Beef
Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (Bos taurus). Beef can be prepared in various ways; cuts are often used for steak, which can be cooked to varying degrees of doneness, while trimmings are often ground or minced, as found in most hamburgers. Beef contains protein, iron, and vitamin B12. Along with other kinds of red meat, high consumption is associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer and coronary heart disease, especially when processed. Beef has a high environmental impact, being a primary driver of deforestation with the highest greenhouse gas emissions of any agricultural product.
For other uses, see Beef (disambiguation).
In prehistoric times, humankind hunted aurochs and later domesticated them. Since that time, numerous breeds of cattle have been bred specifically for the quality or quantity of their meat. Today, beef is the third most widely consumed meat in the world, after pork and poultry. As of 2018, the United States, Brazil, and China were the largest producers of beef.
Some religions and cultures prohibit beef consumption, especially Indic religions like Hinduism. Buddhists and Sikhs are also against animal slaughtering, but they do not have a wrongful eating doctrine.
Etymology
The word beef is from the Latin word bōs,[1] in contrast to cow which is from Middle English cou (both words have the same Indo-European root *gʷou-).[2] After the Norman Conquest, the French-speaking nobles who ruled England naturally used French words to refer to the meats they were served. Thus, various Anglo-Saxon words were used for the animal (such as nēat, or cu for adult females) by the peasants, but the meat was called boef (ox) (Modern French bœuf) by the French nobles — who did not often deal with the live animal — when it was served to them.
This is one example of the common English dichotomy between the words for animals (with largely Germanic origins) and their meat (with Romanic origins) that is also found in such English word-pairs as pig/pork, deer/venison, sheep/mutton and chicken/poultry (also the less common goat/chevon).[3] Beef is cognate with bovine through the Late Latin bovīnus.[4] The rarely used plural form of beef is beeves.[5]
History
People have eaten the flesh of bovines since prehistoric times; some of the earliest known cave paintings, such as those of Lascaux, show aurochs in hunting scenes.[6] People domesticated cattle to provide ready access to beef, milk, and leather.[7] Cattle have been domesticated at least twice over the course of evolutionary history. The first domestication event occurred around 10,500 years ago with the evolution of Bos taurus. The second was more recent, around 7,000 years ago, with the evolution of Bos indicus in the Indian subcontinent. There is a possible third domestication event 8,500 years ago, with a potential third species Bos africanus arising in Africa.[8]
In the United States, the growth of the beef business was largely due to expansion in the Southwest. Upon the acquisition of grasslands through the Mexican–American War of 1848, and later the expulsion of the Plains Indians from this region and the Midwest, the American livestock industry began, starting primarily with the taming of wild longhorn cattle. Chicago and New York City were the first to benefit from these developments in their stockyards and in their meat markets.[9]
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
1,047 kJ (250 kcal)
0 g
0 g
5.887 g
6.662 g
0.485 g
Quantity
Quantity
Quantity
58 g
