Tonatiuh Ranch’s All Natural Approach Benefits Cow and Consumer

TELLURIDE – It is a bit unfair to call the grilled to order beef that is sandwiched in a toasted, garlic oil-rubbed bun and garnished with red leaf lettuce, vine-ripened tomato, red onion, and a kosher pickle spear served at Allred’s a hamburger.

The word can conjure images of everything from suspicious blends of mystery meat doused in special sauce at fast food restaurants, to preformed food coma inducing patties slung at greasy spoon diners and withered lumps on backyard barbecues that resemble the charcoal briquettes over which they were flipped.

No, these are the poor cousins of the hamburgers served high on the ski mountain at Allred’s, which have been created by combining all the cuts from a single, locally-raised, grass-fed and pasture-finished cow. Cuts that would be destined to top menus in the pricey forms of filet mignon, porterhouse and New York strip in a kitchen belonging to someone other than executive chef Bob Scherner.

“It has such great beef flavor. Honestly, it’s probably one of the best burgers I’ve ever tasted,” he said.

But not only is the burger great tasting, it’s a burger you can eat with a clear conscience. The cow from which it came lived out its life just over Dallas Divide in Ridgway, where it roamed and grazed freely in picturesque pastures framed by the Sneffels and Cimarron ranges at Tonatiuh Ranch.

A new venture created by longtime locals Debby and Larry Wooddell, who left careers in investment banking to become fulltime Telluride residents in 1992, Tonatiuh Ranch is raising what you might call “green cows.”

“We’re trying to be eco-friendly, we’re doing things the old-fashioned way, said Debby Wooddell.

Old-fashioned – as in when cowboys rode horses to move cattle, not all-terrain vehicles, and before the advent of factory farming, she explained.

“When beef was good and healthy,” she said.

The couple bought the 269-acre ranch in 2004 and saw in it a chance to help meet the growing trend for grass-fed, pasture-finished beef. Their first herd was already grazing on the property when they purchased it separately from the land the same year.

“We saw an opportunity in the world with what’s going on,” Wooddell said. “People are much more health conscious; they’re also concerned about the origin of their food and we saw an opportunity to take advantage of that.”

Most cattle in this country begin their lives eating grass, but they spend their last few months confined to crowded feedlots where they are fed a diet of grain (primarily corn) in order to foster the fastest possible weight gain.

While the diet creates a well-marbled steak with a flavor Americans have become accustomed to, it is harmful to the animals.

“Perhaps the most serious thing that can go wrong with a ruminant on corn is feedlot bloat,” wrote author Michael Pollan in an article that appeared in The New York Times Magazine in 2002.

Corn also makes a cow’s normally pH neutral stomach acidic and can lead to a condition called acidosis.

“The condition can lead to diarrhea, ulcers, bloat, liver disease, and a general weakening of the immune system that leaves the animal vulnerable to everything from pneumonia to feedlot polio,” Pollan wrote.

This combination of crowded feedlot conditions and unsuitable diet has led to the extensive use of antibiotics in beef production.

In a 2006 report, the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit policy and advocacy organization that conducts independent scientific research, estimated that beef cattle were fed almost 1.5 million pounds of antibiotics used in human medicine for non-therapeutic purposes in 1998.

“Non-therapeutic antibiotic use in animals, combined with the overuse of antibiotics in human medicine, has contributed to the serious problem of antibiotic resistance around the world,” states the report, which compares the differences in total fat, saturated fat and four polyunsaturated fats in pasture-raised/grass-fed cattle in a meta-analysis of more than 270 studies.

The UCS report found that grass-fed steak and ground beef is almost always lower in total fat than a grain-fed counterpart. It also contains higher levels of the omega-3 fatty acids ALA, EPA and DHA and the omega-6 fatty acid CLA (conjugated linoleic acid – a collective term that refers to 20 close relatives of linoleic acid).

“ALA is known to be essential to the human diet, EPA and DHA definitely appear to reduce the risk of heart disease, and CLA shows promise in reducing the risk of certain diseases including cancer,” the report states. (However, some recent clinical research has indicated that high intakes of omega-6 fatty acids may have adverse effects such as a slower inflammatory response.)

These benefits weren’t lost on the Wooddells.

“We’re trying to raise beef that is the healthiest and most flavorful and as tender as possible,” said Wooddell.

Allred’s hamburgers began as a calf that was born on Tonatiuh Ranch in the spring of 2007.

“Everybody stays with momma,” Wooddell said. “In the fall everybody is weaned from momma.”

From there the cows graze freely on grass in local pastures. In the winter they head to warmer environs just north of Montrose where they feed on alfalfa hay.

When the weather warms up, the cattle return to Ridgway to roam the pastures until the inevitable day when they become dinner.

“It’s more expensive to raise grass-fed animals,” Wooddell said, explaining that it usually takes about 18 months to pasture-raise a cow. In addition to not being fed fattening grain, the animals do not receive the growth hormones and antibiotics used in commercial beef production.

Satisfied that the quality of the beef they were producing met their standards, this past fall the Wooddells began making it available to a small group of friends in quarters, halves and wholes for the first time.

Friends with Scherner for a number of years, the chef was one of the lucky few who received a phone call and he jumped at the chance to purchase a locally-raised, grass-fed, pasture-finished animal.

“It’s really kind of what I’m about,” he said.

It turned out that Scherner wasn’t the only one who was interested.

While the Wooddells expected they’d have demand for three or four cattle, in the end they processed 15.

Nonetheless, Tonatiuh Ranch is a small operation – which is why Scherner opted to turn a whole cow into hamburger meat rather than steaks.

“We can’t raise enough grass-fed [animals] to offer select cuts now,” said Wooddell. “In order for us to produce the volume [Scherner] needs we would have to be a much bigger operation.”

Expansion plans are in the works, but they will take some time.

“We wanted to start small,” in order to focus on quality, she explained.

Like conventionally raised cattle, “Sometimes things get too big too fast.”

Allred’s grass-fed/pasture-raised hamburgers ($18) are available during lunch (private members only) and après ski from 3 to 5 p.m.

For more information about Tonatiuh Ranch grass-fed/pasture-finished beef, contact Debby Wooddell at 970/249-4025 or hcp@frontier.net.