Kelley Smith

A common misconception about organic food is that if you eat organic, especially meat, you will compromise taste. However, the organic burgers at Shake Shack and Elevation Burger are on a mission to prove this wrong. Many of my friends comment on how unusually delicious the cheeseburgers are when we visit these restaurants. They wonder out loud if there are extra spices used on the meat or if it is cooked differently.  Or maybe, just maybe, the magic begins on the farm and not in the kitchen.

Meat eaters often forget that a burger was once a cow.  But the Shake Shack and Elevation Burger cows are special.  They get to eat grass and enjoy a life full of fresh air. They grow at their own pace and are not injected with hormones. In the business world, this is refereed to as organic, grass-feed, free-range beef.

Let Elevation Burger explain (paraphrased using the website):

What Does “Grass-Feed Beef” Mean?

Today, most cows are grain-feed which means they are fed a diet consisting primarily of corn. The cow’s digestive system is not naturally predisposed to process corn.  When fed a constant diet of corn, the cows become sick and are given antibiotics. The grass-feed cows are never given antibiotics and are free of pesticides and other chemicals. Grain also adds additional calories to the meat.

What is “Free Range Beef”?

Cows are raise cage free and live a healthier, more humane life. Grass pastures help the environment by consuming over 850 pounds of CO2 each year.  Corn pastures do not remove as much CO2 and require hazardous chemicals, petroleum based fertilizers, and fossil-fuel burning machines to encourage growth.

Organic burger restaurants will not be shy about their practices. Do not be fooled by words like “all-natural” and “organic” without an more detail. Because there are no government regulations about organic foods in the United States, many companies try to lure green consumers into restaurants by using these words.

Unfortunately, consumers do not visit these places for a burger that lived the good life. They just go because it tastes good. But informed consumers have the power to make sure all consumers realize this burger is good for not only their taste buds but their health and the environment as well. Next time you are craving a burger, makes sure to support your local restaurants that support grass-feed, free range beef.  A vote with your wallet can sometimes be more effective than a vote at the polls.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 8th, 2011 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Going Green. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.