There are six great reasons to eating pastured meats!
By pastured meats, we mean livestock that have been fed only grass and forage. No grain (a topic for another post).
The way cows, and any livestock, are fed can have a major effect on the nutrient composition of their meat.
Did you know that at 7-9 months, calves that have been getting milk from their mothers and been eating grass, are taken to large feedlots, called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). There, the calves are kept in confined stalls, often with limited space.
They are rapidly fattened with grain-based feeds that are usually made from a base of soy or corn. Typically, their diet is also supplemented with small amounts of dried grass.
To maximize growth, the cows are often given drugs, such as antibiotics and growth hormones.
The cows live in these feedlots for a few months before being brought to a slaughterhouse.
“You are what you eat” applies to cows, and any livestock raised in CAFO’s.
Why would you want to eat the meat from an animal that has been eating grains it wasn’t designed for (another topic for another post), or given any antibiotics or growth hormones, when you can eat pasture raised meats with the following 6 health benefits?
reason #1
Pastured meats have 1/3 less fat than grain fed meat.
Grass-fed beef usually contains less total fat than grain-fed beef, which means that gram for gram, grass-fed beef contains fewer calories
reason #2
Pastured meats have 2-4 times more omega-3 fatty acids than grain fed meat.
Omega-3’s provide powerful health benefits for your body and brain, including:
fight depression and anxiety
improve eye health
promote brain health during pregnancy and early life
improve risk factors for heart disease
reduce symptoms of ADHD in children
reduce symptoms of metabolic syndrome (Metabolic syndrome is a collection of conditions. It includes central obesity — also known as belly fat — as well as high blood pressure, insulin resistance, high triglycerides and low “good” HDL cholesterol levels.
fight inflammation
fight autoimmune diseases
improve mental disorders
fight age-related mental decline and Alzheimer’s disease
help prevent cancer
reduce asthma in children
reduce fat in your liver
may improve bone and joint health
alleviate menstrual pain
may improve sleep
good for your skin
reason #3
Pastured meats have 2-5 times more CLA’s than grain fed meat
CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) are powerful polyunsaturated fatty acids we must obtain from our diets (such as a Paleo or ketogenic diet) that’s been shown to help fight cancer, discourage weight gain, reduce risk of heart disease and build muscle
reason #4
Pasture raised meats have 5 times higher vitamin E than grain fed meat.
Vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant and will help repair damaged cells.
Vitamin E may help people with higher environmental or lifestyle risk factors:
cigarette smoking
exposure to air pollution
high exposure to ultraviolet rays from sunlight
reason #5
About 80 percent of antibiotics sold in the United States go to livestock like cows so it’s not crazy to be worried about antibiotics in beef. Cows that aren’t grass-fed live on diets of grain and are typically given hormones to unnaturally increase their weight and hence yield more meat. With grass-fed cows, weight gain is not as high because they eat a healthier, lower-calorie diet.
The main reason farmers use more antibiotics is that as meat demand goes up, animals are confined to smaller and smaller spaces, and this greatly increases the spread of disease. The use of antibiotics in meat, particularly factory-farmed meats, contributes to antibiotic resistance in human, which is why it’s so important that you not only question what goes in your body, but what goes in the body of the animals you put on your dinner plate.
Feeding cattle grain makes their intestinal tracts much more acidic, and this promotes the growth of bacteria like E. coli, which can actually kill someone who eats undercooked beef like a rare hamburger. We can thank the commercial meat industry for this kind of scary beef, which is the product of feeding cows grain and keeping them in overcrowded, disease-ridden feed lots.
Antibiotic and hormone use in beef is significantly less likely with grass-fed versus grain-fed. If meat is organic and grass-fed, then the animal was not given antibiotics or hormones because organic cattle are fed organic feed and are not given antibiotics or hormones. For grass-fed cattle, antibiotics are typically not given, which is very different form the consistent and common use of antibiotics on feed-lot, grain-fed cows.
reason #6
Pastured meats taste better than grain fed meats!
Our tongues are an incredible member of our body! They are our first indicator to whether the food we’re eating is healthy or not.
Have you ever noticed the taste difference between a store purchased tomato and a home grown tomato? The home grown tomato tastes so much better right?
What your tongue is responding to is the nutrient density of the home grown tomato. Our tongues can taste the magnesium, potassium, selenium, calcium, and all the other minerals and nutrients the plant has picked up from the soil.
The same with a pasture raised animal versus a grain fed, CAFO animal.
Our tongues can distinguish the nutrient density of the food we eat by the taste!
Remember, ‘you are what you eat’.
If you want to be healthier, it’ll be important for you to start questioning what you’re feeding yourself.
Start with shopping at the farmer’s market. Ask the meat vendors how they raise their animals.
You should also ask the produce vendors how they raise their produce too!
You have a right to know what you’re eating!
Especially, if you want to live a healthier life!
Sources: www.draxe.com, www.healthline.com
