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Ingredients

• General & History
• Cuts of Beef
  • Cuts by Chart
• Aging Beef
• Veal
  • Cuts & Uses
  • The Controversy
• Who Eats Beef - and why others don't.
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The generally category "Beef" includes Cattle, Yaks, Water Buffalo and Bison.

All domestic cattle descend from the wild Aurochs (Bos primigenius taurus) with domestication begining somewhere between 10,000 years ago and 8,000 years ago. By then sheep, goats, pigs and dogs had already been domesticated and were being sheared, milked, eaten and used to carry or pull loads.

In Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia "beef" means water buffalo and there's little attention paid to particular cuts - you just buy a hunk of buffalo of the weight you want. It's all going to be cut into small thin pieces anyway because it's all a bit tough and you need to strech it because it's expensive.

In Europe and the U.S. where beef means cow, it's cooked in medium to large pieces as a feature dish and in various ways so cut is extremely important. Prime grilling cuts are so expensive the beef industry has recently invented new cuts that can be substituted for the astronomically priced ones.

Beef is not considered edible fresh from the animal, it's just too tough. This is why beef is not popular in many areas that lack refrigeration and why it's boiled in other such areas. With time the muscle fibers are digested by enzymes making it more tender. The problem here is giving the enzymes time to work without the beef rotting. Two aging methods are generally used:

• Dry Aging is done by hanging the carcass, quarter or primal cut in a room with carefully regulated temperature and air flow, generally for 7 to 20 days. Air flow is necessary to avoid spoilage but can't be too fast or the beef will become too dry. This aging process is relatively expensive but provides the most "beefy" flavored beef.
• Wet Aging is done for nearly all your supermarket beef. Cuts are vacuum packed in plastic and the aging takes place during normal distribution, transportation and warehousing. At the destination store the package is opened and the final cuting and consumer packaging is done. Obviously this is a lot less expensive than the dry aging method.

Veal, the meat of a calf, an immature cow, is a byproduct of the dairy industry. To keep milk cows giving milk they must be made pregnant and produce a calf every year. Female calves can be raised as part of the herd and sent to work in the milk mines, but half the calves are male.

Dairies have no use for male calves. They used to need at least one bull, but now they get their bull in a bottle to save the expense of maintaining the ill tempered lout. The beef industry doesn't want them either because they're dairy breeds, not meat breeds, so they get sold off to veal producers, and there is the source of the controversy.

Animal rights advocates claim veal calves are mistreated, kept under inhumane conditions, fed a diet deliberately imbalanced to make them anemic and shot through with dangerous hormones and drugs. The veal industry denys all this and says veal calves are well treated and tested for any medicinal residues. Who is right?

That's difficult to know. Animal rights advocates have a reputation for using photographs of unknown date and provence, making false or unsubstantiated claims, and for shrill emotional appeals short on logic. Industry advocates are noted for using deception and exaggeration as well, though under stricter scruteny by government and press. Here are statements from the veal industry (C10, C11) and representative advocate sites (C12, C13).

Cattle were domestigated well before the dawn of history, probably separately in Africa and Central Asia. Large areas of fertile grassland are necessary for raising cattle so it is not popular in heavily forested or dry parts of the world.

• - Breeds of Livestock - Oklahoma State University.
• C10 - Veal Information - Pennsylvania Beef Council
• C11 - Veal Information - The Veal Store
• C12 - Anti-Veal Information - FactoryFarming.com
• C13 - Anti-Veal Information - Farm Sanctuary