by Molly M Peterson
Molly M. Peterson is a photographer, farmer and advocate of causes close to her heart living in rural Virginia. You can read more about her at www.mollympeterson.com and follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mmp.
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I have Lipedema. I’ve written about it {here}, {here} and {here}. I’m a part of a beautiful support group of women on Facebook who also have Lipedema (or Lipoedema depending on where you live) and often I find myself responding to the food questions and comments that I can address easily because of the life my husband and I lead as grassfed/grass-based/pastured farmers in the countryside of Virginia. Apparently I post often enough that I’m even tagged to answer a question I hadn’t yet commented on and then I was approached to write an overview on food: specifically the topics I usually talk about: organic, pastured/grassfed, and locally sourced foods.
This is topic is vast so I’ll post more and this will be the first one: Grassfed/Pastured Meats.
I will stick mostly on the surface for sake of time and I will be happy to elaborate on specific requests if I am able. I also encourage you to do a little research, but I will warn you, it is like the layers of an onion, only you can decide how deep into the onion you want to go and how many layers to the food system you want to peel back and expose. Only you can decide how to best fit your budget but I’m here to help if you need it. And only you can know what resonates with your body for it’s optimal health. I can tell you that now that I have peeled these layers back, I’m never going back. Knowledge is power. I have resources to help you start {here}. You can also read about it on my {Farm} page on this site.
So… here goes.
What does it mean and why does it matter to buy “Grassfed” or “Pastured” meats?
Most of the animals raised in the United States for human meat protein consumption– I’m not sure about other countries — are “finished” in feedlots on a diet of corn, soy and certain by-products (of what, you probably don’t want to know). If they are cattle, it’s likely they were raised on a “Cow Calf” farm and were likely raised on grass for a bit of their lives, they may have also eaten grain at the original farm, and then sold at an auction and moved to the feedlot where they were fattened by the grain mixture in a short period of time. While on the feedlot [Google "feedlot photos" if you'd like a visual] they were likely given antibiotics (this might have even started at the original farm mixed in with minerals and/or feed – a common practice) not because they were sick necessarily but because they needed to be kept “healthy” until slaughter. Not exactly my personal preference for preventative maintenance of health. Now, many things play in to this use of antibiotics: this promotes antibiotic resistance (hello superbugs that can do lots of damage to animals and humans! Look up Russ Kremmer from the movie Fresh.) these animals are not being fed a diet that is natural to them so they’re susceptible to illness, where/how they live affects their bodies and their emotional being (yes, cows have emotions…just like us) become stressed, and they live in mass mono-cultures with little room to move around (if they aren’t moving, they aren’t burning calories but instead gaining weight faster!) and live as their species was designed to live able to walk and graze at will. It’s a little different with dairy cattle but I’m not going to delve too deep in to that one at this point in time. If you’re really truly interested in the lives of commercial dairy cows, I really enjoyed the book Portrait of a Burger as a Young Calf (male dairy cows have to go somewhere – they can’t produce milk!). {Antibiotic article}
Side Story: I remember going to a 4H fair a couple of years ago with so many steers that were just around a year old and at the fair they are then sold at an auction so the kids bathe them and fluff them up and proudly walk them around to hope for the biggest sale to prove they had done a good job raising that animals. But what saddened my heart is that they were HUGE. They had lots of fat covering, they were tall and they could hardly walk: stiff, bulky, slow. I was shocked. I compared them to our steers at the same age and even the same breed and mine were half the size and weight. And my heart sunk: THIS is what Americans look like now. THIS was heart disease and obesity. As the cattle have grown so have we.
Still with me?
A cow/bovine/steer/calf/bull/heifer is an herbivore (pigs and chickens are omnivores). Their systems are made to digest grasses. They are not made to consume corn and soy and by-products; when they do to excess, it creates dis-ease in the body and sicknesses can be more prevalent. But Americans like their fat marbled beef and Americans sure do like to eat and they like it now and they like it cheap: this has created our current food system. And I have even touched on subsidies or GMOs (genetically modified organisms). (more text below photo)
Now think about it this way. If an animal is sick or not at optimal health when it is slaughtered and processed into cuts of meat to then be consumed by a human being, that meat isn’t suddenly magically turned in to a healthy product to consume. It is what it is. It’s a transfer of energy.
So when the terms “humane” and “holistic” and “grassfed/pastured” are recently being put out there, it’s because people are starting to realize and demand differently. People are becoming aware of that connection between the health of the animal and the energy that goes in to their own body. Energy is energy; it just shows up in different forms: be it something we can touch or feel like food or something intangible like love or fear or sadness.
There are numerous articles out there about the health benefits of grassfed meats (yay for Google! or you can click {here}, too). And just because it says “Grassfed” does not necessarily mean that it was not “finished” (fattened) on grain. That’s one of the newest marketing ploys because those that market are catching on to what people are beginning to demand. If true 100% grassfed and grass-finished meats are important to you then you need to source from a farmer or connect with a retailer (small, independent businesses are usually the best) and ask the questions. If you’re in the United States you can check with www.eatwild.com for a great resource base or even email me and I’ll help you look. Connecting with a farmer is actually really fun; it may cost you more (yes, the true cost of food costs more) and it might be slightly less convenient but you’ll make up for it in the health of what you choose to consume, and the pride you have in knowing that your support of a local farmer goes far beyond an exchange of a few green pieces of paper (or plastic if that’s what you prefer).
Grassfed does taste a little differently than what you’d be used to in a traditional “beef” taste in the US. This is because there are many factors that determine taste: the terroir,for one, are the grasses, the soils, the water source of the land where the beef was raised, and the lifestyle and wait it was treated. 100% grassfed beef raised in Virginia will not taste the same as one raised in California. It’s comparable to wine that way. Grassfed is also less fatty than a corn fed beef but here’s the kicker: the fat that is on grassfed beef is actually — wait for it —- healthier for you. Our bodies need fats but good fats. Red meat gets a bad rep but, really, in my opinion, it’s not the red meat, it’s what the red meat consumed and how it was treated before becoming red meat. As a farmer who raises meat I do agree that this country eats too much meat; instead I encourage, if you’re going to do it, make it good meat. Meat that was raised with love and respect and the best intentions of health.
“You are what you eat eats too.”
- Michael Pollan.
Do the research. Dig a little deeper. Go back to basics. Go back to before Man decided he could grow something faster and cheaper; did anyone else notice that then we all got fatter and sicker when that happened?
See the connection?
#RealFood
For a great grassfed article please visit: http://organicconnectmag.com/wp/the-ancient-roots-grass-fed-beef/#.USobp-hva8F
Photos taken at www.mountvernongrassfed.com
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