If, as the saying goes, happy cows come from California, then the cows from TX Bar Ranch in Northern California must be ecstatic. With years of experience under his belt, Tyler Martinez has built his ranch from the calf up. He founded and runs his business, in cooperation with his son, on a foundation of animal welfare and land conservation. The company has grown from a small ranch to one of the main suppliers of organic grass-fed beef to Whole Foods stores in the western US. TX Bar Ranch is now stepping out to share the benefit of Good Food with the community around them. We sat down with our Tyler to find out just what sets TX Bar’s meat apart.
An Interview with TX Bar Organics’ Tyler Martinez
What is the Global Animal Protection Partnership and why is it important for your farm to be a part of it?
TX Bar Ranch is a part of an organization called Global Animal Protection partnership, which was founded in 2008. GAP brings together those most closely involved in the lives of animals raised in the agricultural system – farmers, retailers, scientists and animal advocates – with the common goal of improving the welfare of the animals.
Their signature program, the 5-Step Animal Welfare Rating Standards, recognizes and rewards producers for their welfare practices. It promotes and facilitates continuous improvement and better informs consumers about the production systems they choose to support. As of June 29, 2012, 1,945 operations, raising more than 140 million animals annually, have been audited and certified to higher welfare Step Standards by independent, third party certification companies. And TX Bar is one of them.
Long before the Global Animal Partnership was founded, we were already practicing the humane treatment of our animals, so getting certified by GAP was a piece of cake. We knew that animals raised in a low stress environment were healthier and happier, resulting in a better quality product.
TX Bar makes land conservation a big priority. What’s the importance of conservation to the animal (and quality of meat) and to the land itself?
Studies show that cattle raised humanely on grass produce beef that is more nutritious. Cattle are ruminants – they are designed to eat grass, not grain. We raise cattle following the animal’s natural appetites and desire for free pasture. Our cows have the health benefits of a grass diet coupled with great taste and tenderness.
Raising organic beef cattle properly and ethically requires a commitment to sustainable farming practices, including careful management of delicate ecosystems and natural resources. We work to preserve local wildlife and plants and avoid overgrazing. Our commitment to a viable ranching industry and the environment goes well beyond our own cattle. We support conservations and sustainable ranching via our partnership with the California Range Land Trust. These carefully managed rangelands not only produce the finest beef in the world – they also provide a home for watersheds, wetlands and endangered species.
For every 20 lbs. of meat purchased through their online store, TX Bar donates 1 lb. of meat to a local charity. Why is giving back is so important to you?
TX Bar Organics believes in taking proper care of our family, land, and livestock, which allows us to make a positive impact on our community. We go to work every day and strive to make the world a better place with a “think global, act local” mentality. It’s the reason we exist, and the cause which leads our actions, it maintains our focus and helps us to achieve our goals.
If you are running a successful business and not giving back, it doesn’t feel right in my opinion. I think that the more successful you are, the more you should try to help others. I’m not going to be here forever so I would like to be remembered for helping others more than for my possessions. It all comes down to quality of life and it’s what we live for.
So where can our readers get the goods?
You can find meat from TX Bar’s happy, healthy cows in Whole Foods stores across the Western U.S., or order direct from the ranch at TXBarOrganics.com. Check out our awesome special packages, or just stock up on your favorite cuts!
A Special Bonus
We love to work with our favorite companies to score you some swag, and TX Bar is making a generous offer for our U.S. readers.
TX Bar is giving away a $100 gift certificate to their online store to one lucky reader. If you want to be entered to win, before 11:59 PM PST on Sunday, December 9th, you’ll need to:
- Like Whole9 AND TX Bar Organics on Facebook
- Leave a comment on this post to let us know how winning this prize could help you and your family this holiday season.
- We’ll pick a winner on Monday, December 10th, and announce the results on Facebook and in comments below.
Thank you to Tyler Martinez and TX Bar Organics for taking the time to share with our readers the importance of ethically-raised, responsibly farmed meat. Post questions or comments below, and we’ll make sure Tyler is on hand to answer them!
What a great treat! I’ll be liking TX Bar on Facebook to share with my fam and friends, but I’d like to forego entering the contest for the certificate.
We have a freezer full of pastured, grass fed local beef from a farm I never would have found if not for finding Whole9 and becoming so much more interested in the quality of our food and how the animals are treated.
It makes me very happy every time we learn about a new supplier of happy cows (or chickens or pigs or lambs). What an amazing holiday treat for whatever person you pick for the certificate. Which about summarizes how much Whole9 can change a person, that I think of meat as a treat!
I’ve liked them both on facebook. With that said, I LOVE TXBar Ranch’s meat, its so delicious! After trying grass-fed ground beef from H-E-B and a local farm, I ordered some TXBR when it was on special, and was blown away by the sweetness of the meat. I can’t believe they supply a major retailer like Whole Foods, I was under the impression that grocery store grass fed meat was bland and tasteless. Not so with this company! A $100 certificate would go a long way towards convincing the rest of my family to make the switch to grass-fed!
Done and Done! What a lovely holiday gift it would be to receive $100 off an order of sustainable grass fed beef for the holidays! Our expenses always go up a bit in the month of December and any bit extra helps
Winning this would make such a difference to my family this year! After years of digestive issues I have found huge relief and results through Whole30! While my extended family has adopted some practices, they are still slow to fully catch on. My goal this Christmas is to cook some delicious recipes for them that will show them “healthy” doesn’t mean tasteless. This gift card would really allow me to offer them not just healthy side dishes but a very healthy main dish as well.
Done!
Liked, and liked! I’m engaged to be married in April, and would love to get our small family unit on the path to more heathful eating during this stressful season of planning. Money is tight due to wedding planning and other life stressors right now, and the gift of $100 toward grass fed beef would be a real godsend.
We are returning to Texas after a summer and fall spent in Maine, where its been easy to find humanely raised grassfed meat. Winning this would help us get started with a reliable source of meat back home in Texas. Cheers!
Winning would help me save some money on groceries and will help offset the expense of me buying a plane ticket to go back to visit my family for Christmas
I would LOVE to win a gift certificate to TXBar Ranch! I’ve been following Whole9 nutrition guidelines for a couple months, but haven’t been able to budget for grass-fed protein (or convince my husband that it’s important). If I got him to try some, maybe he would go for it just on flavor! Also, I’ve been holding off on introducing my 8mo old to protein because I don’t really want him eating conventional meat. The gift certificate would allow me to get some products that I can really feel good about feeding him.
Liked both on FB!
Winning this would allow me to be able to feed my extended family quality meat which they never feel is important enough to buy themselves. It would help me give the ultimate gift of a healthy being through healthy food (at least for one day!).
I am on Day 14 of the Whole30 Challenge and it’s absolutely cured me of my sugar/stevia addiction – I’m also learning the importance of real foods and recently incorporating higher fat beef/meat in – this would really help move things along with making good choices with grass-fed and humane meat cuts!
I am planning on starting the Whole30 challenge on January 1! This would be awesome to help me!
With two little ones (4yrs and 11 mo) and a desire to give them only the very best, this would go a long way in acheiving that goal. Our local grocer doesn’t carry any grass-fed beef, so the only way to obtain quality meat is to order online.
Done! If I was to win this, I would save my mom some money this year when I cook for Christmas because I would supply the meat (not to mention that the quality of meat would be magnitudes better without any doubt).
What a great giveaway and product! Liked and liked
It would be such a great prize to win and I would be so grateful! Finding such great quality product is hard – especially living in a big city. For a recent college grad, this would truly help with my grocery budget this month! Thanks!
Thanks so much for this posting Whole9. And thank you as well to TX Bar Organics for this giveaway. The Whole 30 program has become a complete lifestyle change for me over the past year. I got terribly sick in January and without going into too much detail, I had three surgeries and was in the hospital for over a month. It’s been a long road back but I’m finally starting to feel like myself again. After a difficult- and expensive!- year, this would be a huge benefit to me and my family. I would be so appreciative. I feel so blessed to be part of a caring and supportive Whole 30 community.
I like both on Facebook!
This would be a fantastic holiday help to my family. This year we are hosting Christmas for the family for the first time! I would LOVE to be able to cook a fantastic paleo meal for everyone so they can understand s’more about the way we live/eat!
Thanks for all you do!
Liked both pages! My husband and I are ready to jump into the paleo movement and need a quality distributor of meat. I’m a former vegetarian and sometimes beef just doesn’t appeal to me (after going so many years without it), so I’m willing to try different cuts and flavorings so that I can be healthy again! I have a bison distributor at my local farmer’s market but I believe his animals are grass-finished, which is obviously a MUCH better choice than conventional, but I’d love to try 100% grass-fed. Thanks for the giveaway!
I couldn’t even begin to explain how much this would help me. I’ve been unable to work for almost 2 years from severe IBS that presented after years of an eating disorder. I did my first Whole30 in August and have been 100% paleo ever since working on healing. I’m making slow progress. I wish I could have found paleo long ago but am so grateful it stumbled into my lap! I haven’t tried TX yet, but I’ve heard great things. Thanks for the giveaway!
I’ve been Paleo for a few years now, but ever since giving birth I’ve had more autoimmune-like symptoms popping up. I’ve come to the realization that I need to eat a 100% clean autoimmune protocol diet, and really pay attention to my the quality of my meat. This giveaway will help me stock up on some meat that I know won’t trigger an autoimmune reaction!
I like Whole9 and TX Bar Organics on Facebook! I would love to win this because Christmas always makes things a little tight and this would be a huge blessing!
As a nursing student with two kids and a wife, it’s hard to eat right with me only working part time. This would be a lot of dinners and lunches.
Winning would help me out because it’s money that I both can and will spend on high quality protein that I otherwise might have trouble convincing the wife to let me buy. Which helps her health even if she doesn’t believe it.
I already “like” both. Winning would help my family tremendously. After my daughter was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder I began searching for answers to help her. We tried different medications to deal with her anxiety and ADHD and we didn’t find our solution. After some pretty scary side-effects, I decided enough is enough (!!) and I put her on a gluten, dairy and soy free diet. What a difference!! Since then my whole family has changed the way we eat. The added expense however, is an issue, and we have to make sacrifices in other areas, but we’ll never go back. Winning this prize would definitely take a burden off for the holiday season.
I’m one of those people who never wins anything, so winning would lift my spirits and make life for my whole family just that more enjoyable this Christmas…
Winning this prize would help us stock our freezer with great grass-fed meat to enjoy over the holidays and during the first part of our family’s first Whole30 experience (2 adults and our 4 kids). Thanks for considering and entering me in the drawing.
This would help my husband and I be able to afford wonderful organic beef over the holidays and especially with our tradition of eating delicious steak for our Christmas dinner!
Winning this would be such a huge blessing to my family. We have 1 working in the household and 4 kids. I really want my kids to be raised different that I was. I was raised on processed junk food. I want them to get a good head start in life. It is very very costly feeding 4 kids (1 being a teenager) and 2 adults. I have liked both pages on facebook. I hope I win!
I liked both on Facebook. This would help my family as we are trying to transition to eating ethically raised meat. Autoimmune disease runs rampent through my family, and I am the only female in my generation with no diagnosed autoimmune disease. This is one more step to eating in a way that can help prevent my genetic predispositions. Unfortunately, the cost of eating this way can be prohibitive on a firefighter’s salary. Winning would help me stock my freezer with health. Thank you for the giveaway.
The holiday season is one of stress and travel, and having good, healthy food in the larder will help my family’s budget and piece of mind.
Please help me heal.
I find myself at a strange crossroads in my life. I came to grad school driven by a desire to help others, to fight cancer. It has been full of the typical struggle and mundane drama of such a choice. That was fine. Hell, sometimes it even felt like the point, because how can you face the drama and tragedy of others’ sorrows if you haven’t experienced a little bit of your own.
However this fall wounds started opening across my body. The science, the understanding of autoimmune disease, of what was happening came surprisingly easy, at least on an intellectual level. Research naturally led me to paleo and now it is all I do. In my heart however, I find the wounds feel deeper, heal slower. It can be hard to see yourself as the person that is going to help so many when there is only so much you can do to help yourself.
Regardless, I move forward. Hoping for conception in the next few months. Planning for graduation and starting residency in a year and a half. There is a lot to do. The people I hope to help still need help. We’re all in this together.
Thank you for the work you do. Both Whole9 and TX Bar. You help others do the work they need to do.
Sincerely,
Jenny
“Liked” Whole9 AND TX Bar Organics, though I LOVE both. After cancer diagnosis I made some diet and lifestyle changes in hopes of averting a recurrence, but complications have kept me from going back to work yet, and using food outreach groups makes it difficult to eat consistently organic. Your generous giveaway would significantly help and heal me after January surgery so I can begin resuming my life. Thank you and God bless you for the many ways you give back every day.
Wow, how exciting for whoever wins!!
Even though I’m a youngin, i’m known as the “chef” of the family… some healthy things i make turn out great and really impress the fam while other things (cough, beef heart)…well, lets just say i haven’t quite won them over haha. If I was blessed with winning this awesome prize, I’d love to cook a BEAST, delicious, healthy Christmas meal for my family and then use this as a springboard to tell them more about the Paleo/primal lifestyle and the importance of WHERE your ingredients come from. Living with my unhealthy family is hard. I’d love for them to make progress both for their own sake and for mine!
Thanks guys!
hello! i ‘liked’ you both and am loving the whole 30! my husband and i are two weeks in and have seen fantastic results. when you are taking such great care with your diet and body, it doesn’t feel right to eat just any meat. and good meat is pricey. and we are on a shoestring budget. this would be such a lovely holiday gift for the whole family. thanx for the opportunity and the whole 30 program!!!
I’ve become mostly paleo this year, but haven’t yet found $ for grass-fed / pastured meats. Would love to be able to give some a try!
Congratulations to the winner of our TX Bar Organics meat giveaway, KC! We wish you the very best as you rest and heal. You’ll be hearing from us soon!
Very impressive showcase. I would applaud you for such work