying to identify a particular animal
within the herd, their LED will turn on.
See like her, she's got her tag lit up?
- Yep, you're a doctor in the sky.
Without poking, prodding. - Exactly.
- No temperature gages. - No temperature gages.
- No needles, nothing.
- The truth is the HerdDogg technology is very exciting
and it looks like it's something
we'll really be able to implement.
- When you're providing too many antibiotics for an animal
you're helping to create super-bugs.
I don't wake up every morning and pop an antibiotic pill
because it's not good for me.
It's not good for anything.
So why would we do that to the animals?
But also, it ends up in the ground water,
it ends up in the soil
because the animals pass it through their system.
When you have a situation where animals
are sustainably raised,
you're omitting a lot of these problems.
We neglect to understand that the old way was the right way.
- So this is the dashboard of some of the animals
that we tagged and I noticed something I wanted to show you
with number 208.
In this particular case
I think she's got a raised temperature.
- You think we oughta go take a look at her in the pasture?
- Yeah, let's do that.
- Alright. - Alright.
- This technology is giving the best treatment
without overly impacting the animals.
- [Shawn] HerdDogg was able to identify an animal
that needed some help.
And so we were able to come out here today
and check that animal with our own eyes
and then sort that animal out.
- Basically all things need to be treated properly
whether you're a human or a cattle.
Whether you're gonna eat them or not
they still deserve respect.
This is epic.
I mean you got a swim hole.
- [Shawn] Swimmin' hole, beautiful grill,
this is just a sweet spot on the ranch, yeah.
- So Chris serves us up this comparison
between a regular steak from the grocery store
and a grass-fed pasture-raised steak.
- That is not yours.
- No.
- OK, so
that is.
- [Shawn] That is.
- Everybody knows fat equals flavor.
And let's see which one the wasp likes.
See?
Nature just proved itself right there.
- Yeah. - That's crazy, right?
- [Shawn] Isn't that crazy.
- I could not believe the difference
between those two pieces of meat.
- Grass-fed, not grass-fed.
This is grass-fed meat right here.
Vibrant red,
really rich,
and then you've got this here is non-grass-fed.
It almost looks like pork.
So we have non-grass-fed.
- Give me a piece of that. - OK.
- Pretty bland.
- And there's nothin' there.
There's nothin' hangin' on in your palate.
It seems pretty mute to me.
- [Melissa] Kinda greasy.
- Here's grass-fed.
Ladies first.
- Oh, that's so much better it isn't even funny.
- It is, absolutely.
That is incredible.
- The proof is in the pudding, and it comes out
when you taste the difference in the product.
And happy animals make happy food.
Happy chefs make happy food.
From what I've seen today, I think that HerdDogg
is really gonna give a huge advantage to the rancher
to guarantee the safety of his herd.
I think what they're doing, it's just amazing.
- [Melissa] You have Shawn,
who's raising beautiful grass-fed animals.
You have HerdDogg that's providing data that helps Shawn
do a better job of monitoring the animal wellbeing
and you have Chris who's then distributing
that amazing product to the consumer.
I think as a trio we're really solving a problem
that everybody should be interested in.
- Chefs need to lead by example
and what I'm really excited about is Panera,
who is one of the big guys, is leading by example.
So they buy and demand better quality, sustainable,
grass-fed.
You're using clean animals, there's the win
because they can lead by example for everybody else.
♪ Soul Pancake ♪