how come this grass fed beef and lamb fat isn't the typical yellow?

[bharminder]

I've seen pics of some of the grass fed fat and it is truly yellow.

I get beef from www.americangrassfedbeef.com (bought locally though) and lamb from www.atkinsranch.com (bought locally)

and both claim 100% grass fed /grass finished / pasture raised animals.

But I've never seen the fat to be yellow like I do on some of the photos on this board. It's more of a creamy red/white. What gives?

[goodsamaritan]

It's probably species dependent as well.
I've tasted grass fed beef that has whitish fat and it was delicious.

[donrad]

The butterfat in the raw milk I get every week gets more yellow in the spring as the cows start eating the fresh green grass. In the winter when they are on hay it turns white. This is because of the omega3 fatty acids. Someone in here said spring butter sells for twice as much in Europe. It brings a premium price here also.

Meat can be sold as grass fed/finished and still be fed hay. I suppose meat animals raised and finished in the south or coastal areas where they have pasture year-round would have more yellow fat.

I read in "The Stockman GrassFarmer" magazine that they bred cattle to have white fat to satisfy the demands of the housewife and restaurants. I was in the restaurant business, most people eat with their eyes. Almost all cattle breeds today were also bred to thrive in feedlots.

There is a rapidly growing industry going on right now to redevelop cattle, goats, and sheep that thrive on grass only. As the demand grows the supply will also.

[PaleoPhil]

I read in "The Stockman GrassFarmer" magazine that they bred cattle to have white fat to satisfy the demands of the housewife and restaurants. I was in the restaurant business, most people eat with their eyes. Almost all cattle breeds today were also bred to thrive in feedlots.

Which breeds did Stockman GrassFarmer refer to and which are you talking about?

[donrad]

They did not name breeds, I assume it would be all the beef breeds like Angus. I have never seen yellow fat meat in a grocery store. The only time I saw it was from a dairy cow.

I'm not an expert on this but I do know they can rapidly breed animals for all kinds of characteristics like meat color, flavor, fat content, muscle size, etc. They pull breeding stock from all over the world. Artificial insemination makes it easy.

[bharminder]

I emailed the supplier about why the fat is a creamy color and not yellow and this is what the response I got back was:

Thanks for the questions about our grass fed beef.  The most important part of raising great beef is keeping the animals gaining weight there entire life.  If an animal is raised on pure range pastures of low to good quality his entire life the fat will have a yellow color.  Also if an animal is put into a feed lot and fed a heavy diet of corn the fat will be snow white.  Our cattle our raised on very high quality grasses and hayledge their entire lifes.  So our fat won’t be yellow or white but should fall right in the middle.  We appreciate the business and the question~~



How do you interpret this, what exactly is causing the fat to become less yellow than a typical 'pure range pasture' would have?

[miles]

Just sounds like they feed their cattle hay when grass isn't available.

[Hannibal]

I've seen pics of some of the grass fed fat and it is truly yellow.

It can be yellow and it can be white, depending on the kind of an animal.
Horse fat is always distinctly yellow regardless of the season.
On the other hand sheep fat that I get is always white even in the late summer when the sheep have eaten lots of grass, herbs and wild fruits.

[bharminder]

So is it the hay that's causing the fat to become more creamy, less yellow, or the type of animal? From their response it seems like it's the diet that's causing it.....

[Hannibal]

From their response it seems like it's the diet that's causing it.....

Maybe it's in that case.
But as I said thare are animals like sheep with the fat always white even when they eat a plethora of grass and zero grains.

[PaleoPhil]

This issue has been addressed before in this forum. Check out these posts, for example:

http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/carnivorous-zero-carb-approach/how-long-does-it-take-to-clear-excess-protein-from-the-blood/msg34966/#msg34966

http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/shouldn't-my-grass-fed-suet-be-yellowish/msg23296/#msg23296

http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/shouldn't-my-grass-fed-suet-be-yellowish/msg23312/#msg23312

I have seen bright-yellow grain-finished fat and pale 100% grassfed fat, so yellow color does not guarantee 100% grassfed and pale color does not necessarily mean that the fat is from a grain-finished animal. I've seen lily-white suet from a hunted wild deer in an area with lots of meadows, grassy fields and forest land and little in the way of grain crops. The idea that only bright-yellow fat is 100% grassfed is apparently an urban legend from what I've seen and from what multiple farmers have reported. The color of the fat depends on multiple factors, some of which you can find discussed in those posts.

[Sully]

Who knows. I had wild goose that I killed myself. More yellow fat than all the grass fed meats I have ever bought.

All the geese were doing was grazing on grasses.



Best meat I ever had.

[Sully]

Also Lex menioned that the suet he gets looks yellowish white. But when you render and strain it, the rendered fat will be yellow. Not the case with grain fed fat, it will be white. He sent me some rendered fat once, pure yellow.

It can be a way to test the quality of your fat. All grain fed meat when rendered and strained should be white frsh, white when rendered.

Grass fed should be yellow when rendered.

[Sully]

Heat some fat, then strain it. See what color it is when it solidifies.

[Sully]

Speaking of geese. I just heard some geese fly by. Those things should be gone I would think.

I shall see...

[KD]

phil and sully are pretty much dead on from all my research. likely if you have yellow fat, its a good thing but in some rare cases it can even reflect something poor about the animal even if it is not fed grain. I don't have the articles to reference, but it has to do with lack of proper sun exposure. So while yellow is usually is a sign of good quality, there is no saying that the color of white fat alone is worse than yellow fat, or that white means fed grains or a poor diet/treatment otherwise. Almost all Slankers fat (except marrow) is pure white in all animals I have gotten FWIW.

[PaleoPhil]

Also Lex menioned that the suet he gets looks yellowish white. But when you render and strain it, the rendered fat will be yellow.

Yes, I've noted that myself with US Wellness tallow in the past and one of Lex's discussions on the subject is at one of the links I provided.

I didn't try melting the brilliant-white wild deer suet to see if it turns yellow. Next time I get some I'll try it, as I'd be curious to see whether it also does this. I suspect that there would be at least a little yellow, though likely less than most other grassfed suets.

Not the case with grain fed fat, it will be white. ... It can be a way to test the quality of your fat. All grain fed meat when rendered and strained should be white frsh, white when rendered.

Again, I've bought grain-finished suet that was bright, deep yellow and I've bought 100% grassfed suet that was rather pale yellow (but the yellowness shows up better if I melt it, just like Lex also reported). Like I said, the idea that only 100% grassfed fat is yellow and that yellowness guarantees that fat is 100% grassfed appears to be a myth. If you don't believe me, you could ask a farmer or check out the reports of farmers at the links I provided. Yellowness in the fat does suggest that an animal was fed at least some grass, just not necessarily 100% grassfed. I'm trying my best to explain this and this has been attempted multiple times by myself and others at this forum but the message doesn't appear to be getting across for some reason and I don't know how better to explain it, so sorry if this still doesn't do the trick. Maybe farmers could do a better job.

He sent me some rendered fat once, pure yellow.

I think Lex reported that sometimes the fat he gets from Slankers is really yellow and sometimes it's relatively pale.

... Grass fed should be yellow when rendered. ...Heat some fat, then strain it. See what color it is when it solidifies.

Yes, that will bring out the yellowness in a pale grassfed fat. I don't know for sure if it's always yellow when melted, as I haven't tried melting the bright-white wild deer suet yet, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I think the key lesson is not to assume that a yellow fat is 100% grassfed or that a pale yellow fat is not 100% grassfed. If you're not sure that a producer's fats are from 100% grassfed sources, check into it with them rather than just relying on color. Also, if the label doesn't say 100% grassfed, you can be pretty sure it's not, because any operation that goes to the extra expense of feeding only grass has an enormous incentive to advertise that. Of course, a label on meat or fat that says 100% grassfed isn't a guarantee that it really is.

...So while yellow is usually is a sign of good quality, there is no saying that the color of white fat alone is worse than yellow fat, or that white means fed grains or a poor diet/treatment otherwise.

Exactly. I've had some brilliant, bright-yellow organic suet that was not 100% grassfed and it tasted crappy and had lots of connective tissue--almost as much as the cheap feedlot supermarket suet. I've had bright-white suet from a hunted wild deer that tasted great and contained almost no connective tissue.

[TylerDurden]

Paleophil, have you ever eaten US Wellness raw meats, as opposed to tallow? What was your opinion re the product? It's just that on our sister site, the rawpaleodiet yahoo group, I had 1 or 2 people complain about the quality of raw meats from US Wellness , with them suggesting that some or all of them were not genuinely 100 percent grassfed. I've mentioned these concerns in 1 or 2 introductory articles to rawpalaeo, I think, so want to make sure.

As for the comment re the label not stating "100 percent grassfed" meaning that the raw meat isn't 100 percent grassfed:- while I would agree re most modern farms, there are some small-time farmers in backward areas who either cannot officially convert to organic status and/or who have no idea re grassfed meats being superior since they live in a country where the notion of grassfed meats as a viable market doesn't even exist , who still manage to provide very high-quality 100 percent grassfed meats. Intensive farming with grains does require quite a serious operation, and some impoverished peasant-farmers still just leave their goats etc.  out to graze in wild areas in the hills and the like, as they can't afford to set up such mass grainfeeding/battery-hen factory operations.

[PaleoPhil]

Paleophil, have you ever eaten US Wellness raw meats, as opposed to tallow?

No, just their original pemmican, which was awful. Apparently the salt content was part of the problem, according to others here.

It's just that on our sister site, the rawpaleodiet yahoo group, I had 1 or 2 people complain about the quality of raw meats from US Wellness , with them suggesting that some or all of them were not genuinely 100 percent grassfed. I've mentioned these concerns in 1 or 2 introductory articles to rawpalaeo, I think, so want to make sure.

It's possible, but I've seen pale yellow 100% grassfed fats from multiple local farms, so this is not limited to US Wellness, and I've also seen brilliant yellow fat that was not 100% grassfed and the farm even bragged about the grains they fed their cattle (their angle was "organic vegetarian feed" is good, rather than grass feeding, though they did do pasture feeding too).

As for the comment re the label not stating "100 percent grassfed" meaning that the raw meat isn't 100 percent grassfed:- while I would agree re most modern farms, there are some small-time farmers in backward areas who either cannot officially convert to organic status and/or who have no idea re grassfed meats being superior....

Yeah, I can imagine that, especially in less modern nations and regions, though I haven't seen that in my area. If it's not on the label I think it would be wise to check it out rather than just assume it's 100% grassfed just because it came from a small farm or is organic.

[TylerDurden]

Well, all I can do, for now, is to cite US Wellness meats as being low-quality. I was none too impressed when they replied to a past allexperts.com answer of mine  re pretending that pemmican was OK, so I figure that a firm focusing on PR is unlikely to be really honest.

[PaleoPhil]

US Wellness is not my favorite source either, but that's irrelevant as there are multiple high quality sources whose 100% grassfed fat is also pale yellow, though US Wellness' is paler than most.

Van shared a letter from John Wood of US Wellness which disputed the notion that their fat was not from 100% grassfed cattle and gave an explanation for why their fat is rather pale (though if you melt it you can see the yellow better): http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/rendered-fat-from-wellness-meats-buyer-beware/msg6317/#msg6317

Again, whether they're telling the truth or not doesn't matter much because there are other good quality 100% grassfed sources that also produce pale yellow fat.

[TylerDurden]

It's not the yellowness of the fat that I am disputing, merely the quality overall. I want to be absolutely sure that US Wellness never ever produces anything but 100 percent raw grassfed meats, given past discussions.

[PaleoPhil]

I provided a link re: John Wood's response to the claim that their meats/fats are not 100% grassfed--it's not just regarding the yellowness of the fat. It's possible for their products to be lower quality despite being 100% grassfed. For one thing, different pastures and different ages and breeds of animals produce different products. So I don't think that whether the meat/fat is 100% grassfed or is yellow is the whole picture. There are other factors too. The best advice I can give is to try multiple local sources of grassfed meat and fat before buying from an Internet source, to give you a good idea of what the best quality is. I don't buy US Wellness products any more anyway, so it's not a big deal for me whether John is telling the truth or not--they are just one of multiple sources on the questions of grassfed and yellowness.

[TylerDurden]

OK, I'll change the info tomorrow.

[PaleoPhil]

I suppose the only way to be absolutely sure would be to visit the US Wellness operation yourself, and even then, unless you knew where to look and checked back frequently, how would you know that they didn't feed the cattle grain now and then?

I've noticed that suet from grassfed sources tends to contain less connective tissue and taste better than suet from grainfed sources. I think trying both grainfed and grassfed fats from multiple farms and developing a good sense of what high quality grassfed fat tastes like is probably the best yardstick. In other words, personal experience and a well-developed palate help.