Can you actually taste the difference between US and Australian beef?
 

Can you actually taste the difference between US and Australian beef?

Thanks!

Yes (and no). Australian beef is mostly grass fed and not fattened up on a feed lot. This accounts for much of the taste difference. It is also less fat, and tougher. I happen to prefer it. Some specialty ranchers in the US do sell US beef that is raised and finished the same way, and it tastes much like Australian beef. However this kind of US beef is less than 1% of the market and hard to find (and 5x the price of Australian beef). Argentinian beef is markedly better than Australian or US beef (there I suspect it is a genetic difference along with the growing conditions).

I can not tell difference with australian but with Argentine beef it is easy to tell the difference it is so much better.....and less expensive

I prefer U.S. beef to Argentine beef. Argentine beef, to me, tastes gamey. I don't recall eating beef in Australia; too busy eating fresh seafood.

I definitely can tell the difference between AU and US milk.

Perhaps my palate isn't refined enough, but I've never tasted a difference in beef I've had in ANY country whether it be Australia, Argentina, GB, US, Canada, wherever.

...now let's talk about BEER. There a difference THERE. :D

On a similar note, visited west coast of the US last week and ate in what I thought were pretty good restaurants including Michael's in LA and Bouchon in Vegas. Had US steak in both I believe and although they were cooked perfectly, it lacked flavour.

Maybe its the legacy of mad cow or what my taste buds are used to, but I think UK beef has more beefy flavour

Scottish beef is quite famous for its flavour (and it is better than US beef as the proportion of Angus genes is low even in beef allowed to be sold in the US as Angus). Some French beef is also excellent but very expensive. It is possible to get similarly good US-grown beef, but very difficult and most restaurants do not bother. Also as this thread has illustrated, lots of people neither notice nor care about this difference, so the restaurants could not recoup their extra cost in provisioning primo beef with flavour. Instead they go for texture and tenderness (not taste).

US beef is more tender and tasty. European beef is sort of stringy and bland (but can be just as good as American, and vice versa).

I sure can taste the difference between US/Canada Beef and Australian Beef. No joke about it. I was raised on/and still live on a Canadian ranch. ;)

Sanosuke!

FYI, I believe Trader Joe's sells Australian filet mignon at $16 a pound.

Buy US beef over Australian, just a better all round eating experince, but rush to get Australian lamb over the American product