Steak From Dairy Cows? It Could Be a Lifeline for American Farmers.

Letting milk cows graze longer can produce superior beef — a largely European practice that is now gaining ground in America.

Where’s the rib-eye? Someday soon it might be grazing on a dairy farm.

Meat from dairy cows, rarely valued in American kitchens and restaurants, usually becomes dog food and fast-food burgers. The farmer gets about 60 cents a pound. But selling it for steaks could get them $6 or more a pound, allowing struggling U.S. dairy farmers to profit from an approach that’s widely practiced in Europe — and used to be in the United States.

When mature dairy cows (about six years old) are allowed to pasture longer, their fat, which normally goes into milk, returns to the muscles and makes the meat richer and more tender. This is often done in Europe, notably in Portugal, Spain and parts of France. It’s generally not the practice in the United States, where most steaks come from grain-fed cattle that are slaughtered at about two years old.

But a few farms, including Mindful Meat in Marin County, Calif., and Butter Meat Company in Pavilion, N.Y., just west of the Finger Lakes, have been selling meat from culled dairy cows and convincing skeptics. The restaurant Blue Hill, on the grounds of the Stone Barns farm in Tarrytown, N.Y., began serving the farm’s dairy-cow beef last year in its dining room and cafeteria.