Our Cattle in Argentina
"What kind of cattle do you raise in Argentina...at the ranch?" asked a friend in Vancouver.
"Well, there are three types of cattle," we explained. "There are feed lot cattle...which are fattened up on grain. And there are grass fed cattle - which Argentina is famous for. But I've got sand-fed beef."
"Sand fed?"
"Yeah, it's pretty dry up there. Every time I go up I wonder what they eat. It hasn't really rained in two years. I see almost no grass. I figure they must eat sand. We've got a lot of that..."
"What do they look like?"
"They're brown and very skinny."
"They don't sound very appetizing..."
"They're not...almost too tough to eat. But they have one big advantage.
"What's that?"
"Very low cholesterol.
"Yes, it's a selling point. Sand-fed beef is very low in cholesterol. And fat. And everything else. Calories too. It's low-cal beef. We were thinking of calling it 'zero beef.' But we decided on 'sand-fed' instead."
"Is it good...? Do people come back for more?"
"Not very often. They can usually only eat one steak. It wears their teeth down so much."
Until tomorrow,
Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia
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About the Author
Best-selling investment author Bill Bonner is the founder and president of Agora Publishing, one of the world's most successful consumer newsletter companies. Owner of both Fleet Street Publications and MoneyWeek magazine in the UK, he is also author of the free daily e-mail The Daily Reckoning.
Comment by Tony Hansen on 29 July 2009:
Bill, I remember beef like that at boarding school...way, way back.