From field to fork

You may have seen cows in fields and you have probably enjoyed eating beef off a fork.  It might have been roast beef and Yorkshire pudding or Shepherd's pie.  But how does it get from field to fork, read on to find out.

There are many breeds of cattle that come from the UK; most of them are named after the areas that they come from e.g. Hereford, Aberdeen Angus, South Devon, Lincolnshire Red and Welsh Black.  But today we are using more foreign cattle breeds, especially from France, as they have less fat and this is known as lean meat.  The French cattle types are called Limousin, Charolais and Blonde d'Aquitaine.

There are three types of cattle.  They are bull, steer and heifer.  A bull is a male animal that can still father calves (baby cattle); a steer is a male animal that can no longer father calves and a heifer is a female that has not had a calf.  A bull grows faster than a steer which grows faster than a heifer.

Calves can be born throughout the year but the most popular time is the spring and  autumn.  Most cows have one calf per year and it takes 9 months growth inside the cow before it is born.  Cows are usually two years old before they have their first calf.  The calves are taken away from their mother in a dairy herd within two or three days and then fed milk from a type of bottle until they are able to eat solid food, this is about 12 weeks although in some herds it can be  5 weeks.

Once the calves no longer need milk they are brought up in a way that best suits the type of cattle.  This is usually a grassy field in the UK during the summer and using saved grass like hay in the winter.  Cereal foods are used for bulls or where animals need to be ready for market quickly.  The cereals could be barley, wheat or oats.

The most important part of growing an animal for beef is the "finishing" stage.  This is where the animal is prepared so when it is killed the body provides the best meat for us to eat.  This is done by carefully giving it the right diet.

In recent years beef has been given new laws like how old animals can be sold at.  This is due to diseases like BSE.  Bulls are usually killed between 12 and 16 months, steers between 16 and 26 months, and heifers between 18 and 26 months.

The animals are killed in the kindest way possible and are then prepared so that they can go onto a market for sale into a butcher's shop, a supermarket or a factory that produces beef products such as burgers, ready meals or pies.

Beef is the cookery term for meat that comes from cattle (see picture) that are brought up on farms.  It is one of the main meats eaten in the UK and can be cut into different pieces and used for roasting, stewing, mincing, boiling, grilling, braising and frying.  None of the animal goes to waste.  The tongue can be cooked and sliced for salads, the bones can be boiled to make beef stock for soups and sauces, and the blood is used in some types of sausages.

The legs and neck muscles of the animal do the most amount of work so the meat is tougher.  The meat becomes tenderer the further away it is from the feet or head.  So the tender meat can be found in the middle back of the animal on the pieces of meat known as the fore rib, sirloin and rump.

Many people like beef that is called "marbled".  This means it has small pieces of fat in the meat.  It is usually tenderer as the fat makes the meat wet in cooking and also gives it more taste.  However, meat with less fat can still have a good flavour if it is cooked properly.

So next time you sit down for a meal made with beef you will know where it came from.

Date

1/11/2007