Red meat will kill you! Stay away if you want to live!
The message is coming from everywhere recently. Whether it’s news articles and reports, or clinical studies published in scientific journals.
Fortunately for you, that juicy steak or burger is just as good for you as it always was. You just have to know where to find the right meat.
Then you’ll be able to enjoy the benefits of quality protein and delight in the savory taste of the red meat that makes your mouth water just thinking of it.
You see, most studies on red meat don’t differentiate between commercial beef and pasture-raised meat. And that’s where there’s a problem.
Because commercial beef is not only different by nature, it may be giving you health problems. It has the wrong kind of fat that’s unhealthy for your heart. But, contrary to what you hear, this is not because it’s red meat. In fact, I regard some beef as among the healthiest of all foods.
Cattle, in one form or another have been on this planet for millions of years. They have successfully survived by grazing on grasslands, prairies, and hillsides. Cattle’s natural diet consists of grasses and legumes. Their anatomy and physiology reflect their diet.
Most commercial cattle no longer eat their natural diet. Growers feed them cheap grain and other “feedstuff” in order to fatten them up quickly.
What are some of these “feedstuffs”?
Right now it’s chocolate bars, rainbow sprinkles, gummy worms, and stale cookies.
Corn prices are so high that ranchers are adding these processed sugary junk foods to the cows’ diet as I write to you.1 They rationalize it by saying the cows use all the sugar since the rumen in their first stomach is loaded with microbes that “break large sugar molecules into volatile fatty acids that are absorbed directly into the bloodstream, providing most of the cow’s energy and aiding milk production.”
But just because they can feed this stuff to cows, doesn’t mean they should. A direct injection of sugar to the bloodstream is causing the cows to suffer from the same chronic diseases humans do when they eat this way.
It’s no wonder red meat has been linked to certain chronic health concerns. How could any cow that’s raised in such a way remain healthy and produce healthy beef? It’s next to impossible.
It causes the cows to become fatty instead of lean. Toxins, hormones and anibiotics then accumulate in the fat. These get passed on to you when you eat commercial beef.
The bottom line is factory-farm red meat is simply horrible stuff. And you have every right to be scared to death of it.
However, pasture-raised, grass-fed beef could not be any more different. You have nothing to fear when you make it a part of your diet. In fact, pasture-raised, grass-fed beef is so loaded with health benefits, I’d even go as far as to call it a “super food.”
The Journal of Animal Science found that the more grass cattle ate, the more nutritious their beef became.2
Grassfed products have three to five times more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) than that of commercial animals.3 CLA is an important nutrient that has cancer-preventing properties.
I even read one study that revealed grass-based diets for cows help them produce more vitamin A and E, as well as cancer fighting antioxidants such as glutathione and superoxide dismutase (SOD) compared to grain-fed cows.4
In fact, grass fed beef has 4 times more Vitamin E.5 Grain fed cows have so little vitamin E, one of our most powerful antioxidants, that researchers at Colorado State University recommend supplementing… the cows. They say each head of commercial cattle should be supplemented with 1,000 IU a day because they are so deficient.
Some grocery stores are starting to offer grass fed beef. You can ask the butcher. But don’t be fooled by beef labeled “organic.” The organic label only means that the cattle do not have detectable levels of antibiotics or hormones in their body at the time of slaughter. It does not mean that ranchers have never subjected cattle to antibiotics or hormones. Also most organic cattle eat nutritionally deficient grains.
Grassfed meat is a deep red to maroon color, not pink like commercial beef. And grassfed beef is very lean. The flavor is richer and tastes like wild game.
The surest way to get grassfed products is through a private farm.
Some good ones that I like are:
US Wellness Meats – One of the original grass-fed meat suppliers, and the one I use, with a unique way of raising cattle to have more CLA and omega-3 (grasslandbeef.com)
Weatherbury Farm – This Pennsylvania farm also has grass-fed lamb (grassfed.weatherburyfarm.com)
Wallace Farms – The owner of this Iowa farm has a master’s degree in ruminant nutrition from Iowa State University also raises fish naturally (wallacefarms.com)
Mount Vernon Farm – Family owned since 1827! They use rotational grazing so everything is sustainable as nature intended. They also partner with a nearby farm to produce ecologically grown vegetables (mountvernonfarm.net and waterpennyfarm.com).
1. Breselor, S. "When Corn Costs Soar, Let Cows Eat Cake." Wired Magazine. www.wired.com. Jan 14, 2013. Retreived Jan 15, 2013.
2. French P, et al. "Fatty acid composition, including conjugated linoleic acid, of intramuscular fat from steers offered grazed grass, grass silage, or concentrate-based diets." J Anim Sci 2000; 78: 2849-2855
3. Dhiman T, Anand G, Satter L, Pariza M. "Conjugated linoleic acid content of milk from cows fed different diets." J Dairy Sci. 1999 Oct;82(10):2146-56.
4. Daley C, Abbott A, Doyle P, Nader G, Larson S. "A review of fatty acid profiles and antioxidant content in grass-fed and grain-fed beef." Nutr J. 2010 Mar 10;9:10.
5. Smith, G. "Beef for domestic and international markets – strategic alliances for supplementing vitamin E to increase shelf-life and retail case life." Presentation to the Liquid Feed Symposium on the American Feed Industry Association, Omaha, Nebraska. 1996.