By Karen Binder
Illinois Correspondent

BUNCOMBE, Ill. — A balanced “eat organic” diet is not just vegetables; there’s plenty room for beef, too.

Just ask Josh Buchheit, owner of Lick Creek Beef, an organic beef farm in Union County in deep southern Illinois. He and his wife, Andrea, typically have lines of people at their booth at the Carbondale Farmers’ Market each Saturday, demanding more of the high-quality beef.

From a small white freezer trailer, Buchheit stores the same cuts of freshly butchered beef that are commonly found in supermarkets, except they are frozen and packaged in durable, vacuum-sealed packages.

So what’s the difference between Buchheit’s skirt steaks and ground round and those found at Kroger’s? He produces his meat using organic and environmentally sustainable practices. He raises grass-fed and grass-finished beef, and has sought to go above and beyond the USDA’s National Organic Program requirements, although his farm is not currently “certified organic.”

“There’s a lot of politics involved in going ‘certified organic’’ lots of politics and lots of money,” Buchheit said.

He added that word-of-mouth advertising has been crucial to their marketing since the “organic” label is informal: “Really, there are farmers all over who are raising livestock and growing produce organically, although they’re not certified. Their reputation for delivering a quality product is all they need.”

Relationships play an important role to Lick Creek Beef, whether Buchheit is talking to other like-minded farmers or connecting with the consumer directly. Each leg of communication helps strengthen the sustainability of his business, he says.

It is a goal of Buchheit’s to create a superior product, and he believes raising animals from start to finish has advantages. It allows a farmer to have complete control over the quality of their meat, ranging from the type of food the animals eat or whether or not the animal will be injected with growth hormones or antibiotics.

Raising the animals also allows Buchheit to breed selectively, picking the characteristics that make for better animals from generation to generation, which in turn produce a higher-quality meat. Admittedly such practices take time and patience. Buchheit has been carefully breeding his cattle since 1994.

“Taste is important, and we believe that some marbling is important for a good quality steak,” he said. “We’re breeding to achieve that perfect balance.” It’s quite an investment, but one that these progressive farmers are more than willing to make.

He encourages anyone to test-taste “organic” beef to compare. And if that’s not enough, he pointed out that his meat does stack up better, nutritionally speaking, than grain-fed beef.

Most cattle are “grain-finished,” which often means the animals are bulked up with protein-enhanced grain feed for the last few weeks or months leading up to slaughter. While this quickly adds weight to the animal, it also infuses the meat with more saturated fat.

He raises about 50 head a year and controls the environment so the cows feed only on high-quality forage which is free from chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides.

The livestock also have never been given antibiotics, hormones or any other growth stimulant.

Grass-fed meat, is naturally leaner and lower in cholesterol, he said. It also contains higher levels of heart healthy Omega-3 fatty acids, as well as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which is known to reduce the risk of heart disease and even slow some types of cancer.

Regarding beef, the grass-fed variety can vary in flavor and fat content depending on several factors, including the cattle breed, the farmer’s practices, and the individual eating habits of the cow itself.

The rest depends on diners’ preferences and nutritional goals. If the priority is a more stringent low-fat diet, then grass-fed steak with less marbling are a good option. Likewise, choosing a well-marbled (higher fat-content) steak will result in a richer flavor and more calories, though all the Omega-3’s and CLA are all there, too.

Lick Creek Beef uses local butchers to process and dry age their meat, which Buchheit said helps impart tenderness and depth of flavor.

The meats are then frozen and brought to market.

For more information, contact the Lick Creek Beef Home Store, 75 S. Lick Creek Road Buncombe, at 618-967-6452 or at www.lickcreekbeef.com