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Comment by lucideer | Hacker News Reader

> I read once that the cows are grass fed

I'm not ignorant to the way much livestock in the world is treated/fed/etc. and I'm aware of the US corn lobby, for example. But coming from Ireland I'm still constantly surprised at how unusual people seem to find grass-fed cattle.

"Grass-fed" isn't a term we use / recognise here, because... it's implicit. Kerrygold is the mass-produced, big-brand butter, and yes it is grass fed. Just like everything else.

That said, this makes me curious about the other listed brands. I'm assuming grass-fed is the norm (northern-?)Europe-wide, so most of the above (being French???) should also be?

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Unfortunately, Israel perfected milk yield a few decades ago; at the time, Israel was something like 10 times the world average, now it’s less than five but mostly because other big producers like Denmark adopted Israeli knowledge, and the world average went up.

It does not involve hormones, but it does involve afaik a very specific feeding regime, both times and content - and the content has no grass.

The resulting milk, as you would expect, is similar to making love in a canoe.

Americans, on the other hand, perfects cheap meat yield. That involves feeding corn to cows, not grass.

A Canadian guy I met once, who grew up on a farm, said their cows were grass fed but a few weeks before slaughter, they would switch the feed to corn, because that way the meat tastes less grassy - making it excellent quality (because grass) and excellent flavor (because no grass). Wouldn’t know myself being vegetarian for a few decades now.

Question is, given this thread is somewhat focused on the "premium" niche, which country has "perfected" dairy at a broader agricultural level (rather than the focus here on individual company/brand level)

Japan seems to be generally good at doing this sort of thing (taking a premium product and trying to improve scientifically), see e.g. whisky, wagyu, etc. but as far as I've heard they primarily import dairy.

I don't know about perfection, but as an American coming from a not-particularly-dairy-country state yet loving milk and cheese, Great Britain and Ireland delighted me. When I lived there I was pleasantly surprised just how good commodity milk and cheese was, not to mention specialty sources.

And at the same time how sad most of the meat was relative to US standards.

May I ask what is in the feed for optimized milk production?

I believe the term is "corn finished".

Similarly: Iberico ham -- the pigs are fed acorns several months before slaughter.

I love the grassy flavor of grass-fed beef. This makes me wonder if you can do the opposite and raise the cattle on corn then finish them with grass before slaughter to get that nice mineral flavor.

It isn't 'unusual' as in strange or objectionable. The mental picture is still of grazing cows. But a diet of corn is cheap and increases the fat content of the meat, so exclusively grassfed must be sought out.

Same in New Zealand. Pretentious restaurants print "grass fed beef" on the menu. I don't know if there are any non-grass fed cows in the entire country.

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