Born Country: Humane Handling

The people have spoken... a post topic is chosen! Slaughter and processing of beef cattle is the topic the majority of people wanted to know about according to the votes in my recent poll. So here it is all you curious to learn more about the slaughter and processing aspect of beef production!

The beef you're eating for supper tonight (well one can hope right!!) has gone through a long process of getting from "gate to plate". For simplicity sake, I will give you an overview of how a steer goes through the stages of beef production. Steers are not the only animals used for human consumption, however they are the most common especially when you are talking about where your delicious premium cut of steak comes from.

Cuts of Beef

A steer is born on a cow/calf operation where a rancher keeps cows who will produce calves which he will sell for a profit. The steer is then sold by private treaty (many show cattle are sold this way), sold in an auction sale, or sold directly to a feedlot. Some cow/calf producers and feedlot operators keep will keep their lighter weight steers (about 350 - 550 lbs.) and "background" them using low cost medium to lower roughage feed (turn them out on pasture for the summer or choose to use harvested feeds like corn silage and hay) until they reach a larger weight (around 700-900 lbs.) before being finished in a feedlot. Some people will specifically buy steers or heifers from the auction mart to background on pasture. In order to "finish" (get the optimum amount of fat and muscle on a market animal) a steer they will be sent to a feedlot. There has been a lot of speculation from consumers regarding how humane feedlots are... perhaps this is a topic for another post, but in just a few words here I would like to dispel this myth. If animals were treated inhumanely in Canadian feedlots the feedlot would not be making a profit. Happy cattle are productive cattle!! Cattle raised "free range" or solely on grass do not taste remotely the same as grain fed cattle so feedlots are a HUGELY important element of an animal's journey from gate to plate. Once cattle are in the feedlot they usually stay there for about 60 to 180 days. A lot of factors determine how long a steer will remain in the feedlot before it is finished; weight coming into feedlot, breed, genetics, health, weather, etc. In the feedlot cattle are fed mainly grain (can be mixtures of barley, alfalfa, corn byproducts, etc.) and whatever supplementary feed is readily available in that year in that location. Supplementary feeds can be a wide variety of things such as oats, low grade durum wheat, chick peas, potatoes, sugar beet pulp, etc. as well as silage. From the feedlot cattle are transported to a slaughter house or abattoir. The slaughterhouse process differs by species and region and may be controlled by civil law as well as religious laws. A typical procedure goes as follows:

Cattle (mostly steers and heifers, some cows, and few bulls) are received by truck or rail from a ranch, farm, or feedlot.

Cattle are herded into holding pens.

Cattle are stunned by applying an electric shock of 300 volts and 2 amps to the back of the head or a captive bolt pistol (a pneumatic or cartridge-fired captive bolt) to the front of the head. This renders the animals completely unconscious.

Animals are hung upside down by both of their hind legs on the processing line.

The carotid artery and jugular vein are severed with a knife, blood drains, causing complete death through exsanguination.

The head and front and rear legs are removed. Prior to hide removal, care is taken to cut around the digestive tract to prevent fecal contamination later in the process.

The hide/skin is removed by down pullers and side pullers. Hides can also be removed by laying the carcass on a cradle and skinning with a knife.

The internal organs are removed and inspected for internal parasites and signs of disease. The viscera are separated for inspection from the heart and lungs, referred to as the "pluck." Livers are separated for inspection, tongues are dropped or removed from the head, and the head is sent down the line for inspection of the lymph nodes for signs of systemic disease.

The carcase is inspected by a government inspector for safety. (This inspection is performed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.)

Carcasess are subjected to intervention to reduce levels of bacteria. Common interventions are steam, hot water, and organic acids.

Carcasses can be electrically stimulated to improve meat tenderness.

Carcasses are chilled to prevent the growth of microorganisms and to reduce meat deterioration while the meat awaits distribution.

The chilled carcass is broken down into primal cuts and subprimals for boxed meat unless customer specifies for intact sides of meat. Beef carcases are always split in half and then quartered.

The remaining carcass may be further processed to extract any residual traces of meat, usually termed advanced meat recovery or mechanically separated meat, which may be used for human or animal consumption.

Waste materials such as bone, lard or tallow, are sent to a rendering plant. Also, lard and tallow can be used for the production of biodiesel or heating oil.

The wastewater, consisting of blood and fecal matter, generated by the slaughtering process is sent to a waste water treatment plant.

The meat is transported to distribution centers that then distribute to retail markets.

In the latter part of the 20th century, the layout and design of most U.S. and Canadian slaughterhouses has been significantly influenced by the work of Dr. Temple Grandin. While Grandin's primary objective is to help slaughterhouse operators improve efficiency and profit, she suggested that reducing the stress and suffering of animals being led to slaughter may help achieve this aim. In particular she applied an intuitive understanding of animal psychology to design pens and corrals which funnel a herd of animals arriving at a slaughterhouse into a single file ready for slaughter. Her corrals employ long sweeping curves so that each animal is prevented from seeing what lies ahead and just concentrates on the hind quarters of the animal in front of it. This design also attempts to override the animals' survival instincts and prevent them from reversing direction.

The Canadian Beef Grading Agency (CBGA) was created to deliver grading services for Canadian beef. The key grading criteria for the quality grades are carcass maturity, muscling, meat quality, external fat covering, and marbling. For maturity, carcasses are evaluated as either "youthful" or "mature" according to the degree of bone ossification. Youthful carcasses are produced from cattle generally less than 24 months of age and no more than 30 months of age. Carcasses showing more advanced ossification are considered to be mature and must be graded in one of the Canada D grades or as Canada E in the case of a bull. The four high quality grades (A, AA, AAA, Prime) represent 98% of all youthful graded Canadian beef carcasses. The grade criteria for these four grades are identical, with the only exception being degree of marbling. Carcasses must be youthful to be graded in these grades. This ensures a high level of tenderness in all four grades of high quality Canadian beef. Muscling must range from good with some deficiencies, to excellent. The ribeye muscle must have a bright red colour and be firm in texture. There is a minimum external fat thickness of 2 millimetres required at the ribeye measurement site, and the external fat must be firm and white, or no more than slightly tinged with reddish or amber colour. These criteria are identical for all four grades. To distinguish between A, AA, AAA, and Prime graded carcasses, the grader evaluates the level of marbling.