Beef cattle are cattle raised for meat production (as distinguished from dairy cattle, used for milk production). The meat of cattle is known as beef. When raised in a feedlot cattle are known as feeder cattle. Many such feeder cattle are born in cow-calf operations specifically designed to produce beef calves. While the principal use of beef cattle is meat production, other uses include leather, and products used in shampoo and cosmetics.

Breeds known as dual purpose breeds are also used for beef production. These breeds have been selected for two purposes at once, such as for both beef and dairy production, or both beef and draught. Dual-purpose breeds include the Brown Swiss and many of the Zebu breeds of India such as Tharparkar and Ongole. The original Shorthorn was also a dual-purpose breed but diverged into two groups through selective breeding.

A steer that weighs 1,000 lb (450 kg) when alive will make a carcase weighing about 615 lb (280 kg), once the blood, head, feet, skin, offal and guts have been removed. The carcase will then be hung in a cold room for between one and four weeks, during which time it loses some weight as water dries from the meat. When boned and cut by a butcher or packing house this carcase would then make about 430 lb (200 kg) of beef.^{[citation needed]}

Temple Grandin (born August 29, 1947) is an American doctor of animal science and professor at Colorado State University, bestselling author, and consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior. As a person with high-functioning autism, Grandin is also noted for her work in autism advocacy and is the inventor of the squeeze machine designed to calm hypersensitive people.

The subject of an award-winning biographical film, Temple Grandin, in 2010 she was listed in the Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world in the "Heroes" category.

Grandin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Richard Grandin and Eustacia Cutler, and diagnosed with autism at age 2 in 1950. Diagnosed and labeled with brain damage, at that early age she was placed in a structured nursery school with what she considers to have been good teachers. Grandin's mother spoke to a doctor who suggested speech therapy, and she hired a nanny who spent hours playing turn-based games with Grandin and her sister.^{[citation needed]}

Joel F. Salatin (born 1957) is an American farmer, lecturer, and author whose books include Folks, This Ain't Normal, You Can Farm, and Salad Bar Beef.

Salatin raises livestock using holistic methods of animal husbandry, free of potentially harmful chemicals, on his Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley. Meat from the farm is sold by direct-marketing to consumers and restaurants.

In high school, Salatin began his own business selling rabbits, eggs, butter and chicken from his family farm at the Staunton Curb Market. He then attended Bob Jones University where he majored in English and was a student leader. He graduated in 1979. Salatin married his childhood sweetheart in 1980 and became a feature writer at the Staunton, Virginia newspaper, The News Leader, where he had worked earlier typing obituaries and police reports.

Tired of "having his stories spiked," he decided to try farming full-time after first getting involved in a walnut-buying station run by two high school boys. Salatin's grandfather had been an avid gardener and beekeeper and a follower of J. I. Rodale, the founder of regenerative organic gardening. Salatin's father worked as an accountant and his mother taught high school physical education. Salatin's parents had bought the land that became Polyface in 1961 after losing a farm in Venezuela to political turmoil. They had raised cattle using organic methods, but could not make a living at farming alone.