Lance_Krueger
03-18-2003, 11:30 AM
I was talking to one of the techies yesterday at the Texas Beef Council, trying to find a source of beef heart with no hormones. I have been noticing some extra long fin growth in many of my discus (most of the males, and even some of the females have rather long streamers on their dorsal, and even some tail fins look like veiltails), which I think is attributable to growth hormones in cattle.
He asked me why I wanted to use beef heart, as it had so much connective tissue in it compared to other cuts of beef. He said that any kind of meat that is required to expand (like the heart, skirt steak (aka fajitas), diaphram, etc.) all have large amounts of connective tissue to allow that muscle to expand and contract. He said that he thought something like round steak would be better, since it has little connective tissue. I told him I really didn't know why, but I thought the following reasons were why beef heart was what many discus keepers used:
1). It's the cheapest cut of meat there is: 99 cents per pound at the supermarket, or $1.99 per pound for organically grown.
2). When trimmed, it will contain no marbling of fat, and will give you a pure chunk of red beef.
3). Since we grind it up, and run it through a food processor, I didn't think connective tissue would matter that much since the grinding process would break up the connective tissues.
Are there other reasons, that I didn't list? Is there something about the amount of protein or other nutrients in beef heart that makes it more desirable to feed to discus over other parts of a cow? I have heard that one guy uses ribeye instead of beefheart, but I would think this would be really marbled with fat.
Another bit of interesting information he gave me is that all cattle, whether organically grown (i.e. pasture fed) or hormoned (i.e. feed lots) all have growth hormones. Organically grown cattle have it naturally, as God designed them. He said that they can only give cattle a certain amount of growth hormones in the feedlots, and it is only a difference of a few nanograms (I don't remember the exact numbers but could call him back). He wasn't so sure that getting organically grown beef heart would make that much difference, but he said that in an animal the size of a discus, it could make a difference, compared to a human.
Any thoughts?
Lance Krueger
He asked me why I wanted to use beef heart, as it had so much connective tissue in it compared to other cuts of beef. He said that any kind of meat that is required to expand (like the heart, skirt steak (aka fajitas), diaphram, etc.) all have large amounts of connective tissue to allow that muscle to expand and contract. He said that he thought something like round steak would be better, since it has little connective tissue. I told him I really didn't know why, but I thought the following reasons were why beef heart was what many discus keepers used:
1). It's the cheapest cut of meat there is: 99 cents per pound at the supermarket, or $1.99 per pound for organically grown.
2). When trimmed, it will contain no marbling of fat, and will give you a pure chunk of red beef.
3). Since we grind it up, and run it through a food processor, I didn't think connective tissue would matter that much since the grinding process would break up the connective tissues.
Are there other reasons, that I didn't list? Is there something about the amount of protein or other nutrients in beef heart that makes it more desirable to feed to discus over other parts of a cow? I have heard that one guy uses ribeye instead of beefheart, but I would think this would be really marbled with fat.
Another bit of interesting information he gave me is that all cattle, whether organically grown (i.e. pasture fed) or hormoned (i.e. feed lots) all have growth hormones. Organically grown cattle have it naturally, as God designed them. He said that they can only give cattle a certain amount of growth hormones in the feedlots, and it is only a difference of a few nanograms (I don't remember the exact numbers but could call him back). He wasn't so sure that getting organically grown beef heart would make that much difference, but he said that in an animal the size of a discus, it could make a difference, compared to a human.
Any thoughts?
Lance Krueger