We’ve all heard the expression “you are what you eat” but have you ever thought about what your food eats?
Beef has received a bad reputation for one’s health. This is mainly due to the feed cows are given.
Grain and corn feed, a cheap and abundant food source, is fed to cows daily to cause marbling, the swirls of fat that you may see in your cuts of beef. Marbling is sought after for its flavor.
Due to these feeds, digestion for the animals becomes difficult when the animals are not fed their natural diet. Hence, heavy antibiotics must be used to keep cows from getting ill and spreading illness to consumers.
Michael Pollan, author of “Omnivor’s Dilemma” states, “The diet of the animals we eat has a bearing on the nutritional quality, and healthfulness, of the food itself, whether it is meat or milk or eggs.”
According to the National Health Journal, grass-fed cows are more nutritionally dense, with higher Omega-3 fatty acids than grain-fed cows.
Omega-3 is most common in fish, but their diet is plant-based. Therefore, cows raised on their natural plant-based diet produce higher fatty acids compared to grain-fed beef.
It is important to note that meats labeled “organic” or “natural” do not mean that cows were grass-fed or pasture-raised. To ensure this, ask the butcher or supplier how the animal was raised and what kind of diet they were given.