Nearly All Cattle Eat Grass. So What Are You Paying For?

Nearly all cattle are grass fed. So what is the label actually selling you? Almost every beef animal spends most of its life on pasture. The claim is really about the finishing, the last few months, and that word never appears on a package. The USDA withdrew its Grass Fed Marketing Claim Standard in January 2016, stating it had never had authority from Congress to define the claim. What replaced it is private certification, unevenly. Why "100% grass fed" says something the shorter phrase does not, and why dairy was never inside that standard at all.