Items Tagged With Grassfed Beef

I have always been skeptical of people who say that the Western diet is killing us. Granted, as a society suffer from the afflictions of gluttony; obesity, diabetes and heart disease just to name a few, but I think it is what we are eating, not just the quantities of what we are eating that is making us fat.  The amount of meat we eat is alarming, yes, but this is only exacerbated by the TYPE of meat we are eating. Grass-fed meats, (as we know grass-fed party members!) can contain half as much fat and calories than their corn-fed counter parts. Iceland and Japan lead the world in life expectancy because they eat a diet rich in fish.  Fish is heart healthy because it is rich in Omega 3 fatty acids which have been proven to prevent heart disease. Most Americans have alarmingly low amounts of Omega 3 fatty acids in their diet, it is no wonder we lead the world in heart disease! And yet there is hope with a lot of promising research that does make a compelling case for Grass-fed meats and their positive impact on weight and heart health. Grass-fed meats are an excellent source of omega 3 fatty acids (as is fish) and they are an excellent low fat high quality protein (much like fish).

In the book Pasture Perfect by Jo Robinson she makes a compelling case for the health and weight loss benefits of grass-fed and pasture raised meats. She devotes a whole chapter to grass-fed beef, where the health benefits when compared to feed-lot beef are astounding! If every American switched to grass-fed beef they would save 16, 642 calories annually, that amounts to almost five pounds of weight loss a year! This is far more than any diet plan can offer. What I find most encouraging is how much less fat grass-fed beef has, and because of this it can have almost 60% less calories then store bought beef. Not only that, it is even leaner then store bought chicken breast! We need to rethink our wariness of red meat. It is not red meat per se we should avoid but the TYPE red meat we should avoid. In a grass-fed world you can have your beef and lose weight all the while protecting your heart!

Franny and I wrote the Grass-fed Party Platform to declare and to verbalize what grass-fed farming can do for America. There were many platform points, and we are going to revisit them every week and talk about grass-fed issues and how they impact our everyday lives. We are excited about what the Grass-fed party can do to help change people’s minds about how we produce meat in this country. Basically, we want this site to serve as a platform for grass-fed issues and a place where like-minded people can get involved and share information, stories and expertise. So please contact me if you have something to share!

There is a lot of anxiety that goes along with eating meat in America. There are ethical, health and environmental concerns not to mention of course food safety. With grass-fed meats we can address all these concerns and still enjoy meat! The health benefits of grass-fed beef is possibly the most exciting part of grass-fed farming. We have been told to not eat red meat, or not eat meat at all but with grass-fed meats you can have your meat and eat it too! Grass-fed beef is leaner and healthier then store bought chicken breast. Not only is grass-fed beef leaner, and has far less calories(as much as 60% less calories then corn-fed beef!) the fat that it does have is extremely healthy--- filled with heart healthy Omega 3 fatty acids. People who eat a diet rich in Omega-3s fatty acids are 50% less likely to have a heart attack. Omega-3s fatty acids are also essential for healthy brain function, and people who eat healthy amounts of Omega 3 fatty acids and can help prevent mental illnesses as diverse as depression to the more serious Alzheimer’s disease. Omega 3s fatty acids are also believed to reduce your risk of cancer and can help chemotherapy patients heal faster. The health benefits of pasture-raised meats does not end there, CLA or conjugated linoleic acids are found in high concentration in pasture-raised meats, eggs and milk and they may be potent cancer fighters. There are a lot of exciting studies that are showing promising results for CLA’s potent cancer preventing properties. One study in Finland, showed that women who had the highest levels of CLA had a 60 percent lower risk of breast cancer than those with the lowest levels of CLA.

Angus La Cense is running for president, and the issues he supports are real. The Grass-fed Party wants positive change, one that can bring us healthier animals, citizens and environment. The grass-fed party wants to get you excited about grass-fed ranching and also motivate you to vote with your forks! If more people care about how food is raised in this country the more change there will be. This is a mooovement that is as much about food as it is about our country but how can you and I buy into the moovement?  Purchase Grass-fed beef!

Grass-fed Beef has become increasing popular, so popular that demand has exceeded its' supply. This is good news for grass-fed beef producers but for costumers it can represent a bit of a challenge. How do you purchase grass-fed beef? Fortunately, there are a lot of options for us, there are internet sales like La Cense Ranch and there are farmer's markets which are a great place for purchasing grass-fed beef. There are more and more restaurants that are choosing to feature grass-fed beef on their menus, introducing it for the first time to their clientele. The New York Times just did an article about this new trend: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/dining/01whole.html?_r=1&ref=dining&oref=slogin.

Most grass-fed experts will tell you to get to know the farmer you are purchasing your beef from, so that you can ensure that the animals and land are under good stewardship. This is a bit intimidating for most of us, and for those of us who live in a city this can seem almost impossible---if not ridiculous. Fortunately, there has been a lot of self regulation and most farmers' markets only allow producers who actually follow what they preach. This is true of most NYC farmers' markets where the market's organizers go to the farm's to see that the farms are in fact what they claim to be. This is a good thing, for the farmer for you, and for the animals!

Another way to purchase grass-fed beef is online. If you are a locavore you might be wary but there are a lot of grass-fed beef producers out west that are bringing back the art of traditional ranching. Traditional ranching is something close to my heart. I have always been captivated by anything western (my favorite show as a kid was the pony express.) Unfortunately, traditional ranching is becoming endangered. Most ranching families have become exclusively cow-calf operations where they raise calves for the feed lot---this was not always the case, there was a time when western ranching provided world-class grass-fed steak. The good news is that there are more and more ranches that are committed to sustainable ranching, restoring range land and are responsible for bringing back this dying way of life. This is why La Cense stands out to me, their beef is exceptional yes, but that is only part of the story. The whole ranch represents something important: they are relearning something that has been lost.

Another wonderful resource for grass-fed meat purchasing is eatwild.com. You can find farms, markets and purveyors who have grass-fed meats.  So happy hunting folks!

My last recipe was a grass-fed beef liver recipe for a reason. Liver has gone out of favor with most Americans, many of my peers have never even eaten liver, and it seems that we have replaced liver and other non-prime cuts with chicken nuggets. This is something that gets me pretty upset, but in all fairness industrially-farmed livers should be avoided. In many cases they are unavailable to us because they have been stripped from our butcher and supermarket shelves due to safety issues. 60 percent of antibiotics are used on livestock in America, not to mention the amount of growth hormone and strange things that are added to feed (rendered animal byproducts, chicken manure and discarded factory food as bizarre as gum!).

If our animals are being fed antibiotics, hormones and suspicious feed, what does that say about their livers? The liver is an animal’s cleaning system; it is also one of the most nutritious, delicious and low-fat cuts of an animal. Rabbit, chicken, and pork liver are some of my favorite foods, but I prefer pasture-raised livers because I can trust that they are healthy and safe. When my family has animals butchered we ask for the liver, heart and tongue, and the processors are always skeptical, saying, “We can only give livers back if they pass inspection.” This is because so many cows’ livers are now bloated, diseased and filled with lesions because they have been eating food that damages their systems. We know we will get our livers back and that they will pass inspection because they are grass-fed. A grass-fed liver is dark red with a shiny skin; that is what a healthy liver looks like. It is also free of antibiotics, growth hormone and feed residue.

The exciting thing about pasture-raised livers is that they are available and extremely reasonable. I was raised to respect farm animals, to savor and eat the whole animal, and eating the liver is about cherishing the whole animal. With grass-fed meats, we can have it all; we can eat the whole animal, trusting that it was treated well and that it in turn will make us healthy.