I decided to make some Pineapple Beef Curry from the ground beef I purchased at Red Sun Farm a couple of weeks ago. I tried today to determine the difference in number of calories per serving that would result from switching grass fed beef for the typical corn finished beef and it was no easy task! Even though I found many websites touting the health benefits of grass fed beef and many suppliers, virtually none of them posted a simple Nutrition Facts label. This wasn't due to unwillingness to provide the information, simply that it's not required for single ingredient items such as beef (or indeed, coffee) coupled with the fact that the nutritional analysis is very expensive. I did find several interesting facts along the way though, including:- Grass fed beef has 1/2 to 1/3 the amount of fat as does corn finished beef
- Grass fed beef is two to six times higher in Omega-3s and other healthy fats and is much lower in saturated fat
- Grass fed beef contains more vitamin E
- The e. Coli count is much higher in grain finished beef than in grass fed
This information and much, much more is available at EatWild.com. After reading and weighing the pros and cons for a couple of hours, I had to come to the conclusion that there are only two reasons not to eat grass fed beef as opposed to corn finished; taste and cost. Some people find grass fed beef too gamy for their tastes. I'll reserve my judgment on taste until I've actually tried it, although I don't think that will be an issue for me; I mean, I've eaten moose and liked it. But grass fed beef is more expensive, mostly because it tends to come from smaller producers. For me, cost isn't much of an issue since I don't eat much meat (I've only had beef once in the past 5 months), so I can afford to splurge a bit.
At the end of the day, it's really very simple. Letting cows be cows, and doing what millions of years of evolution have honed them to do (eat grass very efficiently) is better for the cows, better for the environment and ultimately, better for us.
Still, after two hours digging, I didn't find a simple calorie count until I stumbled across the nutrition information for Wild Oats Organic Grass Fed Beef Burgers. Using that and some raw calculations from the information I did find, I've decided I'll assume grass fed beef has about 80% of the calories as the conventional stuff. That's good enough for my calorie counting purposes.
1 comment:
Here’s why grass-fed folks don’t bother to provide ingredient labels – except for maybe fatty acid profiles to indicate they are grass-fed.
The idea of measuring the nutrients in food is a modern day concept that developed because man discovered his concocted foods don’t supply the nutrient needs in proper balance for optimal health. To compound his problem of measuring nutrients, scientists have discovered that foods are far more complex than the simplified analysis that man dreams up and prints on a label. So, those of us in the grass-fed business don’t bother with providing unnecessary, misleading, and absolutely unnecessary information that has nothing to do with whether or not the food is fit to eat.
Grass-fed meat is the perfect food for man. It’s the only food group he can eat exclusively and still have optimal health. Eskimos are a case in point. They had perfect health until the white man came along with his grain, grain-based foods, and grain-fed livestock products. There were nearly 100% meat eaters – but all their meats were “grass-fed.”
The foundation food for all animal life is the green plant. Please read the link “Man Is an Extension of the Leafy, Green Plant” at http://slankersgrassfedmeats.com/id86.htm
Then another good reading assignment is “The Real Diet of Man is Very Simple” at http://www.slankersgrassfedmeats.com/the_real_diet_of_man.htm
If one eats the original diet of man he just eats. He doesn’t measure. The diet of man provides exactly 100% of the body’s nutrient needs in perfect balance the way food did for four million years. Human bodies are looking for no more or no less than what’s in the diet of man.
So don’t worry about calories, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, and such when you eat the diet of man. It will all be there in perfect balance for optimal health. It’s the concocted foods that cause the problems and the first concocted food was – GRAIN. There are many more today and most are grain-based.
Ted Slanker
http://www.slankersgrassfedmeats.com
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