Should Wyoming Steaks Cost More?

We think expensive wine tastes better. We believe pretty packaging on dairy products imaged as coming from a picture book farm with fields of flowers and green grass is better for us. We also believe that free range beef tastes better than factory farm raised cattle and depending on what we are told, will form an opinion on the taste of the meat.

People told different stories about identical meat samples gave higher ratings to that which was said to come from bucolic farms with humane treatment over factory farm raised beef even when the samples were the same.

The meat samples in both conditions were identical. However, participants experienced the samples differently: meat paired with factory farm descriptions looked, smelled, and tasted less pleasant. Even basic properties of flavor were influenced: factory farmed samples tasted more salty and greasy. Finally, actual behavior was influenced: participants consumed less when samples were paired with factory farm descriptions. These findings demonstrate that the experience of eating is not determined solely by physical properties of stimuli—beliefs also shape experience.”

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Researchers found participants in their latest study tended to give poor marks to beef jerky samples when the food was paired with a fictional description of the animal's upbringing on factory farm. Even when descriptions said nothing of animal welfare, the inclusion of the words "factory farm" was sufficient to sully the eating experience.

 

Every day, 76 million Americans eat beef. Cattle are a $1.65 billion business in Wyoming with more than 97 percent of beef cattle farms and ranches are classified as family farms. With all of our wide open spaces, we have room to grow the best tasting steaks in the world.

 

If you think Wyoming raised beef is the best, it does. It could be the best branding of our cattle is that it’s from Wyoming. Should Wyoming Steaks Cost More?

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