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Raised 100% on grass. This bull has never even had hay, much less grain, cubes, or protein licks.
Grassfed is best!
Science Links
Science Underscores the Grassfed Story
If you're wondering why anyone in their right mind would give up their grain-fed livestock food products, when for years we've been told it was "The best there is," read on . . .
Starting in the early-1980s nutritional scientists started making revolutionary discoveries about fats. They learned that the fat we all can see in meats is only a small part of the fats in any animal's body. The science of understanding fatty acids was born and with it came the knowledge that modern concocted foods will never be able to provide mankind's proper nutritional requirements.
Compared to grain-fed meats of all kinds, the nutritional benefits of meats from grass-fed livestock are huge. But there's more to eating naturally-raised (100% grass-fed) livestock products. One overlooked factor is that natural foods, or "real foods" as we like to call them, come automatically with a proper balance of the full range of nutrients our bodies require. Consequently everything we eat must be examined to see whether or not it is real food or concocted food. Fishing about for a proper balance of nutrients by buying packaged supplements, while at the same time we eat the concocted foods of Big Business, is akin to "playing God." How do we know when we get it right? God figured it out from the get go and that's why real foods always have and always will provide the perfect balance of nutrients for our bodies. Consequently, when we eat real foods we don't have to buy supplements.
(For most of the links on this page, when you select them, you will leave this site.)
BIG Proponents of Grass-Fed Beef
A Medical Doctor with a Focus on Nutrition
David Holland, MDEl Paso, TEXAS
Exceptional Medical Guidance via the Internet
David Holland M.D. has a Web site that is designed to teach everyone about the dynamic interaction between the state of their health and the foods they eat and the environment within which they live. It is: http://www.thinkfungus.com/. Best of all, his Web site offers everyone with a computer the opportunity to have one-on-one communications with Dr. Holland, a real healthcare professional.
A person with Chronic Disease must follow a different set of rules – the diet must change, the supplements often have to change, and sometimes the environment must change. That's the guidance Dr. Holland offers through his Web site. There are articles (fully referenced) to read through, lifestyle changes to learn about, and, often most importantly, there's an interactive forum that everyone can use to share with others what they've gone through and what they've done to bring about change.
Although it is impossible for Dr Holland to actually diagnose problems through his Web site, through the forum he offers detailed guidance in how one might best work with their health care professional to overcome not only their symptoms but the underlying causes of their diseases.
Access to Dr. Holland is a subscription-based service that invites you to communicate directly with him about your health concerns. In turn he will explain how he has approached the same health problems in his practice. The cost is only $4.95 per month!
We highly recommend his Internet service http://www.thinkfungus.com/. For a very modest monthly fee you can have full access to one of our nation's finest healthcare professionals; one who focuses on nutrition rather than more prescription drugs and operations.
Artemis P. Simopoulos, M.D. Here are three articles by Artemis P. Simopoulos, M.D., President, The Center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health, Washington, DC. She says things like; “Today industrialized societies are characterized by (1) an increase in energy intake and decrease in energy expenditure; (2) an increase in saturated fat, omega-6 fatty acids and trans fatty acids (partially hydrogenated oils), and a decrease in omega-3 fatty acid intake; (3) a decrease in complex carbohydrates and fiber; (4) an increase in cereal grains and a decrease in fruits and vegetables; and (5) a decrease in protein, antioxidants and calcium intake.” Click here to return to The Real Diet of Man.
Volumes in this series consist of exceptionally thorough reviews on topics selected as either fundamental to improved understanding of human and animal nutrition, useful in resolving present controversies, or relevant to problems of social and preventive medicine that depend for their solution on progress in nutrition. Many of the individual articles have been judged as among the most comprehensive reviews ever published on the given topic. Since the first volume appeared in 1959, the series has earned repeated praise for the quality of its scholarship and the reputation of its authors. Schering-Plough Corporation, Enzon Pharmaceuticals, and Merck & Co., Inc. sponsor this very informative Web site focused entirely on fungi and molds. "Dr. Fungus is an independent Web site dedicated to providing a wide range of scholarly peer-reviewed contemporary and historical information regarding fungi. It seeks to promote an understanding of fungi and the ways that fungal diseases of humans, animals, and plants affect people living throughout the world. It provides information to both professionals and the public by making a broad range of mycology-related images and content instantly available via the World Wide Web."
In the germ world, fungi usually lack the flair of viruses or bacteria. To people with normal, healthy immune systems, a fungus will rarely show itself — even though you carry around a microscopic film of fungus on your hair and skin, and take in invisible clouds of fungal spores with each breath. While many other microbes prefer to make a living through disease and death, a fungus is often content to wait for its host to die of something else.
In such diseases, the fungi are actively growing on and invading the body of their hosts. There is another means by which fungi can cause harm without invading our bodies. When fungi grow on a living organism or on stored food material that we consume, they may produce harmful metabolites that diffuses into their food. It is believed that fungi evolved these metabolites as a means of protecting their food supply by preventing other organisms from eating it. These metabolites are referred to as mycotoxins, which literally means "fungus poisons." From the Botony Department of the University of Hawaii.
Mycotoxins contaminate cereal grains worldwide, and their presence in pet food has been a potential health threat to companion animals. Aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, and Fusarium mycotoxins have been found in both raw ingredients and final products of pet food around the globe. Aflatoxin, a hepatotoxin and carcinogen, has caused several food poisoning outbreaks in dogs, and aflatoxin content is regulated in pet food in many countries. Ochratoxin A and Fusarium mycotoxins including trichothecenes, zearalenone, and fumonisins may have chronic effects on the health of companion animals.
The topic "Mycotoxins" and all related subjects can be very complicated and often lead to unanswered questions. www.mycotoxins.info attempts to cover these issues comprehensively and offers useful information to everybody who might be confronted with problems that can be attributed to mycotoxins.
Food-borne bacteria rightly are a major cause for concern to human health, but it is difficult to escape the conclusion that mycotoxins in foods are responsible for much higher numbers of human deaths than are food-borne bacteria.
This is a link to a pdf document of a research report published by Kansas State University discussing the cause and other aspects of mycotoxins in grains. The author is Tim Herrman. The publication date was May 2002.
This resource contains more than 40 peer-reviewed, published research reports. For example, the abstract for one reads like this: Both anthropologists and nutritionists have long recognized that the diets of modern-day hunter-gatherers may represent a reference standard for modern human nutrition and a model for defense against certain diseases of affluence. Because the hunter-gatherer way of life is now probably extinct in its purely un-Westernized form, nutritionists and anthropologists must rely on indirect procedures to reconstruct the traditional diet of preagricultural humans.
HeartSpring.net works with state licensed naturopathic physicians and certified medical doctors, helping them to publish health articles. Physician articles are referenced with author contact information, including the physician's education, training and accreditation. Articles are chosen according to their educational value, their use of peer reviewed references, and their overall impact on human health. Many of the naturopathic physicians who publish with HeartSpring.net are members of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP)
This is a link to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The Wikipedia Encyclopedia (and dictionary) is written in English. It was started by the Wikipedia Foundation Inc. in 2001 and currently contains 3,204,207 articles. It's one of the finest free online resource centers for information we've found.
The American Meat Institute put together a guide for consumers confused about recent claims made by some activists and media reports. It does explain many basic questions, yet in terms of addressing nutrition it misses the mark just like everyone else who recommends whole grains as a food.
Dietary lipids and lipid metabolism are key components of individual health status. Lipids cause and influence many conditions including diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and aging. They also reveal biochemical patterns related to disease states such as cancer, immune function (lupus and arthritis for example), and neurodegenerative disorders. This web site link (Lipomics Technologies, Inc.) illustrates the chemical composition of the various fatty acids. It is very technical, but it clearly illustrates that fats are not merely fat. The analysis covers 39 different fatty acids.
Go to this link and read up on 56 afflictions troubling Americans and other grain eaters world wide that are caused and exacerbated by not eating the Paleolithic Diet.
The story on fat from grass-fed livestock is just the opposite of the story regarding the fat from grain-fed livestock. For years you've been told to avoid fat. But when it comes to grass-fed meats, the fat is good for you! We ran across a really good article covering the Big Picture on fats. For sure it debunks a lot of myths and old wives' tales. If you are concerned about saturated fats and/or fats in your food, don't miss this article.
The human body requires between five and ten grams of salt a day. Humans need a daily intake of salt. Unlike other chemicals that the body requires, sodium chloride, or salt, cannot be reproduced by the body. If the human body goes for a long period of time without enough salt the body will desiccate and die.
Comprehensive, yet easy to understand, essays by Ted Slanker that provide an overview of the advantages of grass-based foods over grain-based foods.
Even though this study used grain-fed meats, it proves that even a little of the low-grain approach works best. The Atkins Diet doesn't emphasize grass-fed meats. If it had, the meat eaters in this study would have lost considerably more weight. But just the same, this study provides some guidance about how one should eat. The link takes you to an article summarizing the research. In that research you'll see that the low-fat, restricted-calorie diet based on the American Heart Association's guidelines was worse than the Mediterranean Diet. The Mediterranean Diet came in second to the Atkins Diet. All this strongly suggests that "The Diet of Man" is the one and only diet of man. It also suggests that the dietary information of the American Heart Association is merely the status quo of the failed science of 50 years ago.
Antibiotic resistance, the acquired ability of a pathogen to withstand an antibiotic that kills off its sensitive counterparts, originally arises from random mutations in existing genes or from intact genes that already serve a similar purpose. Exposure to antibiotics and other antimicrobial products, whether in the human body, in animals, or the environment, applies selective pressure that encourages resistance to emerge favoring both “naturally resistant” strains and strains which have “acquired resistance.” Horizontal gene transfer, in which genetic information is passed between microbes, allows resistance determinants to spread within harmless environmental or commensal microorganisms and pathogens, thus creating a reservoir of resistance. Resistance is also spread by the replication of microbes that carry resistance genes, a process that produces genetically identical (or clonal) progeny. (A report from the American Academy of Microbiology.)
Essay on nutrition written by Bonnie Beardsley, MPH, LDN, RD, a professional consulting dietitian.
Dr. Loren Cordain is a member of the faculty of the Department of Health and Exercise Science at Colorado State University. During the past two decades he has researched the effects of diet on human health and specifically examined links between modern diets and disease. He has revealed significant evidence that human health is optimally maintained through consumption of a diet that closely resembles our Paleolithic ancestors, consisting of grass-fed meats, fish and seafood, fresh fruits, and fresh vegetables. Additional information and specifics may be found in the articles, books, and materials listed on this Web site.
Science versus the Popular Media
Food, Inc. says it lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. It implies that our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers, and our own environment. There are bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but it says there is also new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. For these reasons and more American are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
This is an alliance of associations that represent the livestock, meat, and poultry industries. Together, their members produce more than 90% of U.S. beef, pork, lamb, veal, turkey, and chicken. U.S. meat and poultry is among the safest, most abundant and most affordable anywhere in the world. That success was achieved through research, technology, and plain hard work. The members are large and small, urban and rural, old-world and modern cutting edge. Despite this, the makers of "Food, Inc." and the subjects they interview seek to paint our industries as big, bad, and mechanized. They seek to prove their point though a selective use of the facts. While the makers of "Food, Inc." have the right to state their opinions, consumers and the media have the right to the facts. And that’s what this web site claims it is all about: the other side of the story.
Eat meat. That's the dietary advice given by a team of scientists who examined the dietary role of fat in a study that combined nutritional analysis with anthropologic research about the diets of ancient hunter-gatherer societies.
An essay on Attention Deficit Disorder by Teresa Gallagher. "...kids low in Omega-3 essential fatty acids are significantly more likely to be hyperactive, have learning disorders, and to display behavioral problems."
This is an essay by John Finnegan. "...Omega-3 fats are necessary for the complete development of the human brain during pregnancy..."
"CLA is a fatty acid found in beef and dairy fats. Scientific interest in CLA was stimulated in the late 1980s when a University of Wisconsin researcher discovered its cancer-fighting properties in a study of rats fed fried hamburger. CLA cannot be produced by the human body, but it can be obtained through foods such as whole milk, butter, beef, and lamb." So check out "Amazing Graze" an article on the USDA's Web site that was published in the Agricultural Research magazine.
Nearly all food borne illnesses come from organic sources. They are bacteria, viruses, molds, and fungi. Grains and sugars are organic, yet they are very destructive to human health. These "organic" substances cause nearly all of the chronic diseases in America. But what if foods are grown "organically"? Is that truly better? This link goes to the American Council on Science and Health's review of a published report titled "Claims of Organic Food's Nutritional Superiority: A Critical Review." You can also access the actual report. This is definitely food for thought.
On the basis of a systematic review of studies of satisfactory quality, there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. The small differences in nutrient content detected are biologically plausible and mostly relate to differences in production methods. From an extensive report published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. A summery of the report at MSN Health.
Supplementing animal feed with antimicrobial agents to enhance growth has been common practice for more than 30 years and is estimated to constitute more than half the total antimicrobial use worldwide. The potential public health consequences of this use have been debated; however, until recently, clear evidence of a health risk was not available. Accumulating evidence now indicates that the use of the glycopeptide avoparcin as a growth promoter has created in food animals a major reservoir of Enterococcus faecium, which contains the high level glycopeptide resistance determinant vanA, located on the Tn1546 transposon. Furthermore, glycopeptide-resistant strains, as well as resistance determinants, can be transmitted from animals to humans.
This links to an article in the Center for Disease Control's "Emerging" Infectious Diseases journal. Emerging Infectious Diseases represents the scientific communications component of CDC's efforts against the threat of emerging infections. However, even as it addresses CDC's interest in the elusive, continuous, evolving, and global nature of these infections, the journal relies on a broad international authorship base and is rigorously peer-reviewed by independent reviewers from all over the world.
According to James Russell, USDA researcher working at Cornell, an all-grain diet is not natural to cattle. As ruminant animals, cattle are designed to consume and digest huge quantities of high-cellulose, low-nutrition grass. Diets of starchy, high-calorie grain trigger disorders in cattle that must be treated with antibiotics and other drugs...
The Eating Experience
So the health story is great, but what about the eating experience? Grass-fed beef is famous for being "chewy." Yes, grass-fed beef is leaner than grain-fed beef. But is that good? What about tenderness? Government grading specifications indicate that intramuscular fat and tenderness go hand in hand. Is that true? For the answer, check this out: The Meat Tenderness Debate.
Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, was released in early 2006. It is not a well-grounded scientific work. But it is a fascinating, original, and elegant read about the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us -- industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves -- from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. To read the introduction and first chapter of The Omnivore's Dilemma click CORN. The first chapter is all about corn. Unfortunately, Pollan has become a poster boy for the War on American Agriculture. Therefore he is part of the problem in solving the American health crisis rather than being a part of the solution. For more on that click on The War on American Agriculture.
This is an excellent resource linking to extensive background information on many chronic diseases and other ailments.
For an in-depth review about Food Safety: The Agricultural Use of Antibiotics and its Implications for Human Health, check out this report from the US General Accounting Office.
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