Hooray for the Grass-Fed Revolution!

From Happy Animals to Healthy People

Except for the strictly vegan minority, most of us consume animal products on a daily basis. Whether you go for meat, milk, eggs, butter, or an occasional frozen yogurt, by eating these foods you are undeniably linking your own well being to that of domesticated animals such as cows and chickens. I would also be willing to bet that at some point in your life you heard about the inhumane treatment of animals in feedlots and felt guilty for eating that omelet or yogurt parfait for breakfast. In the past, that was all you could do: feel guilty. You had to choose between eating your favorite foods and doing your part to prevent brutal animal treatment. With the recent increase in publicity concerning food safety, nutrition, and environmental health, however, you no longer have to make that choice. You can now eat eggs, milk, and even meat with the knowledge that the animals that produced these foods lived a happy and relatively pain-free life.

My solution is simply to do some research before you purchase animal products. Make sure you buy meat, milk, and eggs from cows and chickens that have been allowed to wander through open pastures instead of being locked up in dark feedlots and fed an unnatural diet of corn, soy, meat, and antibiotics. Cows are particularly susceptible to health problems as a result of a grain-based diet. They are ruminants designed to eat grass, and so large amounts of corn and soy lead to serious gastrointestinal difficulties. To solve this problem, feedlot operators simply stuff the cattle with antibiotics and other drugs and slaughter them at a young age.

Buying grass-fed and pastured animal products will not only help the animals, it is beneficial to your health as well. Innumerable studies have shown that meat, milk, and eggs from pastured animals are higher in omega 3 fatty acids, vitamins E and C, beta-carotene, and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a natural cancer-fighting compound. Grain fed animal products, in contrast, have higher concentrations of saturated fat as well as total fat. Happy, healthy animals lead to happy, healthy people.

On a final note, farms that raise pastured animals are more likely to follow sustainable practices and thus produce far less pollution and waste than feedlots, or CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). CAFOs are notorious for pumping out tons of animal waste contaminated with antibiotics and other synthetic chemicals, leading to water pollution and environmental degradation for hundreds of miles. Do some research into sustainable cattle, pig, and chicken farms, and you will find that many rotate their animals through different fields, promoting a symbiotic relationship where the grass feeds the animals while the animals fertilize the grass. Many farms are extremely low-waste and reduce fossil fuel pollution by not consuming the hundreds of tons of corn and soy needed for a grain-fed diet.

A good source for information on grass-fed animal products is www.eatwild.com. At this site you will find statistics on the nutritional benefits of grass-fed meat, milk, and eggs, as well as rules for sustainable farming, and lists of farmers' markets, grocery stores, and restaurants near you that sell pastured animal products. So if you don’t have what it takes to go completely vegan (I could never give up honey myself), then at least take a step to protect the animals, your health, and our environment by consuming only pastured animal products.

~Sara