Joe Rogan - Which is Better: Grass-Fed or Grain-Fed Beef?

When it comes to meat, do you guys prefer a grass-fed beef or do you like corn fed? Because I had this discussion with Tony and he was telling me that he actually liked corn fed beef. He's like it's a fattier... There's two schools of thought and then there's two schools of what is quality beef, right? So one school will say yeah, quality beef is organic animal, pasture raised, eating grass, flavor is different, it's not as tender but it is high quality beef. Okay, then the other of course is a cow, USDA Prime, corn fed, incredible marbling, ridiculous fat content, restricted motion. I'd say a lesser quality beef than the other. But they all start grass fed though. Eating wise, they're all pastured at first, eating wise, pound for pound, the corn fed steak will be more delicious, okay? For some people and then for some people the other one will be. In my mind, the grass fed organic pasture beef with its different flavor for me is a higher quality animal. I prefer that taste. Correct. I feel it's a richer taste, it's a denser, darker meat. A little more of that iron taste. Yeah, I just like it better and I do like a corn fed steak. I do like it. But there is. But in the general public, the steak eating public that come to restaurants and counter more corn fed beef, and their first judge of character to the quality of that meat is tenderness. It's tenderness, it's marbling, it's not tender, it's not tender. That's a reoccurring thing that we fight with every day at Joe B. Juicy and tender. Just eat a 16 ounce foie gras. I know. They just want tender. I know. I mean, what are they looking for? Tender. You can also have tender. Don't your teeth work? Well, we get a steak set back, it'll be because... It's too tough? Yeah, exactly. I would usually go to this steakhouse and it's more tender. Because you're serving a grass fed steak. Serving a grass fed steak that's not as marbled as it's non-organic. Well, it's an animal that's healthy. But you can also have... It's an upgrade file. It's like the natural wine versus conventional wine fight that we're having. Yeah, but it's also... We're calling it binary now. It's like it's only corn or it's only grass. No, I think the solution is maybe a little bit of corn, a little bit of barley, but mostly grass fed. You know? A brief finish in quality grains. Why not? And then there's a whole other point. I'd like to raise... Not giant feedlot. I like to sell beef in my restaurant that comes from very close to my restaurant. You know? Yeah. When we opened Joe Beef at the beginning when that first book, the first book was written, beef was a problem back then. You know, local beef was kind of difficult and we were buying beef from larger coalsalers. And if we didn't know how to read the barcodes on the boxes, they would say it was Canadian beef. It was from Australia. But it might not be Canadian beef. It might be northern USA beef. But we didn't know because only a professional could read the barcode. But they were saying it was Canadian. But one day I had a professional come into the restaurant and he said, no, actually this beef is from a company with investitures in Canada. But this is from Western Australia. And I said, I don't want to serve anything in my restaurant from Western Australia. That's super far. Like, you know, remove beef from the menu or seek alternatives. But it's a business that's complex because there's pastures and feedlots, slaughterhouse and packers. Right. And it's not like we have lambs. Get a baby lamb that come from the parents lamb and then they farm. They raise the lamb and they bring it to the slaughterhouse themselves. And then we get a lamb. Beef is like you can get it's like tracing Bourbons. You know, it's like trading and brokerage and stuff. And we're not. It's the most sketchy item on a restaurant menu. Like, I know that I bought lamb from you and I know I bought rabbit from, you know, Beatrice. And I know I got goat cheese from this family and all of the products in my restaurant. I know exactly the farm and the farmer beef is always dicey because beef always goes to the packer. Beef always goes to the distributor. And the general public only really eats two cuts of beef in restaurants, you know, three cuts. The tenderloin, the what do you call in English, the ultra coat. Yeah, the loins. The loins, the tenderloin. Right. That's what people eat. And the hamburgers. Beefs are not that, you know, there's two big humps and there's two big shoulders and there's a lot of braise. So, you know, it's difficult. Did you guys see that documentary on steak? Yeah, we were in it. That's right. You were in it, right? Yeah. What did you think of that? Their conclusions and... What was the conclusion? Well, just basically we're saying that Peter Luger's Steakhouse in Brooklyn is the greatest steak in the world. The USDA Prime, Corn Fed, for taste. It's a good restaurant. Good story, good history, great restaurant. I ate there just a few months ago. It was very good. Yeah, very good. Yeah. But again, it's a subjective thing, right? The flavor in terms of like what you actually look for and they, as they were talking about, like your customer was saying, they're accustomed to a certain type of meat. Like they were saying that their customers are accustomed to this. They're not interested in grass-fed anything. Oh, but I understand that, you know. They've been doing that for a long time and grading that beef that way and I don't think they should change ever not based on anything, right? Well, it's a great place where you get consistency. I mean, you go there, you get this fantastic steak. I mean, it's so old worldy too and you get in there that, I mean, how long has Peter Lugar been around for? God forever. Forever, yeah. It's 120 years or something. Something insane like that. And they get the... Moishez is like that in Montreal. It's a very old steak restaurant. Moishez is a famous restaurant in Montreal and they, you know, they do have their beef program and they should not change because there's new conversations happening. He knows what he's doing, Lenny Leiter, and he should do, you know, keep on doing that.