Grass Fed Beef… it isn’t about the taste.

 

Granted, I love the taste of a pastured cow vs a stall held grain fed sloth.  But that isn’t the key to why we are screaming at you to get on board!  The benefits of grass fed beef are so plentiful, it is almost like you don’t have a choice.  We need to literally stop farmers from being able to raise grain fed beef, and the only way to do that… is to stop buying it.

Recently Dr. Mercola (www.mercola.com) had an awesome newsletter on the benefit of grass fed beef.  http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/07/18/why-do-exvegetarians-outnumber-current-vegetarians-three-to-one.aspx

I want to include the full link, to be sure we are giving credit where credit is due, please take the time to visit Dr. Mercola’s site to read the full article.

Now, back to the meat of this (pun fully intended).  This is the important piece of it for my article:

Grass-based feeding is a very efficient and ecologically sustainable method of farming. Instead of producing tons of grain for feed — which requires extensive land, fertilizer, pest management, and large equipment for cultivating, harvesting, drying, storage and feeding — pasture-based farming lets the cows do the work. They harvest, fertilize, and feed themselves, overseen by the farmer in a carefully managed system. The net result is significantly less fuel consumption, less erosion, less air and water pollution and greater soil fertility. The animals also get to live a natural life outdoors, grazing off the land as they were intended to.

Most importantly, this natural and harmonious way of raising animals also leads to a superior food product.  Grass-fed beef, for instance, is lower in fat than regular CAFO-raised beef. It also contains three to five times more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a fatty acid. The milk from grass-fed cows is also higher in many nutrients, including CLA, vitamin E, beta-carotene, and omega-3 fats.

Health benefits of CLA include:

Fighting cancer	Promoting fat loss	Increasing your metabolic rate	Promoting normal thyroid function
Delaying onset of diabetes, and improving management of adult-onset diabetes	Helping maintain normal cholesterol levels	Helping maintain healthful triglyceride levels	Enhancing your immune system

In addition, other reports have shown that the ratio of omega 3 fatty acid that is present in grass fed beef is the what science currently believes is the best ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids that you can have.  A 20-1 ratio is what most people in our society have, a disaster of a situation, where every hormone, every neuro-peptide, and every new cell is being made with a fatty acid that is NOT what your body wants to use.

The need for healthy fatty acid consumption is the most paramount dietary need in our society.  The continual pursuit of “low fat” just might be the number one causative agent of disease in today’s world.  This problem is compounded by the fact that when we go off point on our “low fat” craze, we go crazy for high fat garbage (the fat used in every commercial food prep out there).

Indian Creek Angus is our favored supplier, we have tried others, but have been very pleased with their beef.  This is a blurb from their website: Indian Creek cattle are fed on the rich grass of Northeast Georgia and are Certified Naturally Grown. They are given no growth hormones or steroids; they are not fattened on grain; they are not fed antibiotics.

When looking for a farm that we could go back to, over and over, we wanted to make sure that we had a farm with a cleanly appearance, true grass covered fields, not manure rich mud fields.  And with the kind of processing that gave you quality cuts, minimal fat ground beef (even though the fat is healthy, we also follow the Biblical advice to not directly consume the fat from animals – there is enough fat within the meat already).

This last time, we had 7 full beefs (the industry term vs saying cow) pass through our office to you, our patients.  It was $14, 700 of beef.  Which was at an average around $5.50/lb.  A good price for grass fed ground beef, an even better price for grass fed steaks when compared to Harry’s filet’s at $23/lb!

We are working to make your dietary choices easier and easier, this is just one of the ways.  This week, I am taking the staff to Orlando for a Maximized Living seminar.  I have been part of Max Living for 7 years, and they have paved the way to making this truly a life lived to the max.  While we are gone (the office will be closed Thursday afternoon, Friday, and Saturday); we will be introduced further into Jordin Rubin’s (author of The Makers Diet) new farm, Beyond Organic.  I have been reading about his plans, and look forward to sharing them with you as well.

Lastly – some of you know that this is my 5th anniversary of the day I was hit in the eye with a hockey puck, and lost site in my left eye.  I have been, and continue to be faithful that God has a plan of healing for me.  I do not know what that is, but as I pass the fifth year, I can say without a doubt, that losing my site in my left eye has been a blessing.  I have had opportunities to impact many people over the years as i have spoken of the incident, life afterwards, and the faith testing that goes on through that.  Recently I met with a professional to help coax me along to finish the book that I had started shortly after the incident… hopefully we will see that completion in this next 12 months!  Thanks for caring about your health, be blessed!

Dr. E