Grassfed Beef!

We've been told that red meat is bad for us. It's high in saturated fat, cholesterol and surely causes obesity, heart disease and a host of other health problems. This common "knowledge" may hold some weight in regards to feed-lot beef. However, there are essentially two types of beef, feed-lot and grassfed. Grassfed beef as you are about to find out is more comparable to wild game then to its counterpart from the feed-lot.

Feed-lot cattle are fattened on corn, grains, stale candy, chicken crap, their own crap and whatever other cheap calories are available including pieces of their own brothers and sisters. They are weened onto this diet with a steady stream of anti-biotics because this diet is so toxic that they could immediately die if the switch from their evolutionary diet (grass) to their new diet is not gradual. Next, hormones are added to make the cow hungrier and grow faster. This strategy enables farmers to produce around a 1200 pound steer in a little over a year, opposed to 4-5 years or so for a grassfed cow.

Feed-lot cows are sick. This excerpt from Michael Pollan's "The Omnivores Dilemma" describes exactly what happens to a cow when fed this feed-lot diet incongruent with its evolutionary diet of grass.

"Perhaps the most serious thing that can go wrong with a ruminant on corn is feedlot bloat. The rumen is always producing copious amounts of gas, which is normally expelled by belching during rumination. But when the diet contains too much starch and too little roughage, rumination all but stops, and a layer of foamy slime that can trap gas forms in the rumen. The rumen inflates like a balloon, pressing against the animal's lungs. Unless action is promptly taken to relieve the pressure (usually by forcing a hose down the animal's esophagus), the cow suffocates.

A corn diet can also give a cow acidosis. Unlike that in our own highly acidic stomachs, the normal pH of a rumen is neutral. Corn makes it unnaturally acidic, however, causing a kind of bovine heartburn, which in some cases can kill the animal but usually just makes it sick. Acidotic animals go off their feed, pant and salivate excessively, paw at their bellies and eat dirt. The condition can lead to diarrhea, ulcers, bloat, liver disease and a general weakening of the immune system that leaves the animal vulnerable to everything from pneumonia to feedlot polio."

"You are what you eat." As the old adage goes, when we eat a marbled cut of beef, we become more like that marbled cut of beef. When the cow eats crap unhealthy calories, it turns into crap unhealthy calories. When it eats what it is evolutionarily designed to eat (grass), the cow is healthy. It stores the omega-3 fats that are abundant in grass in its own less abundant fat stores. It also picks up the other nutrients and makes more of a healthy fat called CLA which has been shown to fight cancer in studies and aid in fat loss.

Recall how grassfed beef is akin to wild game? Archaeological evidence shows that humans thrived on a hunter-gatherer diet based around wild game. Knowing what happens to cattle when they deviate from their evolutionary diet guess what happens to humans when they deviate from ours? You are right, they get sick.

There are innumerable reasons why it is healthier to eat grassfed beef than feed-lot beef. Here are my top 7.

1.) A 1.65 ratio of Omega-6 to 3, instead of a 4.84 as is typical in feed-lot beef.

2.) Higher in CLA

3.) Lower in saturated fat and Omega-6 fat

4.) Higher in the anti-oxidant selenium

5.) Higher in the electrolytes calcium, magnesium and potassium

6.) Higher in B-Vitamins

7.) Higher in the anti-oxidant vitamin E

The only cons of grassfed beef are that it is more expensive, and harder to find. I justify the expense with two main arguments.

A.) Health is wealth. By investing in health you save money long term. Also, health takes priority over everything.

B.) It can actually be cheaper. 1 pound of 85/15 grassfed beef is nearly 960 calories. Approximately 37% of these calories are protein, the remaining 63% being from fat. This is a lot of fat, however, since the fat is HEALTHY fat you want to eat it all. When you get a conventional steak, or hunk of ground beef you want to cut off as much fat as possible, aiming to consume only the lean protein. Thus, you want to by the leanest beef possible. Say you buy a pound of grassfed beef at $6.00 that is 960 calories/ $6.00 = 160 calories per dollar. 93/7 ground beef is roughly 720 calories. You can find this beef for around $5.00 per pound, which seems cheaper. 720 calories / $5.00 = 144 calories per dollar. Therefore, the healthier option proves cheaper.

Where can you get grassfed beef? Eatwild.com is a great directory to pasture based farms commited to raising cattle without hormones and anti-biotics. They have over 1100 farms in their database. Around Delaware/Chester County, Martindales in Springfield consistently carries grassfed beef from $5.99-6.99 per pound for ground beef. Whole foods often has grassfed beef. Trader Joe's recently began carrying 85/15 grassfed beef for $5.99/lb (imported from Uraguay). Pete's Produce Farm in West Chester carries Dr. Elkins grassfed beef as does the Reading Terminal in Philadelphia.

Post some questions in the comments section below please.

Eating Paleo Locally

Ingredients: 1/2 eggplant, 1/2 albino eggplant, 1/2 yellow squash, 1/2 zucchini, 1 red onion, 1 stalk broccoli, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 pound Dr. Elkins grassfed beef.

This post is for those who are interested in the buying local movement. It's sustainable, better for the environment, better for our local economy etc... Also, it can be quite tasty and incredibly healthy. This meal in its entirety was purchased from Pete's Produce Farm in Westtown. All of the vegetables were grown on site at Pete's Produce Farm. The beef came from nearby Buck Run Farms.
Cooking...

Yummmmm... I'd estimate the entire dish was about 1100-1300 calories depending on the fat content of the beef which is not listed. The vegetables totaled ~$6 while the beef was $8.95.

I decided to get all Michael Pollan and find out exactly where this meal was coming from. Since I already had seen where the vegetables came from all I had to do is track down my beef. Coming soon, my trip to Buck Run Farms and visit with Dr. Elkins.