A message from Laura

It happens all the time. I'm introduced at a grocery store, a party, a meeting, and someone says, "Oh, you're Laura. I didn't think you were real."

"Not real." The first dozen times, I was dumbfounded. But I came to understand it. We've all become so used to advertising that we assume most stuff is made up by somebody trying to sell us something.

I'm real. (Who would make this up?) Not far out of college, and wet behind the ears, I came back to rural Kentucky to run a failing cattle farm that had been on my mother's side of the family for generations. I witnessed firsthand - and was surprised by - the cavalier use of antibiotics, growth hormones and pesticides on our middle-sized, mainstream farm. Around the same time, I married, became pregnant and had my daughter, Alice, only to be told by the doctor that I must lose all that baby weight by adopting a low-fat, high carbohydrate diet that excluded beef. So Laura's Lean Beef and Alice were pretty much born together.

Alice is off to college this year, and Laura's Lean Beef has grown up with her. On the farm, we still raise Limousin and Charolais cattle, two breeds that produce low-fat beef, and we raise them naturally. So do other farmers, in a national alliance with the Laura's Lean Beef Company.

The web is a wonderful thing. Here we can tell you the story of who we are and why we do things differently. We've included everything from the rules for raising cattle to tips on cooking beef . Welcome, and when you leave, please use the feedback form to tell us what you thought, and how we can do things even better.