The beef on organic
Sedro-Woolley family ranch gets healthy, gets noticed

by Tara Nelson

Tell George Vojkovich that you don’t eat beef and he’s likely to say you just haven’t had the right kind.
That’s because the grass-fed beef George and his family is eating these days has less cholesterol and a higher nutritional content than a conventionally raised chicken breast, at least according to a handful of recent studies.
George, his wife Eiko, and their daughter Nicole, 12, run Skagit River Ranch, an organic beef raising operation on approximately 370 acres of riverfront property just east of Sedro-Woolley.
But what started as a major lifestyle change less than 10 years ago, has transformed his life and career, turning their small hobby farm into a full-time business that is gaining nationwide culinary attention.
It was 1996 when George suffered from an auricular fibrillation, an abnormal heart rhythm that landed him in Skagit Valley Hospital’s emergency room and a subsequent three-day stay, which later changed how he farmed entirely.
Vojkovich, who grew up fishing swordfish with his Yugoslavian grandfather off the coast of California’s Catalina Island, had spent many years fishing the Bering Sea, eating processed and packaged food along the way. So when doctors told Vojkovich he had a chemical sensitivity to substances either in his workplace or in his food, he was convinced his diet was the main culprit.
“Being casually around the hobby farm, I knew there were no chemicals in the workplace so it had to be my food,” he said. For six months after his hospital visit, Vojkovich became a vegetarian.
“We didn’t buy meat because we were scared to death,” he said. “It was a big change. I don’t eat corndogs from the gas station anymore or anything that’s deep fried, for that matter.”

Grass-fed benefits
When asked what brought him back to the “dark side,” he said it was when they discovered the health benefits of grass-fed, organic beef.
“We found out that if we raised the beef on grass, the fat had a one-to-one ratio of omega 3 to omega 6, the saturated fat that clogs the arteries,” he said. “Feedlot beef, meanwhile, is about 25- to 20-to-one saturated to unsaturated. That, and we found out grass fed beef was heart friendly.”
Indeed, a 2006 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that the average amount of omega-3 fatty acids in a serving of grass-fed steak is approximately 35 milligrams, compared to a serving of conventional steak, which has approximately 18 milligrams. A glass of pasture-raised milk had 80 milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids as compared to a glass of conventionally raised milk, which had approximately 55 milligrams.
The Vojkovichs will also tell you organic, grass-fed beef has a more alkaline pH than feedlot cattle, where a grain-based, high energy diet creates a fertile breeding ground for the potentially fatal 0157 strain of E-coli. Studies have determined that the digestive tract of a feedlot cow – one raised primarily on grain – has a more acidic environment, which has paved the way for a manmade acid-resistant strain of E-coli, he said.
“All bacteria used to die off in our digestive tract in the old days, but by raising the acidity of the animal, we’ve evolved this strain 0157, and by evolving that, it now survives in the acidity of a human’s gut, making it possible for an E-coli outbreak,” he said.
A study by USDA microbiologist James Russell found that switching a cow’s diet from conventional grain to green grass or hay reduced the slaughterhouse presence of the 0157 strain by as much as 70 percent.
And, in addition to being hormone and antibiotic free, George said their beef also contains the powerful cancer-fighting agents conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and trans-vaccenic acid (TVA), and is one-third to three times leaner than its grain-fed counterpart, according to Jo Robinson’s Pasture Perfect.
“The CLA only comes when you feed the animal live grass off the pasture,” he said. “The only other way is to artificially produce CLA and put it in the feed in a feedlot to have it show up in the animal’s fat.”

Small is beautiful
To the Vojkovich’s, the organic food movement represents a growing consumer distrust of government regulation and industry practices. A 2006 economic study by the USDA found that the U.S. organic food industry represents a nearly $7.8 billion market, with organic products now available in 20,000 natural food stores and more than 73 percent of conventional grocery stores, using figures from the Food Marketing Institute.
“A lot of consumers are kind of rebelling against agri-industrial businesses and, by doing so, they’re saying ‘I’m going back to local, sustainable, individual family farms where I know and trust the people who run it,’” he said.
Consumers less concerned with health benefits, however, may simply recognize the cleaner flavor and richer texture of Skagit River Ranch beef, which has attracted customers as far away as New York and Florida, as well as internationally known chefs such as Will MacNamara, executive chef of the Washington Athletic Club in Seattle, and Maria Hines, executive chef of Seattle’s Earth and Ocean restaurant, who was named one of the “Top 10 Best New Chefs” by Food and Wine magazine in 2005.
And, last year, the Vojkovich’s received a visit from Japanese ministry of agriculture officials, where they gave George a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “soil” and “health.”
“I still have that shirt because it didn’t fit; they didn’t have one big enough,” he said. “But the shirt said soil and health, in other words, healthy soil will produce a healthy food. The bottom of our food chain is the soil, the microbes in the soil are the bottom of the food chain, animals and us who live off that soil will be healthy. If that soil is sick, society will be sick, and it’s just that simple.”

Making it work
The Vojkovichs first received their organic certification from the Washington State Department of agriculture in 1998. To qualify for such certification, farms are required to meet strict guidelines that prohibit the use of chemical pesticides or herbicides, hormones, antibiotics or animal by-products; livestock must be born and raised on organic fields, fed organic grain and each animal must be certified. Add to that the expense of a USDA-certified organic mobile slaughter unit, and the price per pound is nearly five times of that of feedlot beef.
Once a year the Island Grown Farmer’s Cooperative (IGFC) mobile slaughter parks on the property along with a USDA inspector. Formed on Whidbey Island, the cooperative started when local cattle farmers recognized a lack of humane slaughtering facilities in the area.
But those high costs often make such an operation difficult.
“It’s tough because it takes more ground, more land and it’s more labor intensive,” he said. “That and we’re not government-subsidized. It costs us a little more than $500 to slaughter, process freeze and pack each animal, while the competition will run animals through at less than $100 per animal. It’s an economy of scale thing but we have the most humane method and a very clean method, not to mention, the slaughtering facility is certified organic.”
Organic certification also requires organic animal feed. George feeds his chickens a mix of organic whole grain, to which he adds his proprietary blend of kelp, flax seed, minerals and sea salt. The cost is three times higher than regular feed, but George said the health benefits for both his family and customers outweigh the initial costs.
“Our main customer is a housewife looking out for the welfare of the family,” he said. “My wife always makes sure we have the best and that’s what we run into all the time. It’s not just the hippie movement anymore. It’s people from all walks of life.”

Beyond organic
Although hormonal and antibiotic vaccinations are allowed within organic standards, the Vojkovichs opted to forgo them studying the formaldehyde and aluminum mold inhibitors in the vaccines. Instead, the couple uses grass, legume, herb pastures and organic mineral supplements including sea kelp to fortify their immune systems naturally.
Daily pasture rotation and a close working relationship with a soil consultant, helps break the parasite cycle while allowing the livestock to graze the most nutrient rich grass.
Eiko added: “There are three things that are very important to us. The first is sustainability; the farm has to be sustainable,” she said. “The second one is that the food has to have nutritional value, and the third tier involves humane treatment of animals. It sounds kind of foo-foo but we really do believe in it.”