When you think of grass-fed beef and nutrition, what do you think of first?  A superior omega-6 to omega-3 ratio?  Freedom from toxic chemicals?  Have you ever thought about iron?  Surprisingly, this little mineral is actually the cause of some big problems around the world and grass-fed beef not only has high iron content, but it’s a great source of the most absorbable iron for your body.   

Not many people know that iron is the most prevalent nutrient deficiency in the world, with a rate of approximately 10% of the population in developed countries and anywhere from 25 – 50% in developing countries.  Wow, those are quite the stats, right?  Lets start out explaining this condition by describing some of the facts around anemia.  Anemia in general is a reduction in oxygen-transporting capacity of the blood.  Red blood cells (RBC’s) are the oxygen-transporters that are made of iron. With iron deficiency, there is an inadequate supply of building blocks to make RBC’s, therefore you are not getting enough oxygen to your entire body.  
    

Iron’s role in transporting oxygen throughout the body is vital.  Without proper oxygen, cells cannot metabolize energy correctly and many people become extremely fatigued.  Other symptoms you might notice are weakness, lethargy, and general sluggishness.  But your body uses iron in other ways as well.  Did you know it is used in antioxidant functions? Iron containing enzymes can convert a free-radical in the body to a more harmless substance to protect your body from damage.  The good news is that if you are iron deficient, there are simple ways you can reverse the condition.  Talk to your doctor or nutritionist if you suspect a deficiency.
    

Are you at risk?  Those most at risk are premenopausal women, adolescent women, and vegetarians.  The recommended intake for adults (19 – 50) is 18mg for women and 8mg for men.  For vegetarians, the intake recommendation almost doubles because vegetarian iron sources are less absorbable by humans.  The usable form of iron – heme iron – is found only in meat, fish, and poultry.  Non heme iron is found everywhere else – vegetable and plant sources (tofu, beans, legumes, fortified cereals) as well as synthetic or supplemental form.  Since I know everyone in the Grass-fed Party is a beef lover, good news – beef has one of the highest heme-iron contents out of any source – right behind oysters, which comes in at number one!  This means that in moderation, grass-fed beef is an excellent way to keep up with all those red blood cells your body needs.
    

A couple more things you should know from a nutrition standpoint:  Iron, especially the non-heme vegetarian iron, is a finicky mineral and loves to be absorbed with certain compounds and is not well absorbed when consumed with others.  What will help your body absorb more non-heme iron:  vitamin C containing foods such as citrus fruits and broccoli, and any animal products.  What will block absorption of iron: phytic acid in beans and legumes, and compounds with polyphenols – coffee, tea, and wine to name a few.  I’m not saying you should avoid any of these, but just be mindful as to when you are consuming what throughout the day for best absorption, especially if you are taking a supplemental or form from a vegetarian source.  

Guest Post by Sadie

Sadie is a Grass-fed Party member pursuing a M.S. in Nutrition at a university in Seattle.

Her personal blog on nutrition can be found at  http://www.foragingfoodie.blogspot.com/

Above photo by tonydude919 

Last week talks convened in Billings, Montana on how the livestock industry has been affected by NAFTA, in anticipation of Obama’s first visit to Canada to meet with Prime Minister Harper. Representatives of consumer groups and livestock producer organizations from Canada, Mexico, and the United States met to address the challenges faced by family farmers and ranchers from trade policy and uncompetitive livestock markets.

Following the conference, the Western Organization of Research Councils released the following coverage:

A representative of a consumer group, Patty Lovera, assistant director of Food and Water Watch, said the promised benefits of expanded trade have not materialized for consumers.

“Even as prices livestock producers receive have gone steadily down, retail food prices
rarely do,” Lovera said. “So while the producer’s share of the retail food dollar continues to shrink, consumers are not spending less at the meat and dairy case.”

Dennis Olson, senior policy analyst with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy,
said the “promises made by supporters of NAFTA have not been kept and new policies are urgently needed.” He said the groups are focusing on opportunities to work jointly on policy initiatives, such as the ban on packer ownership of livestock, that would curtail the power of global meat cartels to influence livestock markets and politics.

On behalf of the conference participants, Olson urged leaders of the United States,
Canada, and Mexico to repeal provision in NAFTA that impede the rights of all countries. Olson said these rights include:

• Establishment of domestic food and agricultural policies that provide farmers with
the cost of production without dumping commodities into other countries at below
the cost of production.
• Enforcement of antitrust laws preventing price manipulation and other anti-
competitive practices n agricultural markets.
• Setting up publicly-owned grain reserves to stabilize prices and to provide fair
prices to both farmers and consumers.
• Regulation of commodity futures markets and speculative investments.

“We commit ourselves to building an alternative food system that is designed to make
safe, affordable food a higher priority that increasing the profit margins for the global meat cartels,” Olson added.

The conference was sponsored by the National Association of Peasant Marketing
Enterprises, National Farmers Union (Canada), Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Food and Water Watch, and the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC).”

Canadian Neil Peacock said his country would benefit from a labeling program similar to the U.S. one known as COOL. Peacock said they came to the NAFTA meeting, to which the Western Organization of Resource Councils, or WORC, played host, to work on beef policy.

Namely, Peacock and others said they would like to prohibit packing plants from owning the feedlots from which they buy cattle for slaughter. Feedlot owners buy young cattle from ranches and then fatten them up before selling them to slaughterhouses.

The concern about processor ownership of feedlots is that in areas of the country where processors own large feedlots, they're able to set take-it-or-leave-it prices for the cattle they buy. In the West, the concern is growing as Brazilian-based meat processor JBS SA acquires American meat processing facilities and feedlots. Last year, JBS bought feedlots in Texas, Kansas, Idaho and Colorado, which handle about 800,000 cattle at a time. Colorado feedlots are crucial to Montana's cattle industry, which exports 900,000 feeder cattle to feedlots annually for fattening.

President Barack Obama has spoken against processor ownership of feedlots. The groups gathered Friday are hopeful the United States will soon pass laws banning processor feedlot ownership.

Gilles Stockton, speaking for WORC, called on Obama to fix NAFTA and help the beef industry.

"President Obama, renegotiate NAFTA now," Stockton said. "President Obama, JBS must not be allowed to buy more U.S. packers. Stop the mergers now."

“On trade, Obama stuck to his pledge to eventually seek changes in the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to increase enforcement of labor and environmental standards — but said he intended to do so in a way "that is not disruptive to the extraordinarily important trade relationships that exist between the United States and Canada. Harper said he might be willing to negotiate, but not by "opening the whole NAFTA and unraveling what is a very complex agreement."

For those of you who are interested in where the funding fell in the The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, here is a breakdown of funding that relates to Grass-fed Causes:

FARM SERVICE AGENCY
$50 million to maintain and modernize the information technology system (Salaries and Expenses).

USDA BUILDINGS & FACILITIES
$24 million for construction, repair and improvement of the USDA buildings and facilities

USDA RESEARCH SERVICE
$176 million for maintenance of the USDA’s laboratory and research infrastructure

NUTRITION PROGRAMS
$100 million for the National School Lunch Program equipment assistance
$500 million for Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC); $400 million to be placed in reserves
$150 million for emergency food assistance program

CROP DISASTER ASSISTANCE
$193.807 million for farm operating loan program
$50 million for aquaculture producers to accommodate for losses associated with high feed input costs during 2008

NRCS (National Resources Conservation Service)
$290 million for Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations
$50 million for the Watershed Rehabilitation Program

BLM
$125 million for management of lands and resources, including deferred maintenance, abandoned mine and well site remediation, road and trail maintenance, watershed improvement, and high priority habitat restoration

FOREST SERVICE
$500 million for wildland fire management

RURAL BUSINESS-COOPERATIVE SERVICE

$150 million to support $3.010 billion in rural business loans and grants

What does all of this mean for Grass-fed? For the most part, agencies such as the BLM, Forest Service, NRCS, the USDA and the FSA will be able to update their information systems, bringing new jobs to rural America while improving our food inspection facilities and giving more support for the maintenance of public lands and water sources, which will benefit many western ranching families who ranch on or near public lands.

Will this be enough? Although more jobs will be created, which President Obama offered as his main objective, it is questionable as to whether or not this will be enough to keep small independent farms alive if some of the pieces of this great machine that is food and agriculture in this country begin to fall out, as exemplified in the Wall Street Journal Story on the Chicken Housing Crisis.

I blogged last week about supporting the funding for the Farm Agency and Loan Program. Although the Senate passed funding for the Agriculture Credit Insurance Fund Program of the FSA, the final Conference Report did not allocate funds to this program.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition noted last Friday on their scorecard that there will funding which will offer more support to regionally distributed food:

“The final bill mirrors the Senate bill in providing for nearly $3 billion in Rural Business and Industry loan guarantees. Combined with regular funding, this additional money will bring the program up to about $2.5 billion a year in loan guarantees for each of the next two years. As a result of a 2008 Farm Bill provision championed by NSAC, five percent ($125 million) of this amount will be targeted to local and regional food enterprises that process, distribute, aggregate, store, and market foods produced either in-state or transported less than 400 miles from the origin of the product.”