Salty, greasy goodness – it may be the only idea that dances across your mind when y'all're pulling upward to the nearest McDonald's. If y'all are in the mood for a burger, you likely have tunnel vision, caring about nothing outside of the beginning and final bite.

But, if you lot consider yourself health conscious, it may not exist so easy to gobble down a Large Mac. Rather than the deliciously satisfying burger, you may recall of the candy ingredients or consequences of eating food and so high in fat, sodium, and sugar. And if you lot really permit your mind go down the rabbit pigsty, you lot'll chop-chop realize that the source of the beef – the cows – are ofttimes mistreated all for the sake of a fast nutrient burger. Notwithstanding, there is a saving grace in the fast food manufacture – grass-fed beef. Just, does anyone even employ this healthy alternative to producing beefiness for burgers and burritos? Here's a look at which restaurants are using grass-fed beef and why.

Conventional Beef vs. Grass-Fed Beef

Burgers, fries, and chicken nuggets alike are made for the masses. Inevitably, this means the ingredients that go into fast food must be pumped out just rapidly and frequently. And since well-nigh fast food franchises are mega corporations, the means of producing mass amounts of meat and other ingredients is not e'er the safest or most ethical. Grass-fed beef comes from cows that are handled with greater care, while conventional beef comes from cows who are fed with grain to help them proceeds weight.

Handling of Cows

Fast Food Beef – Who Uses Grass Fed Beef | Cow | FastFoodMenuPrices.comIn social club for suppliers and meat factories to live up to fast nutrient chains' expectations, they must produce the well-nigh amount of beefiness in the shortest corporeality of time, which ultimately leads to cutting corners, mistreating animals, and producing lower quality beef.

The quality of meat depends on the status in which the beast is brought upwards and kind of fodders they are fed with. The cows are sometimes overfed in i spot with corn or grain mixed with antibiotics and hormones.

Considering they live in a solitary spot, the cows overeat, and their personal infinite can become extremely dirty and unsanitary. In improver to their poor living conditions, the cows oftentimes do non receive proper veterinarian care, causing them to pass away prematurely.

Not only are most cows mistreated during their lifetimes, merely the stop production that humans swallow can be merely as unhealthy. Because beefiness is shipped all over the world, it is loaded with preservatives to keep it edible and chemicals for added flavor.

How Do You Know If It's Really Grass-Fed Beef?

By constabulary, it is required for fast nutrient chains to label the ingredients in their foods. However, these labels are ofttimes misleading, making it seem as though the beefiness is entirely grass-fed and organic. The United States Department of Agriculture has a defined set of meat and poultry labels to assistance decode what fast food labels mean and answer questions like "Does 'natural' mean 'raised without hormones'?" and "If craven is labeled 'fresh,' how can it exist and so rock hard?"

Who Uses Grass-Fed Beef?

While the fast food manufacture is moving towards healthier, less processed ingredients, there are few restaurants that actually apply grass-fed beef to make their burgers, burritos, and other dishes. Information technology'southward common for fast food places to throw out terms like "all-natural," "low-fatty," and "farm fresh," but few of those taglines are genuinely true.

Chipotle

Fast Food Beef – Who Uses Grass Fed Beef | Chipotle | FastFoodMenuPrices.comChipotle gets a bad rap a lot of the time, from its E.coli outbreaks to its GMO-gratuitous promotions. Regardless of what people think, the beef on the Chipotle carte is truly grass-fed and comes from Australia. According to Chipotle manager, Steve Ells "The meat produced by these ranchers is 'grass-fed' in the truest sense of the term: The cattle spend their entire lives grazing on pastures or rangelands, eating only grass or forages (by definition, forages are hay and grass–corn is not fodder). It meets or exceeds the husbandry standards set forth by the American Grassfed Association, not to mention all of the protocols we apply to our domestic Responsibly Raised beef. The cattle are raised without added hormones, antibiotics or growth promotants past ranchers committed to humane animal husbandry."

 Height Burger

Fast Food Beef – Who Uses Grass Fed Beef | Elevation Burger | FastFoodMenuPrices.comAnother restaurant that seemingly has a better reputation than Chipotle anduses grass-fed beef is Elevation Burger. "Elevating the typical burger articulation standards," this chain claims to apply 100% organic, grass-fed, complimentary-range beefiness. While it's a smaller, newer fast food franchise founded in 2002, it has grown into an international success.

BurgerFi

Fast Food Beef – Who Uses Grass Fed Beef | BurgerFi | FastFoodMenuPrices.comFounded in Florida, BurgerFi is considered a "fast-casual" eatery, offering grass-fed beef burgers, also equally craven and veggie burgers and natural-beef hot dogs. Now, BurgerFi is a national chain that continues to grow and heighten standards for fast food beefiness.

Boosted Options If You Tin can't Notice Grass-Fed Beefiness

Clearly, most fast food joints exercise non employ grass-fed beef or any variation of it. Instead, most use conventional beef which tends to be loaded with chemicals, preservatives, and hormones – AKA, it'southward awfully unhealthy for humans and the animals the meat comes from. If you are unsure near the ingredients in the beef, information technology is a prophylactic alternative to choose card items that are meat-free, like vegetarian and vegan options.

Check out these pinnacle-selling vegetarian options.