Grass Fed Field Guide
A Comprehensive Look at Grass Fed Beef, Pastured Chicken, Diet, the Environment, and Much More

Grass Fed Basics
Start Here
Welcome to the Grass Fed Field Guide! There are a lot of big topics that come up when talking about farming, from the intricacies of grass fed beef production to the impact of diet on human health to what lab-grown meat means for small farmers. While there are great, interesting articles about all of these, there's also a lot of misinformation, sloppy writing, and oversimplification. The aim of Grass Fed University is to be an ever-growing hub for articles about all of these that are at once clear and comprehensive.
Immediately below are links to pragmatic guides, like an introduction to grass-based farming, a handy guide for finding grass fed beef near you, a glossary, and a basic guide on how to cook grass fed beef. If you're after big picture ideas, scroll down for an in depth look at the production of grass fed beef, pastured pork, pastured chicken, and grass fed lamb. There are also sections for discussions of the relationship between diet and health, farming and the environment, and the advent of lab-grown meat and other fringe technologies that threaten to disrupt farming as they become more mainstream.
•What does the term grass fed mean? Why does it matter? Do I think chickens should eat only grass? What about humans? Start here to learn about the grass fed basics
•Where should you look for grass fed beef, but also how to assess what's on offer and some big red flags to look for as you hunt for high quality grass fed products
•Though both are important, grass fed and pastured are not the same.
•It may sound good, but here's why grass fed chicken is a bad idea.
•There's grass fed beef, but for good reason there is not grass fed pork.
•A clear description of the basics characteristics to consider when cooking any meat, and specifically the differences and similarities between grass fed and conventional meat (coming soon)
•A list of common farming and eating terms.

Grass Fed vs. Lab-Grown
•In A Skeptical Guide to Lab Grown Meat I delve into some of the technical reasons you shouldn't expect test tube burgers to land in the supermarket anytime soon.
•Who should own the raw material used to produce lab grown meat, and should the government intervene?
•Can we compare novel foods like the Impossible Burger to old standards like beef?

Diet and Health
Coming soon!

Beef and the Environment
Coming soon, I promise.
News and Perspective
Grilled Drumsticks with Miso-Honey Sauce
Drumsticks are my favorite cut of chicken to grill. The meat has plenty of flavor, which means the a good char is complementary rather than overwhelming. They are also much harder than chicken breast or steak to overcook; along with chicken wings, they simply don’t dry seem to dry out the way many other cuts...
Eat Ice Cream for Your Health
Pictured above: the bowl of ice cream I ate immediately after writing this. If I told you that ice cream was healthy, would you believe me? What if I got more specific and said studies have shown that regularly eating ice cream reduces your chances of developing type 2 diabetes? What if I told you...
Memory, Children, Rabbits, Death
This time of year the grass is sweet and green, perfect for grazing, but it grows so fast the herd can never keep up. The trouble is that pasture isn’t consistent. After the spring flush — the wonderful period of prolific growth we’re in the middle of now — it will slow down, make seed...