Why Is Grass-Fed Beef Better?

The meat aisle of the grocery store can be undeniably confusing to navigate, as labels and stickers decorate packages with “Prime” and “Choice,” mixing with claims like “grass-fed,” “grass-finished,” or “organic.”

While many terms in the food industry are unsubstantiated, vague, or don’t quite mean anything (read: “all-natural”), grass-fed meat has benefits above and beyond conventional beef raised on a grain-fed diet.

From human health to animal welfare to sustainability, grass-fed beef wins on all counts—let’s dive into the details about each of these benefits. 

What Is Grass-Fed Meat?

Meat that is grass-fed comes from a ruminant animal (i.e., cows, lamb, sheep, bison, and goats) that eats grasses, hay, or other foraged plants like alfalfa.

According to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the “grass-fed” label on beef means that:¹

• The cattle were 100% fed grass or forage for the length of their life after being weaned off their mother’s milk.
• Their diet must be solely derived from forage, including annual or perennial grass, forbs (legumes or Brassica), hay, crop residue without grain, or other sources of foraged roughage. 
• The cattle must have continuous access to pasture during the growing season until slaughter. 
• The animals cannot ever be fed grain or grain by-products. 

If you see the term “grass-finished beef,” that is not the same as 100% grass-fed, as animals that are only grass-finished can be fed grain for most of their lives, only receiving grass just before slaughter. Rather, a label stating “100% grass-fed and grass-finished” will meet the above criteria for being grass-fed.

Conversely, grain-fed cows eat a grain-based diet, including corn, soy, oats, barley, or wheat. Conventional grain-fed cattle raised on factory farms or feedlots are also often ​​administered drugs like antibiotics and growth hormones to prevent infections (rather than treat infections when they arise) and facilitate more rapid growth.

In August 2024, the USDA updated its guidelines for grass-fed (and other) labeling to be more strictly enforced, which is a welcomed addition.² 

Claims like “grass-fed” can now only be included on labels after documentation is submitted and the claims are reviewed and approved by USDA’s FSIS. Before, enforcement was not as strict. The USDA also “strongly encourages” the use of third-party certifications to substantiate their claims.

There are several grass-fed certifications. One certification we recommend is Certified Grass-Fed by AGW (A Greener World), which guarantees that the meat comes from animals that are 100% grass- or forage-fed, as well as raised outdoors on pastures or ranges and raised with the highest welfare and environmental standards on an independent farm.

Another is the American Grassfed Association, which also prioritizes animal welfare and the promotion of natural behaviors. 

Benefits of Grass-Fed Beef Over Grain-Fed

There are three significant areas that differ between grass-fed and grain-fed meat, including the benefits to human health, the environment, and animal welfare. 

Grass-Fed Beef Is Healthier Than Grain-Fed Beef

Grass-fed beef has a more favorable nutritional profile than grain-fed beef, including healthier fat ratios, more vitamins and minerals, and the presence of antioxidants.  

This is due to what they eat and how they move. When cattle graze on antioxidant-rich mixtures of grasses, forbs, and shrubs (as opposed to the nutrient-poor grain diet that cows are not well-suited to consume naturally), their meat and milk become more nutritious, as well. 

Their much-increased daily movement through the pastures also changes their meat structures. Just as humans have less fat and more muscle tissue when we exercise, so do cows—which means grass-fed beef has less fat, fewer calories, and more protein.

When compared to grain-fed beef, grass-fed beef has health benefits like: 

• Healthy Fatty Acid Profiles: Grass-fed beef contains less total fat and saturated fat with more monounsaturated fatty acids. An 8oz portion of raw grass-fed beef provides 28g of total fat and 12g of saturated fat. The same quantity of grain-fed beef has 44g of total fat and 16g of saturated fat.³
• Fewer Calories: Due to the lower fat content and healthier fatty acid profiles, grass-fed beef also contains fewer calories. An 8oz portion of grass-fed raw ground beef provides 432 calories, while the same amount of grain-fed beef has 568.
• Omega-3 Fatty Acids: Grass-fed beef has elevated levels of the healthy omega-3 fats alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). Each 8oz portion of raw grass-fed beef contains about 200mg of omega-3 fatty acids, compared to 108mg in grain-fed beef.³
• CLA: Grass-fed beef contains more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a beneficial fat that may contribute to improved metabolic, cognitive, and cardiovascular health.⁴ 
• Antioxidants: Due to the diverse diet of foraged wild plants, grass-fed beef contains various antioxidants not present in cows eating soy or corn. Grass-fed beef has concentrated levels of antioxidant-rich phytonutrients in its meat and milk, including phenols, carotenoids, and terpenoids.⁵ 
• Micronutrients: Grass-fed beef contains more than double the amount of niacin, folate, and vitamins K, E, and B12. It also has over 20% more magnesium and about 15% more iron.⁶ 
• Fewer Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria. While all meat can potentially contain pathogenic bacteria, grain-fed beef is more likely to have “superbugs” resistant to most antibiotics. One study found that 18% of grain-fed ground beef packages had superbugs present, while 6% of sustainably-produced beef did (which included being grass-fed).⁷

Grass-Fed Beef Is More Environmentally Friendly

Although feedlots enable more meat to be produced in a smaller area of land, grass-fed, grazing, and pasture-roaming cattle are thought to have a lower environmental impact than grain-fed, factory-farmed beef production.⁸

Research on cattle farming systems has shown that there is a trade-off between grass-fed and conventional farming when it comes to land use. While grass-feeding or pasture-raising cattle requires more rangeland for the cows, it also uses minimal cropland. Comparatively, feedlot operations require more cropland (to grow the grains for the cows) but less rangeland.⁹ 

Regenerative agriculture systems are even more sustainable, as they aim to actively restore and improve soil health and local ecosystems through practices like no-till or low-till organic farming, crop rotation, cover cropping, and composting. 

Grass-fed beef is better for the environment because the grazing cows minimize soil erosion on the land they pasture on, making it more resilient to flooding or drought. 

When cattle are free to roam and graze on pastures or ranges, they spread their manure over the land. This practice is important to regenerative agriculture, as the manure acts as a natural fertilizer that returns nutrients and healthy microbes to the soil, improving the biodiversity and health of the surrounding ecosystem.

Grass-fed cattle not fed antibiotics or hormones also benefit the water supply, as typical cattle feeding lots (CAFOs or concentrated animal feeding operations) are known to contaminate water with run-off from these chemicals or medications. 

Lastly, grass-fed cows can help fight climate change because healthy soil and grasses trap carbon dioxide, keeping it from rising into the atmosphere—a process known as carbon sequestration, an important component of alleviating climate change.

However, grass-fed cows also produce slightly more of the greenhouse gas methane due to living longer lives. Although all cows produce methane due to belching or flatulence, grass-fed cows may make about 20% more methane due to the lack of growth hormone use and taking longer to grow to their full size. 

That said, some environmental researchers believe that the other environmental plusses of grass-feeding cattle, such as their regenerative grazing process that sequesters carbon, mitigate these slight increases in methane output.⁸ 

Researchers state that regenerative agriculture practices like ​​cover cropping, crop rotation, and managed grazing are some of the top methods to sequester greenhouse gases and help fight climate change.⁸ 

Grass-Fed Beef Is Better for Animal Welfare

It is undisputed that concentrated feedlots or CAFO cattle-raising environments are harmful to animal welfare.

Although not all grain-fed cattle are raised in factory farms, it is significantly more likely that a grain-fed cow will be found in a CAFO than not. 

Concentrated feedlots are just that: concentrated. The immense number of cattle on these farms are typically held in confined stalls with limited space, which causes stress to the animals and significantly increases the risk of diseases spreading. 

Because of the elevated disease risk, feedlot cattle are typically pre-treated with antibiotics before they get sick (not to prevent any animal from suffering from the illness, of course, but to protect their bottom line).

Chronic antibiotic use is not only detrimental to the cows’ health but is considered a cause of antibiotic resistance in humans after we consume their meat, as we saw in the previous section in which grain-fed beef was more likely to contain antibiotic-resistant superbugs.¹⁰

Some grain-fed feedlot operations also force the cows to overconsume grains to make them gain weight more quickly, which is stressful and damaging to their digestive systems. Conversely, grass-fed and pasture-roaming cows can eat what they want and when they want, enabling their natural behavior in a lower-stress environment.⁸

If you want to ensure that the beef you consume comes from farms with the most consideration for animal welfare, look for certifications like Certified Grass-Fed by AGW, Demeter Biodynamic, or Animal Welfare Certified by Global Animal Partnership.

If you’re curious about other sustainability certifications to look out for at the grocery store, check out this article.

Grass-Fed Beef FAQs