Transformation Tuesday: from a steer to steaks

Last week, this picture came across my Facebook page.

It’s a little tongue-in-cheek, meant to be kinda funny, but it’s true.

Cattle start out as cute little calves and end up as steaks, but I think this picture does a disservice to that calf and all the cattle that are harvested for beef production.

They really become much more than one steak.

I don’t want to minimize the contribution one calf has to the food supply. If that calf grows into a steer that weighs about 1,200 lbs, it has the potential to contribute to more than 850 individual meals.

One 1,200 lb steer may produce as many as:

·         24 ribeye steaks
·         24 Kansas City strip steaks
·         12 filet mignon steaks
·         30 sirloin steaks
·         12 flat-iron steaks
·         12 pot roasts
·         4 brisket roasts
·         10 round roasts
·         12 lbs. of back ribs
·         2 flank steaks and 2 skirt steaks, which could make fajitas enough for 35 people
·         200 lbs. of ground beef, which would make 600 1/3-pound hamburgers

** You must realize that not every animal is cut up the same. Sometimes meat cutters prefer to cut T-bone steaks rather than KC strips and filets. In my scenario, I ground up a lot of steaks and roasts that some butchers might have left whole because the demand for ground beef is high right now.

Beef meals are not only tasty and filling, they are also very nutrient dense. One 3-oz serving of lean beef, provides 48% of your daily needs of protein, 44% of B₁₂, 40% of Selenium, and several other nutrients including Zinc, Niacin, B6, Phosphorus, Choline, Iron and Riboflavin.

Any way you cut it, one steer will produce A LOT more than one steak.

Last May, I wrote a post about the enormity of the US meat industry. Each week, over 500,000 cattle are harvested for beef and demand for beef is high which means that the beef industry is producing over 425 million meals of beef each week. Crazy!