Triple T's Story
Do you know where your food comes from? Do you know what it's fed, injected with, or what quality of life it experiences? We think you should. Our goal at Triple T Brand is to produce food that we feel good about feeding to ourselves, our children, and our customers – food that is grown responsibly, and not just sustainably, but regeneratively. According to God's brilliant design. We believe that there is a better way – a higher calling if you will – that our health truly depends on what we eat. Thats why we sell 100% Grassfed/Grass-Finished Beef that have been raised and finished using regenerative soil practices to ensure that you get healthy great tasting beef.
What are regenerative soil practices and why do they impact the food we eat? I am so glad you asked because I love talking about this! :)
There are 5 principles of soil health that we try to follow on our operation:
1.Limit Soil Disturbance- Anytime we plant a crop we use a no till drill that limits the amount of soil that is disturbed. This limited disturbance helps keep the biology under the top soil growing and thriving.
2.Armor On The Soil Surface- Whether we are combining a crop off of a field, or grazing a pasture or cover crop field we make every effort to leave as much plant residue on the field. This aids in keeping the soil temperatures in a good range and also acts as a mulch to hold moisture as well as protect the soil surface from driving rains that would typically wash the topsoil away. Another added benefit is weed suppression, this makes it so that we don't have to use near as much chemical when combatting weeds in the field. (Side note, we never spray any plants that our cattle graze on.)
3.Plant Diversity- This is where cover crops come in to play. Cover Crops are a seed mixture that is planted all together. We typically like to have several different plant species growing at once on as many of our fields as possible. Growing several different species of plants together their becomes a symbiotic relationship between the plants. As the plants begin to rely on each other, the biology beneath the soil begins to thrive as these plants pull in large amounts of carbon from the air and pump it into the soil. There are several more reasons why plant diversity is so important but I will sum it up by saying as the soil health increases the nutrient density of the plants increase. As the cattle eat these nutrient dense plants the nutrition is passed right on to us the consumer! We always plant a specific mixture to finish our animals on. These mixtures typically consists of plants like: Native Grass, Tame Grass, Sudan Grass, Millet, Annual Rye Grass, Oats, Cereal Rye, Alfalfa, Collards, Field Peas, Lentils, and Hairy Vetch just to name a few.
4.Keep Living Roots In The Soil- Like I said before we we have a crop that comes off of a field, we try our best to get a cover crop mix in the ground as soon as possible. If there is a living root in the ground the biology under the surface is happy and thriving. After years of doing this we are able to substantially cut fertilizer costs on our crop acres.
5.Integrate Animals- This is key for developing healthy soils, running our cattle on the cover crop acres is wonderful for the animals, but I would say its almost as good for the soil. When a plant is bitten or trampled the plant has to pull in much more carbon from the air and pumps it into the soil to attract the needed biology to repair the plant. We don't want to overgraze these plants but we do want to graze across them and move on. The animal herd also brings lots of beneficial insects, birds, and other wildlife that really helps to create a healthy functioning ecosystem.
In following these principles I hope you can see that the beef we sell is more than just raised on grass. It is raised in a way that not only ensures a healthy tasty product, but also helps to heal our ecosystem and eventually our planet.
It is my hope you feel encouraged by being here!
-Roy & Meredith