Changes in the meat industry have complicated USDA grading labels like “Prime” and “Choice.” Trending Videos
America loves red meat. We eat the fourth most beef per person in the world, after Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay. Burgers are our country’s favorite food, and there are more high-end steakhouses than ever before. Even though we love beef, we usually eat it instead of buying it. A lot of people who eat out and shop don’t know what goes into beef labels or how to make the best choices for their tastes and budgets.
US beef shoppers have probably never had more good options than they have today. You can now get more naturally raised beef than ever before. This means that animals were not given antibiotics, steroids, growth hormones, or food scraps to eat. Those who prefer 100% grass-fed, grass-finished meat are also in luck, with many more products on the market. The largest store in the world, Walmart, raised its house beef standard from “Select” to “Choice.” This is the second-best USDA beef grade, which is still pretty good. The USDA lists five more grades besides the three well-known retail grades (Prime, Choice, and Select): “Standard,” “Commercial,” “Cutter,” “Utility,” and “Canner.” You won’t see any of those labels in stores, but you can learn what they mean here. The biggest change may be that our sought-after “Prime” beef, which used to only be available at fancy steakhouses and specialty butchers, is now being sold in some supermarkets and even Costco. Ordinary backyard grillers who didn’t have much or any access to it before can now buy Prime steaks along with their cheap toilet paper.
But not all Prime is the same, and the difference is even bigger for Choice, which is the national standard for beef lovers who don’t have a lot of money. Due to flaws in the grading system, shoppers will often get better meat at their local market if they choose Choice over Prime. But they need to know what to look for.
When you shop for beef at the grocery store, you may notice labels such as “hormone-free” “no added hormones” or “all natural” on some beef products. These labels usually come with a higher price tag. But what do they really mean? Can you trust that the beef you’re buying is free from artificial hormones?
The answer is complicated. Hormones have been used in American beef production for decades to speed up growth and increase yield. Understanding where beef comes from and how it’s raised is key to making informed choices about the meat you feed your family.
In this article, we’ll break down the facts around hormone use in beef cattle, discuss why hormone-free beef costs more, and explain what “sterling silver” beef really means when it comes to added hormones.
A Brief History of Hormone Use in Beef Production
Cattle raised using traditional grazing methods produce beef naturally, without the use of added hormones. But in the 1960s, the beef industry shifted to more intensive, factory-farming models focused on efficiency and higher yields.
In these crowded feedlots, cattle are prone to illness. So producers started administering antibiotics preventatively. They also began implanting synthetic hormone pellets like trenbolone acetate and zeranol to make cattle grow bigger and faster on less feed.
The use of these hormones is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA states that the hormones are metabolized before slaughter and leave negligible residues in meat. However, some experts believe even small amounts of hormones may impact human health.
In 1989, the European Union banned imported American beef raised with hormones due to public health concerns. Today, most other developed nations have followed suit But hormone-treated beef remains prevalent in the US. beef supply.
Why Grass-Fed and Organic Beef Costs More
Producing beef without hormones or routine antibiotics costs more for several reasons:
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Slower growth Cattle raised hormone-free take longer to reach market weight naturally. This increases feeding and housing costs for beef producers
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Lower yields: Non-hormone-treated cattle are typically leaner with less meat yield per animal. More cattle must be raised to produce the same quantity of beef.
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Higher health standards: Grass-fed and organic cattle require more space, need more diligent oversight, and have stricter health protocols. This labor and management is expensive.
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Supply and demand: Only a small percentage of U.S. beef is raised without hormones. Scarcity drives up prices for hormone-free beef.
As a result, certified organic beef and grass-fed beef generally costs 20% to 100% more than conventional beef from grain-fed cattle. For shoppers, it comes down to priorities around cost, health, ethics, and sustainability.
Is Sterling Silver Beef Really Hormone-Free?
Sterling Silver premium beef touts itself as “all-natural” and “responsibly raised.” But what about hormones? The Sterling Silver website says their cattle are raised “without the use of hormones.”
This seems to indicate Sterling Silver cattle are not given artificial growth hormones. However, the fine print notes their beef comes from cattle “born and raised in the U.S.” Approximately 90% of U.S. cattle receive hormone implants during their lifetimes.
The Sterling Silver label arguably allows wiggle room when it comes to hormones. Legally, as long as hormones aren’t directly administered, beef can be called “no added hormones.” But that doesn’t guarantee the cattle were never exposed to hormones earlier in life before arriving at the Sterling Silver ranch.
For shoppers who want beef from cattle that have truly never received any added hormones, certified organic is the safest bet. Organic standards prohibit the use of hormones or antibiotics at any point in an animal’s life. Grass-fed beef certified by the American Grassfed Association must also come from cattle that have never been treated with hormones or antibiotics.
When it comes to labels like “all-natural”, “responsibly raised”, or “no hormones added”, the devil is in the details. Look closely at brand standards or talk to your grocer to understand exactly what these claims mean and whether any loopholes exist. Or opt for organic or American Grassfed beef if hormones are a concern.
Weighing Your Options on Hormone-Free Beef
Hormone-free beef may cost more, but it aligns with consumer values around health, sustainability, and ethical meat production. Still, organic and grass-fed beef remains a premium product that isn’t accessible or affordable for all shoppers.
Here are some tips for getting the best beef within your grocery budget:
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Prioritize organic ground beef, since any hormones would be widely distributed throughout this meat. Conventional steaks or roasts present less concern.
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Watch for sales, bulk deals, and price drops on hormone-free beef for opportunities to stock up.
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Substitute grass-fed ground meat for half the conventional beef in recipes to decrease hormones while minimizing cost.
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Consider switching to pasture-raised chicken or turkey, which are more affordable hormone-free options.
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Discuss hormone use with your regular butcher or grocer to identify affordable suppliers of natural beef.
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Buy directly from local farms and ranches that don’t use hormones or antibiotics and offer bulk discounts.
Putting high-quality beef on the table is important, but so is keeping grocery costs reasonable. With some savvy shopping and creative substitutions, hormone-free meats can work for a variety of budgets and families.
High Choice
It’s not possible to get high Prime from the USDA, but there are a lot of private, branded programs that offer “high Choice,” which might be the best deal in red meat.
For Choice, there is a wider range of quality, and there are three possible USDA marbling scores, but like with Prime, you can’t find those on the labels. (The three scores, from best to worst, are “Moderate,” “Modest,” and “Small. “The top level of Choice is just a bit below Prime’s “Slightly Abundant,” and the bottom level is just above the Select grade. Choice beef has a wide range of quality; the best beef can have twice as much desirable marbling as the worst; however, buyers of Choice often have the same problems as Prime beef buyers. “That’s the best, and it all gets skimmed off in the business,” says Faison. “So when you buy Choice at the grocery store, you get the lowest end of the grade, unless it’s branded.”
The private, branded programs for Choice, like Prime, try to keep an eye on the age and breed of the cattle they sell to make things more consistent. Many of these also reject the lowest of the three marble scores and only sell the top two, which are the best 30%. This is different from Prime. This effectively guarantees that the consumer is getting high Choice. “It costs a little more than USDA Choice but a lot less than Prime, and you’ll have a better time eating it.” If a customer sees something like CAB Choice in a store, they will get something better than regular stuff; it’s definitely better, says Sarrazin. “High Choice is the sweet spot in the market right now. “.
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CAB Choice, the first Schedule G private label, is now the most well-known and widely available of these choices. You can find it on better menus and in supermarkets. A cooperative group of ranchers made the CAB brand to set itself apart from high-choice beef: “When this brand was founded, meat scientists saw a big difference in the eating experience between Choice beef above and below the Modest marbling score.” “Consumers can’t tell the difference between low Choice and Select, which is really important,” says Mark McCully, VP of production for the company. “This is what we call commodity Choice, and it makes up more than two-thirds of all the Choice out there.” The CAB Prime version and Natural line, which promises no drugs or animal by-products and comes in both Choice and Prime, came after.
“Years ago, we would go straight to the packers and say, ‘We need something better.’ They would hand-pick the best Choice, which we called ‘top Choice,’ but it wasn’t a brand, so we stopped doing that,'” says Sarrazin. (Other industry terms for high Choice include “upper Choice” and “hand-selected Choice. “) “CAB was a response to that about 40 years ago. Ranchers weren’t getting the credit they deserved for making a better product, so they made their own standard and had the USDA approve it. The choice standard set by the CAB is just the top two scores in Choice, which are 22% of the best scores in the grade.
Chef after chef agrees that for consumers, branded high Choice is one of the best options. Choice is only a third of the beef graded in America, while Prime is the other half. That’s why the upper choice is so important to differentiate, says King. “Its Choice that wants to be Prime, thinks its Prime, but didnt quite make the cut. It’s easy to make the case that this category is better than commodity Prime because branded high-Choice programs combine almost-Prime marbling scores with higher standards for breed and maturity. And its certainly a better value. Faison says, “My favorite steak is a high-Choice rib.” This is a big claim for someone whose shop sells steak for almost $150 a pound. “High Choice is a good steak because it has the right amount of fat. Rib steak has more fat than other steaks.” Its the most bang for the buck. “.
“Hand-selected stuff, like Sterling Silver or CAB, is differentiated, almost Prime. %20At%20home,%20the%20difference%20between%20Prime%20and%20high%20Choice%20is%20about%2070%%20your%20cooking%20method%E2%80%94if%20you%20can%20perfect%20your%20char%20and%20cook%20it%20right,%20youre%20not%20going%20to%20notice%20much%20difference,%22%20says%20David%20Walzog,%20longtime%20executive%20chef%20at%20the%20Wynn%20Las%20Vegass%20SW%20Steakhouse,%20one%20of%20the%20countrys%20very%20best%20steakhouses,%20with%20a%20huge%20selection%20of%20Prime,%20high-Choice,%20Australian%20and%20Japanese%20wagyu,%20and%20genuine%20Kobe%20beef Along with CAB, you can find Creekstone Farm and Niman Ranch in stores and on menus. You can also find Sterling Silver, a high-Choice private label, in better supermarkets.
Branded Beef
The USDA’s system isn’t perfect—it doesn’t tell people the difference between breeds, ages, diets, or ways of raising beef, or how much marbling is in each grade. Luckily, private companies have stepped in to fill in the gaps in information and make it much easier for people to find and buy higher-quality beef.
Gibsons is a famous steakhouse in Chicago. It is the first and only restaurant in the country to have its own private-label Prime beef. The USDA’s Schedule G Certified Beef Program was used to set it up. In this program, a company sets its own grading standards, which are usually stricter than the USDA’s own requirements for a certain grade, and then pays the USDA to inspect and certify those standards. The message is that there is USDA Prime and Gibsons USDA Prime, and the steakhouse says Gibsons is better. (Gibsons also has a private-label program for Choice beef. ).
“Not all Prime is created equal,” says Gibsons Chef Dan Huebschmann. “The USDA doesnt regulate feed or regional specificity. Only meat from certain farms in the Midwest is used in our food. These farms raise, feed, and process their animals according to the rules in our certification. Our requirements are very specific about feed and where it comes from. It’s not enough to just look for Prime; there’s also commodity Prime and facilities that process anything, even Holstein, but don’t use Angus. The USDAs GLA Angus certification is 51% black, but our certification requires 90%. “.
“GLA” refers to Schedule GLA, the legal criteria for what producers can call Angus beef. The Scottish Aberdeen Angus breed gave rise to the highly sought-after Angus. This breed of beef cattle is more productive, has better marbling, and tastes better than most others. But very little pure Aberdeen Angus remains, so most Angus today comes from hybrids. Because pure Angus cattle tend to be black, the USDA uses color, not genetics, to qualify its labeling. To Angus fans like Huebschmann, the more black the better, hence Gibsons more demanding specifications. Schedule G-125, which sets the standards for Gibsons Angus Beef (both Prime and Choice), has other physical requirements for cattle that are allowed, like “no hump exceeding two inches in height.” These are meant to keep Angus genetics separate from dairy cattle and other breeds. Because hybrid Angus beef is so popular in the US, standards like Gibsons try to find “purer” cattle that have more Angus genes.
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Gibson’s standards are similar to those of Certified Angus Beef (CAB), which created the first private-label Certified Beef Program (and pretty much invented the category) forty years ago. These standards are meant to keep out non-Angus breeds that aren’t good for consumers. CAB likewise adopted age requirements to ensure more flavorful, mature meat. CAB’s program was originally made for Choice beef, but it now sells a Prime version of its own brand of meat, as do a number of other sellers. In both grades, branded products are often a shoppers best source for the highest quality. “When a customer sees Prime, they can’t know anything else,” says Faison. “Unless it’s in a branded program like Certified Angus Beef Prime, where you get older and tastier animals.” The differences can be dramatic. “.
Smith says that the rise of private beef programs with brands has made him It now sources meat for best-selling cuts from the 70,000-acre Double R Ranch in Loomis, Washington. “This is our third year with a single-source beef program. Consistency is very important to us.” Every processor has some great meat, but also some not-great meat. Now it is all from one geographic area, the same climate, same feed, same processing plant,” says King.
Private branded beef programs like CAB, Gibsons, Sterling Silver, Niman Ranch, Creekstone Farms, Allen Brothers, Seminole Pride, and dozens of others can provide more consistent quality because they set standards. This is similar to what Double R does for Smith. Some programs or brands, like Niman Ranch and CABs “Natural” label, also require that animals be raised without drugs and in natural ways.
Also, while having more consistent quality is a good thing, Prime customers still can’t tell the difference between the three marbling scores. There isn’t much “high Prime” out there that none of these brands have added higher marbling requirements to their Prime beef standards. The Choice grade, however, is a very different story.
Why Sterling Silver Premium Beef?
FAQ
Is Sterling Silver beef grass-fed?
Does certified angus beef have hormones?
What is the difference between AAA and Sterling Silver beef?
What is silver beef?
Should you buy hormone-free beef & lamb?
Producers of beef and lamb may use the term “no hormones administered” on labels after satisfying the USDA that hormones were not used in raising the animals. If you eat beef or lamb, I urge you to look for such products. Buying hormone-free meat and dairy products can be expensive.
Why should you choose sterling silver® Premium Beef?
Premium beef for a premium experience How your great dishes begin We strive to provide chefs with hand-selected beef cuts that provide unwavering quality in marbling, flavor, texture and consistency. This is how Sterling Silver® Premium Beef allows your creativity to shine every time you enter the kitchen. Why choose our beef
Is there a hormone-free beef?
It is also important to understand that there is no such thing as “hormone-free” beef. As stated above, hormones are naturally occurring and if they were eliminated completely from the body the animal could not survive. Therefore, any amount of beef (or any animal product for that matter) will have some level of naturally occurring hormone present.
Are there products available from beef without hormones?
There are products available from beef that have not been administered additional hormones. Beef marketed under the label of “naturally raised” must be raised in accordance with the supporting USDA voluntary claim standards. These cattle must be grown without growth-promoting hormones, fed no animal byproducts or antibiotics.