Welcome back to the Better Beef Podcast. Just ahead, we have Kaid Panek and he chats with registered dietitian, Emma Smith about beef's role in your diet. In this episode, Emma explains that diet guidelines are revised every five years and shape not only public recommendations but also institutional programs such as school lunches, senior meal programs, and daycares. While headlines emphasize a return to “real” and less processed foods with an inverted food pyramid graphic, she notes that the core message—fewer ultra-processed foods and less added sugar—has been consistent for years. Recent changes include increased recommended protein intake and some adjustments to fat recommendations, though these guidelines are designed for the generally healthy population rather than individuals with specific conditions. 

The discussion explores food deserts and the practical challenges of accessing fresh, minimally processed foods in both rural and urban contexts. Emma illustrates how distance, transportation, price disparities, and neighborhood infrastructure can force reliance on ultra-processed options, even for people who want to eat “closer to the ground.”

On beef specifically, Emma acknowledges modest nutritional differences between grass-finished and grain-fed beef, particularly in omega-3 content and fatty acid ratios, but emphasizes that affordability, values, and access should guide consumer choices. She encourages focusing on overall dietary patterns rather than moralizing individual foods, recommending leaner cuts for everyday consumption while reserving richer options for special occasions.

The conversation also critiques marketing language such as “natural” and “antibiotic-free,” highlighting how labels can mislead consumers and exploit limited nutrition knowledge. Emma encourages more transparency and education from the beef industry, including honest discussion of antibiotics, environmental impact, and continual efforts to improve practices. Both host and guest conclude that progress lies in nuanced communication, realistic guidance, and helping consumers make the best choices possible within their own circumstances rather than framing decisions as simply right or wrong.

For previous episodes of the Better Beef Podcast, please visit:  www.americancattlemen.com.

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Welcome back to the Better Beef Podcast. Just ahead, join host Kaid Panek as he sits down and chats with Dr. Temple Grandin, professor of animal science at Colorado State University and a pioneering figure in livestock handling and animal welfare. 

Dr. Temple Grandin recounts starting her career in Arizona feedyards in the 1970s, where cattle handling was extremely rough despite generally good living conditions. Early on, she believed equipment design alone could solve welfare problems, but experience taught her that management commitment is equally essential. She emphasizes that top leadership at plants, feedyards, and ranches must fully back low-stress handling or poor practices will persist.

A major turning point came when Temple trained corporate buyers from McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s to use a simple, objective scoring system to audit meatpacking plants. With clear, attainable metrics for stunning efficacy, slipping and falling, use of electric prods, and incidents of abuse, plants understood exactly what was required to remain approved suppliers. Most facilities improved rapidly with basic changes such as non-slip flooring, documented maintenance on stunning equipment, and better supervision. Temple notes she deliberately avoided pushing expensive new equipment, instead focusing on repairing and optimizing existing systems to avoid conflicts of interest.

She describes publishing her guidelines, diagrams, and handling principles openly on her website and in books to accelerate change across the industry. Temple stresses foundational concepts like flight zone and point of balance, and the importance of correct group sizes in handling systems, along with ongoing monitoring so standards do not erode over time.

Later in the conversation, Temple shifts to emerging concerns about genetics, including hoof defects and congestive heart failure linked to indiscriminate selection for rapid weight gain. She highlights the need to cull problematic genetics and points to tools such as Angus hoof scoring charts as practical ways to refocus breeding on soundness and long-term animal well-being. Overall, Temple sees cattle handling as vastly improved but warns that continuous training, maintenance, and genetic responsibility are now critical priorities.

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Welcome back to Better Beef. Today Kaid Panek and geneticist Dr. Lane Giess, focused on practical cattle genetics, crossbreeding strategy, and the evolving role of data in the beef industry. Giess begins by outlining his background growing up in a South Devon seedstock operation, his long-running involvement with the National Western Stock Show, and his academic path through Kansas State University and Colorado State University. He explains how early exposure to livestock judging, meat judging, and seedstock marketing classes shaped his interest in genetics, structure, and economically relevant traits, eventually leading to graduate work on feet and leg soundness and a PhD project on multi-breed heifer pregnancy within the IGS system. 

Giess describes how his family’s program transitioned from primarily purebred South Devons to composite bulls designed for commercial cow-calf producers seeking practical heterosis and breed complementarity. He explains why they no longer pull their very best yearling bulls out of contemporary groups for shows, noting that altered management skews performance data and weakens genetic evaluations. Throughout, he emphasizes the production-first philosophy: cattle must look the part, but performance and data are non-negotiable.

A major portion of the discussion covers heterosis and crossbreeding. Giess quantifies hybrid vigor in terms of added weaning weight and highlights the often-overlooked maternal benefits in fertility, longevity, calf vigor, and adaptability. He reviews the historical “wrecks” from early continental crossbreeding and how that legacy still shapes producer attitudes. He then explains how three-breed composite systems can deliver maximum heterosis and breed complementarity while simplifying replacement female management.

The conversation moves into modern genetic tools, including EPDs, genomically enhanced evaluations, and private versus association-run genetic systems. Giess outlines the economic payoff of DNA testing, the increased accuracy for yearling bulls, and why some large integrated operations are building their own proprietary evaluations. He closes by stressing the importance of selection indexes that weight multiple economically relevant traits, the need to balance phenotype with performance, and the role of improved feed efficiency in both profitability and sustainability.

Dr. Lane Giess Better Beef

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This episode of the Better Beef Podcast features veterinarian Dr. Grace Majors, a recent graduate of Washington State University who has returned to practice in her rural home community. The conversation focuses on the realities of rural mixed animal practice, the transition from veterinary school to real-world work, and the challenges of building producer trust as a young large-animal vet. 

Dr. Grace Majors describes deciding on veterinary medicine in high school and gaining early experience by shadowing at the clinic where she now works. She outlines the intensity of veterinary school, comparing it to “drinking from a fire hose,” with three years of didactic coursework covering multiple species, followed by a clinical year. She contrasts non-tracking programs like Washington State, which require broad training across species, with tracking schools such as Colorado State, where students can focus on specific areas like small animal or equine.

A major theme is the difficulty of stepping into the role once held by a highly trusted, long-practicing rural veterinarian. Dr. Majors explains that producers often compare her to the retired vet, assuming his outcomes were always successful and holding her to a near-zero margin for error. She emphasizes that the medicine can be learned, but building trust with cattle producers—especially as a 26-year-old woman in a traditionally older, male-dominated environment—is the hardest part.

She and the host explore the importance of communication, honesty about limits, and the willingness to seek mentorship. Dr. Majors shares candid stories about complex cases, including a challenging surgery on a steer and the emotional weight of outcomes that are influenced by timing, producer decisions, and biological unpredictability. She stresses that prevention and management changes often matter more than “magic bullet” treatments, highlighting the value of producer education on issues like scours, respiratory disease, and breeding soundness.

Throughout the conversation, Dr. Majors frames rural veterinary work as a service-minded profession grounded in community, food-chain responsibility, and a sense of greater purpose beyond financial reward.

For previous episodes of the Better Beef Podcast, please visit:  www.americancattlemen.com.

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Welcome back to Better Beef, powered by American Cattlemen Media. Today Kaid sits down with Chef Pete to discuss Beef in restaurants. 

Chef Pete recounts growing up in a crowded home, pushed toward construction by his father, a tradesman who saw building as the safest path. After realizing on his first day doing concrete that this wasn’t his future, Pete took a winding road that included trouble with the law and time in prison. There, watching people create surprisingly impressive meals from extremely limited ingredients, he discovered how deeply food and creativity spoke to him. That realization set him on a path into professional kitchens, where he treated every job as a paid internship and never stopped learning.

He explains how corporate restaurant work gave him stability, but it was in European-style kitchens like Cafe Tuscano in Pocatello that his craft truly took shape. Mentors such as Jason Spence and Dave Miller drilled in fundamentals, discipline, and the importance of “kitchen language”: clear communication, respect for the entire brigade, and special appreciation for dishwashers as the backbone of service. A later move to Arizona’s highly competitive dining scene tested his skills and proved just how prepared he really was.

Returning to Idaho, Pete eventually connected with Carol, an investor from Boston with restaurant experience, who quietly “scouted” him before deciding he was the chef to build Rogue with. Pete insisted on owning the menu, designing the kitchen, and fully committing to the vision—so fully that he tattooed the restaurant’s name on his forehead as a promise he wasn’t going anywhere.

The episode explores his approach to sourcing and preserving ingredients in Idaho’s harsh winters, transforming budget cuts like chuck into refined dishes through salt-curing, braising, and careful temperature control. Pete also unpacks the science and emotion of umami and MSG and shares his long-term dream of creating a “new world cuisine” rooted in Native American and indigenous foodways. He closes by offering aspiring chefs honest advice about low pay, long hours, doubt from others, and why total dedication to the craft is still worth it.

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In this episode of the Better Beef Podcast, host Kade Panek sits down with Kyle, known across social media as the former Unhinged Rancher and now the Unruly Rancher. Many recognize his unfiltered rants, wild cow-tagging clips, and potbelly pig chaos, but this conversation focuses on the far larger part of his life that never makes it to the screen. 

Broadcasting from west central Kansas, “out in BFE” between Oakley and Scott City, Kyle manages a 1,200-head corporate cow-calf operation largely on his own. He shares his unlikely path to that responsibility, starting with a rough upbringing in northwestern South Dakota, a stint in Job Corps in Ogden, Utah, and a string of jobs in welding, oil fields, gas stations, and fast food. The story leads to his arrival in Kansas with everything he owned in the back of a behind-on-payments pickup, stepping into a newly purchased ranch where an entire herd’s survival would depend on him.

Kade and Kyle dig into the reality of calving out 1,200 cows mostly solo, from brutal blizzards and loading trucks with calf carcasses to 14–16 hour days and tagging more than 100 calves in a single stretch. Kyle explains how corporate ranching actually operates, with tight budget oversight, feed and mineral bids, and regular reporting, and contrasts that with public ideas of “factory farming.” He also breaks down why “waspy” cows are often kept in the herd and how reading cow body language—particularly the silent, locked-on “Mickey Mouse ears” look—can mean the difference between a close call and a serious injury.

The conversation also covers the origin of the Unhinged Rancher's viral salt block shot video, filmed with a well-used salt block and a bottle of tequila, and the surprising responses it generated. Kyle reflects on how social media began as a joke, evolved into an alter ego and a platform, and opened doors to new opportunities, including speaking engagements. Along the way, he is candid about past trouble with the law, hitting rock bottom, and rebuilding his life through relentless work and ranching.

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