If you ever wondered why grass fed animal foods are recommended by this site and many other Nourishers alike… if want to know why pasture based farming is best for your body, the animals, the farmer and the planet, this book is for you. Jo Robinson, a freelance author and journalist who co-authored 11 other popular books including, ‘The Omega Diet’ and Harville Hendrix’s ‘Getting the Love You Want’, has written a comprehensive, yet compact testimony on the virtues of pasture raisied animal food.
Robinson’s exhaustive study gives a blow by blow account of the hell that is a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) or factory farm, then, just when you think you’re going to be sick, burst into tears or join PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), she shares the story of our saviours, pasture raising farmers. Folks like Joel Salatin who farm animals with compassion. Folks who charge more money for their product so their animals live with dignity. Folks whose animals exist as they were designed to. They have free access to pasture. They are protected from predators and from over crowding.
Along with the ethical and environmental issues, Robinson tackles the nutritional differences between pasture fed and conventionally raised animal foods.
What is Conventional Raising?
In Australia conventionally raised animals could be free roaming on pasture that may or may not be fertilized, herbicide and pesticide ridden, dipped in insecticides at intervals, then grain finished. They could also be housed in factory farms their whole lives, mutilated to avoid harm to each other, standing in their own excrement, riddled with antibiotics and growth hormones and fed arsenic to increase their appetite and growth rate.
What is Pasture Raising?
The Australian and US Organic standards do not required certified members to pasture feed. Organic animals in Australia require only 50% of the feed of ruminants to be provided by grazing. There is no pasture raising organisation in Australia or the UK like the American Grass Fed Association and certainly no standards certification. If there were one, Jo Robinson, would certainly be their ambassador. Pasture fed means just that. The animal is fed on pasture, grasses, grown in the ground. They don’t eat out of date confectionery, manure from other animals, soy meal left over after the oil has been extracted using toxic hexane chemicals, citrus peel and grains… Grass and hay. That is all. From start to finish. That’s what you need to make sure of when you ask your butcher, “is it pasture raised?”
A few nutritional facts that are bound to shock:
- it costs more money per pound to raise pigs indoors on concrete than on pasture (study quoted in the book)
- Organic Milk is less nutritious than pasture fed only milk
- pasture raised animal foods has more Vitamin E and CLA
- pastured animal food contains 50/50 Omega 3 and 6 while conventionally raised animal food has an excess of Omega 6, known to be involved in heart disease, cancer and other degenerative diseases.
- even organic animals that have been fed grains have an unnatural balance of Omega 3 and 6 (1/3 grain creates double Omega 6 to 3 and 2/3 grain makes 4 times Omega 6 to Omega 3)
- Grass fed eggs and butter have a rich yellow orange colour because they are rich in beta-carotene, even organic milk from cows living on grains is white and pasty, requiring natural yellow colouring.
These facts can be found in Robinson’s handbook along with references.
To top it all off, Pasture Perfect has a recipe section. Since they are not marbled with mostly polyunsaturated fat, pasture raised meats need special cooking techniques.
Jo Robinson’s book is a well researched and documented handbook on what is touted as the ‘better than organic’ food standard. If you’re serious about health, fair trade, family farms and the environment, you can’t not read it.
To find out more about Pasture raised animal foods and buy Jo’s book, visit her site: EatWild.com
To resist factory farming go to the Grace Factory Farm Project or the EU Healthy Beef Project.
About the Author...
Joanne Hay, Editor of Nourished Magazine, Chief Nourisher and Mother of three is very grateful to live in Byron Bay and be able to share all she has learned about Nourishment. She has trained as an Acupuncturist (unfinished), Kinesiologist (finished) and parent (never finished). She serves the Weston A Price Foundation as a chapter leader. She loves sauerkraut, kangaroo tail stew, home made ice cream, her husband Wes and her kids Isaiah, Brynn and Ronin (in no particular order…well maybe ice cream first).
Jan 22nd, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Today I checked with my local Organic Free Range egg producer, to enquire if the chickens only graze on green pasture and are not fed grains. To cut a long story short, I was advised they are grazing on green pasture but they do need to be feed some grains to obtain a protein level of 17% - and so are given 110g per day of an organic grain mix. When I explained I had a health challenge and needed to know what specifically was the constituents of the organic grain mix she agreed to inform me - it contained organic sorghum, wheat, corn, soy meal, sunflower and safflower.
I do not like the sound of those grains!! Does anyone here know if eating pastured eggs from chckens that have eaten 110g/day of thie above grain cause the D6D enzyme to be blocked in us and thus the entire prostaglandin pathway??
This is part of the article I had recently read: “Tripping Lightly Down the Prostaglandin Pathways” by By Mary
G. Enig, PhD and Sally Fallon;
http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/tripping.html
“Prostaglandins are a subset of a larger family of substances called
eicosanoids. Other subgroups include thromboxanes, leukotrienes and
lipoxins. Eicosanoids are localized tissue hormones that seem to be
the fundamental regulating molecules in most forms of life. They do
not travel in the blood like hormones, but are created in the cells
to serve as catalysts for a large number of processes including the
movement of calcium and other substances into and out of cells,
dilation and contraction, inhibition and promotion of clotting,
regulation of secretions including digestive juices and hormones, and
control of fertility, cell division and growth. The list of
biological functions involving prostaglandins is limited only by our
ignorance of their effects. As research continues, so will our
knowledge of these fascinating substances expand and grow.
Prostaglandins are produced in the cells by the action of enzymes on
essential fatty acids. There are two prostaglandin pathways, one that
begins with double-unsaturated omega-6 linoleic acid and one that
begins with triple-unsaturated omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid.
One of the most common blocks in the prostaglandin chain involves
delta-6 desaturase (D6D), the first sept in the production of
prostaglandins from essential fatty acids. When action of this enzyme
is blocked, so is the entire pathway. This vital enzyme is inhibited
first and foremost by trans fatty acids found in margarine,
shortening and hydrogenated fats.2 These should be avoided at all
costs. In addition, excess omega-6 fatty acids from modern commercial
vegetable oils inhibits the pathway that leads to the Series 3 group.
This is because both pathways begin with desaturation by the same
delta-6 desaturase enzymes. Too much omega-6 in the diet “uses up”
the delta-6 desaturase enzymes needed for the omega-3 pathway.3
The modern diet contains large amounts of omega-6 fatty acids
compared to that of a generation ago, because high omega-6 oils from
soy, corn, cottonseed and safflower have been introduced into the
food supply. They are used to make hydrogenated fats and as a
replacement for traditional fats and oils such as olive oil, butter,
coconut oil, goose fat and lard. The modern diet is also deficient in
omega-3 fatty acids compared to that of a generation ago because
modern farming methods have the effect of increasing the amounts of
omega-6 and oleic acid in vegetables, fruits, fish, eggs, grains and
legumes, while decreasing the amount of valuable triple unsaturated
omega-3.”