Lower
in Fat and Calories. There are a number of nutritional
differences between the meat of pasture-raised and feedlot-raised
animals. To begin with, meat from grass-fed cattle, sheep, and bison
is lower in total fat. If the meat is very lean, it can have one
third as much fat as a similar cut from a grain-fed animal.
Because meat from grass-fed
animals is lower in fat than meat from grain-fed animals, it is
also lower in calories. (Fat has 9 calories per gram, compared with
only 4 calories for protein and carbohydrates. The greater the fat
content, the greater the number of calories.) As an example, a 6-ounce
steak from a grass-finished steer can have 100 fewer calories than
a 6-ounce steak from a grain-fed steer. If you eat a typical amount
of beef (66.5 pounds a year), switching to lean grassfed beef will
save you 17,733 calories a year—without requiring any willpower
or change in your eating habits. If everything else in your diet
remains constant, you'll lose about six pounds a year. If all Americans
switched to grassfed meat, our national epidemic of obesity might
diminish.
In the past few years,
producers of grass-fed beef have been looking for ways to increase
the amount of marbling in the meat so that consumers will have a
more familiar product. But even these fatter cuts of grass-fed beef
are lower in fat and calories than beef from grain-fed cattle.
Extra Omega-3s. Meat from grass-fed
animals has two to four times more omega-3 fatty acids than meat
from grain- fed animals. Omega-3s are called "good fats"
because they play a vital role in every cell and system in your
body. For example, of all the fats, they are the most heart-friendly.
People who have ample amounts of omega-3s in their diet are less
likely to have high blood pressure or an irregular heartbeat. Remarkably,
they are 50 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack.[3]
Omega-3s are essential for your brain as well. People with a diet
rich in omega-3s are less likely to suffer from depression, schizophrenia,
attention deficit disorder (hyperactivity), or Alzheimer's disease.[4]
Another benefit of omega-3s is that they may
reduce your risk of cancer. In animal studies, these essential fats
have slowed the growth of a wide array of cancers and also kept
them from spreading.[5] Although the human research
is in its infancy, researchers have shown that omega-3s can slow
or even reverse the extreme weight loss that accompanies advanced
cancer and also hasten recovery from surgery.[6,7]
Omega-3s are most abundant in seafood and certain
nuts and seeds such as flaxseeds and walnuts, but they are also
found in animals raised on pasture. The reason is simple. Omega-3s
are formed in the chloroplasts of green leaves and algae. Sixty
percent of the fatty acids in grass are omega-3s. When cattle are
taken off omega-3 rich grass and shipped to a feedlot to be fattened
on omega-3 poor grain, they begin losing their store of this beneficial
fat. Each day that an animal spends in the feedlot, its supply of
omega-3s is diminished.[8] The graph below illustrates
this steady decline.
Data from: J Animal Sci (1993)
71(8):2079-88.
When chickens are housed indoors and deprived
of greens, their meat and eggs also become artificially low in omega-3s.
Eggs from pastured hens can contain as much as 10 times more omega-3s
than eggs from factory hens.[9]
It has been estimated that only 40 percent of
Americans consume an adequate supply of omega-3 fatty acids. Twenty
percent have blood levels so low that they cannot be detected.[10]
Switching to the meat, milk, and dairy products of grass-fed animals
is one way to restore this vital nutrient to your diet.
The CLA Bonus. Meat and dairy
products from grass-fed ruminants are the richest known source of
another type of good fat called "conjugated
linoleic acid" or CLA. When ruminants are raised on fresh
pasture alone, their products contain from three to five times more
CLA than products from animals fed conventional diets.[11]
(A steak from the most marbled grass-fed animals will have the most
CLA ,as much of the CLA is stored in fat cells.)
CLA may be one of our most potent defenses against
cancer. In laboratory animals, a very small percentage of CLA—a
mere 0.1 percent of total calories—greatly reduced tumor growth.
[12] There is new evidence that CLA may also reduce
cancer risk in humans. In a Finnish study, women who had the highest
levels of CLA in their diet, had a 60 percent lower risk of breast
cancer than those with the lowest levels. Switching from grain-fed
to grassfed meat and dairy products places women in this lowest
risk category.13 Researcher Tilak Dhiman from Utah State University
estimates that you may be able to lower your risk of cancer simply
by eating the following grassfed products each day: one glass of
whole milk, one ounce of cheese, and one serving of meat. You would
have to eat five times that amount of grain-fed meat and dairy products
to get the same level of protection.
Vitamin E. In addition to being
higher in omega-3s and CLA, meat from grassfed animals is also higher
in vitamin E. The graph below shows vitamin E levels in meat from:
1) feedlot cattle, 2) feedlot cattle given high doses of synthetic
vitamin E (1,000 IU per day), and 3) cattle raised on fresh pasture
with no added supplements. The meat from the pastured cattle is
four times higher in vitamin E than the meat from the feedlot cattle
and, interestingly, almost twice as high as the meat from the feedlot
cattle given vitamin E supplements. [14#]
In humans, vitamin E is linked with a lower risk of heart disease
and cancer. This potent antioxidant may also have anti-aging properties.
Most Americans are deficient in vitamin E.
Data from: Smith, G.C. "Dietary
supplementation of vitamin E to cattle to improve shelf life and
case life of beef for domestic and international markets."
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1171
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