[eeeeaaii]

Yes that is what they are supposed to be eating. Their digestive systems have evolved over millions of years to eat grass, and if they eat grass they will be healthier animals, and their meat will taste like real beef and not like tasteless cardboard. I pretty much stick exclusively to grass-fed beef. There are all these complex chemical compounds in grass that flavor the meat and give it rich and distinctive notes -- as the other commenter said, read Omnivore's Dilemma. The cattle are supposed to be able to walk around, too.

The reason it's not done is cost. Grass fed beef is easily twice as expensive as corn-fed beef. The cheapest way to raise cattle is to raise them in a CAFO, and feed them the cheapest possible feed, which has been corn for quite a long time. The farmer who is feeding his cattle candy is really just feeding them yesterday's corn, as most American candy is made from high fructose corn syrup. Walk into a supermarket sometime and count the number of products that use HFCS -- it's staggering. The price of corn going up is actually really big news -- if it's a sustained trend it's going to have a far-reaching impact on American agriculture.

[slurgfest]

I don't find that beef ever tastes like tasteless cardboard, unless it is cooked completely incorrectly.

Without arguing about whether grass-fed beef is tastier in general, I wonder if anyone has ever done a blind test to discover if the grass (you know, the complex compounds flavoring the meat) can actually be tasted in the beef by an ordinary person.

As you observe, not everyone can afford grass-fed beef.

[eeeeaaii]

I probably sound like a food snob, but when I'm thinking of beef that tastes like cardboard, I'm thinking of a Big Mac, for example. If you take all the condiments and just eat the beef only, it's pretty tasteless, IMO.

A lot of people say there is a taste difference, not just me. It's subtle though, your ordinary person may not notice or care. But I'm passionate about it because I'm big into food and I think the taste of grass fed is much better.