Grass Fed Ground Beef tastes Fishy?

#1

I just tried grass fed beef for the first time. I bought a package of grass fed ground beef from Aldi, 1 pound for $4.99. It’s from Australia/Uraguay and/or USA.

It’s only 85/15% so it was a bit dry for a hamburger patty. I normally eat 70/30 corn fed beef.

Anyways, I bit into it and I swear it had a subtle fishy taste to it. Does anyone else experience this with grass fed beef or maybe this brand in particular? I guess I should try another brand. I do have 3 more 1 pound packages of this stuff to go through… I’ll see if other packages taste any different.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #2

Fishy is not a taste one associates with beef, unless you’re chowing down on surf n turf. Otherwise, something you probably don’t want to eat has found a new home in your hamburger. :nauseated_face:

(mole person) #3

Yes, grass fed beef can have a slightly fishy taste. It’s the higher levels of Omega 3 fatty acids that impart this flavour. If you buy “omega 3” eggs you will notice the same thing. My husband cannot tolerate the taste of them for this reason.

Do a google search of grass fed beef and fishy taste. You will get plenty of hits of people making the same complaint and this same answer. There is nothing unhealthy about it. It tastes"fishier" than grain fed beef because the fatty acid ratio of 3:6 is much closer to that of fish and this has an impact on the taste.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #4

@Ilana_Rose Thank you. Years ago I ate a lot of ‘grass fed’ meat, not beef though. Moose and my own goats. Did not taste fishy. Maybe they didn’t have PUFAs. I’m going to buy some ‘Omega 3’ eggs next time to find out what you’re talking about.

(mole person) #5

@amwassil I find the taste pretty mild and inoffensive in grass fed beef myself. It’s stronger in the eggs where they are actively trying to maximize the Omega 3 levels.

(Bob M) #6

Supposedly, ruminants and pigs and the like only get PUFAs if we feed PUFAs to them. If a cow or pig or lamb is primarily grass-fed (and supposedly pigs will eat grass), they will have low PUFAs, and be higher in O3. I’ve read of people getting ratios near 1:1 or 2:1 O6:O3 (or is it the other way around, O3:O6?) for grass-fed beef.

See this article for instance:

By the way, I went to Aldi’s and couldn’t find the grass-fed beef. Is it frozen (where I forgot to look)?

#7

My BF picked it up for us, not sure where he found it in the store. Sometimes they are out of stock I hear. Here is a photo of it. It wasn’t frozen.

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(Bob M) #8

Thanks. I’ll have to look for that next time I go to Aldi’s.

#9

The hamburger I fried up was a bit dry with this lean stuff. I guess I might try working in a little grass fed butter into the meat before frying next time to see if that helps… never did that before. As I mentioned above, I usually use 70/30 corn fed ground beef.

(Bob M) #10

I can’t find more than 20% fat where I am. That’s usually what I buy.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #11

I eat Australian grass fed ground beef pretty regularly and I haven’t ever noticed a fishy taste. I have seen another thread here a while back about the same thing.

As far as the leaner beef being dry I tried the method @Ilana_Rose posted on her thread a while back about baking the meat at low temperature, around 140F while frozen for about 2 hours. I get 80/20 which is the fattiest grass fed ground beef I’ve seen. Almost no fat was rendered, it was cooked but very pink, really delicious and not dry. I’ve done it twice now and I am sold, this is awesome and the way I cook it now. I did give it a light coating of oil and salted it before baking. You can give it a sear afterwards if you like. :cowboy_hat_face:

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #12

I had never heard of that diet. Good thing I didn’t find it before keto. I’m a sucker for croissants. But I have a rule, never eat them outside of France. :joy::rofl::joy:So they are very limited, I haven’t had one in years.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #13

You and I just don’t have a sophisticated enough palate to get it, David! :crazy_face:

(Bunny) #14

Probably because there are more vitamins in it and the omega 3 to 6 ratios are properly balanced?

That’s what natural grass fed or wild meat tastes like (fishy). Wild meat usually tastes like what ever the animal is eating (plants, forage, bugs, dirt).

They could be feeding your meat (livestock) some kind of marine life (ground up shells of crab, shrimp, lobster, sea weed, chlorella, algae)? Better than grass?

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #15

Maybe this:




(Bob M) #16

Supposedly, the “true” ones in France have a ton of butter in them. So, you’re getting a similar type of high-stearic-acid intake. Not as much as in that article, but close.

(Bob M) #17

How do you do this? You buy raw ground beef, then freeze, then cook? How do you know the interior is actually cooked?

When I make hamburgers, I sous vide them at 133 or so for 2.5+ hours. This ensures any pathogens are killed.

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #18

A meat thermometer should tell you that.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #19

I buy packages like this:

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Open it and I like to rub a thin coating of oil or fat, and a liberal salting. Put it in a ramekin like this and I do it in a countertop convection oven. On mine it’s the keep warm range. I have one of those cheap laser gun thermometers and get it around 140F and bake it for a couple of hours. The result comes out very close to sousvide except not wet in a bag of juice. It will be browned some on the outside, and quite medium rare all the way through like sousvide. Killing pathogens is a function of temperature and time. If it’s heated above 130F for a while the pathogens are killed. Anyway I think the long slow bake is safe, probably more than cooking a medium rare burger on the grill for sure. And I did that my whole life and never got sick. You’re just as likely to get listeria, salmonella or E. coli from romaine, spinach or sprouted seeds. And I don’t see people avoiding those raw. There can be fecal contamination in ground meats produced in meat plant environments, so you do have to be more cautious about cooking it enough.

Isn’t this basically the same thing that happens when you sousvide a burger at 133F for a couple of hours? I use sousvide too. I’ve just tossed the frozen package into a 132F water bath before too. I use frozen meat most of the time with sousvide. You can find adjusted times for frozen meat in the Joule app. :cowboy_hat_face:

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #20

I just ate two of these poached. I did not notice any ‘fishy’ flavour. The yolks were quite dark and nutritious looking! But just tasted like regular fresh eggs. Maybe I need to leave them on the counter at room temp for a couple days first?

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