Having a food blog definitely has its perks sometimes.  After hearing about this blog, my favorite new friend Genna generously offered to talk to her friends at US Wellness Meats and have them send over some meat.  In order to make things interesting we (Margaret, Eric, Yin, Steve, and I) decided to buy some meat equivalents (steaks, filet mignon, rib eye, ribs) at Whole Foods Market and have a blind taste test.

Before we get into the results of our taste test, here’s a little more about US Wellness Meats:

US Wellness Meats was founded by lifelong farmer John Wood.  Starting in 1997 John began raising animals on 100% forage diet and proved that tender and exquisite-tasting beef, lamb, bison, goat, and diary products can be produced simply by mimicking how buffalo grazed in North America for centuries.

In 1997, they harvested their first animal. Grass-fed from start to finish, it had been raised with all the principles of holistic land management and sustainability. And it was delicious. Even better, lab tests showed that the meat was high in all kinds of nutrients: omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin A, vitamin E, CLA, and other nutrients that just don’t show up in grain-fed, feedlot cattle.

In 2000, US Wellness Meats as we now know it was born. Today, the company is a thriving family-owned business still run by its founding families. Their grass-fed beef is recognized for its exceptional taste, quality and health benefits by chefs, health experts, professional athletes, and many others. In addition, US Wellness Meats has joined with like-minded small family farms across the country to expand its offerings to include grass-fed lamb, bison, and goat, as well as grass-fed butter and cheese, free-range poultry, honey, organic nuts, and other wellness products.

Interested in learning more about them?  I’ve found their FAQ page to be quite informative, and they have a sporadically updated blog and Twitter account:

• US Wellness Meats FAQ
• US Wellness Meats Twitter
• US Wellness Meats blog

Okay – as fun as it is to plug US Wellness Meats while at the same time creating the perfect post to dominate their own organic search ranking, let’s get to the fun stuff.

First off, I need to admit something… we’re idiots.  As I mentioned at the top somewhat lengthy post, we went to Whole Foods with the intent of buying the meat equivalents of what US Wellness Meats sent us. While we were able to buy matching filet mignon at Whole Foods, we accidentally purchased pork ribs instead of beef ribs.  Sadly, because of this goof up, the only thing that we could have a real blind taste test with to compare the two companies was the filet mignon steaks.

How were those ribs anyway?
Quite honestly, the ribs from both US Wellness Meats and Whole Foods were terrific.  Even though we knew that the ribs would taste a different since one was pork and the other beef, we still tried to perform an unscientific taste test.  While the pork ribs seemed to be a bit more natural for me to be eating (I don’t really order beef ribs when I go out to eat), I really felt like the BBQ sauce that the US Wellness Meats beef ribs came in put them over the top.  Moreover, the ribs from US Wellness Meats were meatier and everyone agreed that they were deliciously tender.

How about those beef sticks, chicken, and walnuts?
As you can see from the pictures below, US Wellness Meats sent us a few extra items in addition to the steak.  The beef sticks were decent, though I must warn you not to microwave them, as it kinda makes them taste a little weird.  We didn’t cook the chicken, but I can only imagine that their all-natural chicken would be better than those other chickens clucking around all hopped up on steroids and cornfeed.  Lastly, those 100% organic Totally Nutz walnuts were just about as good as organic nuts could be… even I enjoyed them.

Blind taste test, US Wellness Meats Vs. Whole Foods Market – best steak (filet mignon)
Now I’ll be the first to admit that we may have run our blind taste test as unscientifically as possible, however, I firmly stand by the conclusion that we came to in the end.  How did we run this taste test to find out which company has the best steak?  Simply by having Eric and Margaret assign letters to the two different steaks (steak A and steak B), cutting it up, and hand-feeding it to Steve and myself as we closed our eyes.  Like I said, real scientific.

Regardless of our method, both Steve and I both came to the same conclusion – the filet mignon from US Wellness Meats was noticeably more juicy, flavorful, and just overall more tasty than the equivalent piece of steak from Whole Foods. While I was originally a bit skeptical of the whole “grass-fed” cattle talk, I’m now a converted believer that grass-fed animals are that much more delicious than their grain-fed, feedlot brethren.

I honestly didn’t mean for this blogpost to end up as a commercial for US Wellness Meats, but the darn meat was just so good.  I suggest you go to their online store and try it yourself… and don’t forget to invite me over.

Thank you letter - U.S. Wellness Meats

filet mignon from U.S. Wellness Meats

uncooked filet mignon - U.S. Wellness Meats

beef sticks from U.S. Wellness Meats

beef short ribs from U.S. Wellness Meats

ground chicken from U.S. Wellness Meats

Totally Nutz Walnuts from U.S. Wellness Meats

Whole Foods Market - Chelsea, NYC

Whole Foods Market - filet mignon

Rib eye steak from Whole Foods Market

pork ribs from Whole Foods Market in Chelsea, NY

Whole Foods Market chicken sausage

preparing the rib eye steaks to be cooked

rib eye steaks being cooked

U.S. Wellness Meats ribs and Whole Foods Market ribs

U.S. Wellness Meats and Whole Foods Market filet mignon steaks cooking

filet mignon steaks almost finished cooking

US Wellness Meats and Whole Foods Market filet mignons cooked

a US Wellness Meats and Whole Foods Market meat party

Here’s a bonus video of our steaks sizzling: