Should We Eat Organic and Grass Fed Meat on a Paleo Lifestyle? Another great question! A paleo lifestyle means that we start to look at the type of meat we consume and purchase. To live a true paleo lifestyle all animal products should be organic and pasture raised (or you can hunt for your own animals ;)). Now, before you start saying ‘it’s too expensive’ or ‘too hard to find’ … hear us out!
We don’t eat 100% organic pasture raised meat produce but we’ve set ourselves a realistic goal to be consuming 99% organic by the end of 2014. We understand, to eat organic comes at a higher price so it takes a little while to get used to. It’s all about the transition (if you need help with this transition, we offer 1 on 1 health coaching services so get in touch if you’re interested!). But we also understand that to not eat organic comes at a price! A price to our health, a price to an animal’s life and a price to the Earth’s sustainability! PLUS organic meat tastes so much better!
Let’s talk about beef and lamb. No let’s talk about cows and lambs and sheep. First thing is first, we need to remember that our meat from the supermarket was a living animal. That’s all we will say about that right now.
These animals are not born to eat grains, so grain fed meat isn’t going to have the same properties as grass fed meat. Just so we’re on the same page: sheep and cows should be eating grass.
Grass fed (and grass finished or pasture finished) meat is better for us as it contains more omega 3s, these are good healthy fats. Grain fed meat’s omega 3 to omega 6 ratio is all out of wack (much higher omega 6 count and almost non-existent omega 3 count) which leads to many health problems. Think weight gain, cancer, heart problems and more. Grass fed meat is also packed with heaps of vitamins and minerals.
Grain fed beef and lamb is pumped with antibiotics and hormones. This is because their unnatural grain diets are making them sick (just like grains make us sick). So the question is… should we be eating sick, grain fed animals? Surely their sickness would have an impact to our own health?!
So Grass Fed Meat is better than Grain Fed Meat because:
- less bad fats, more good fats
- more beta-carotene = cancer prevention properties
- More omega 3 with a good ratio to omega 6 = mood enhancer, heart health, cancer prevention properties, weight management
- More vitamin B1 and B2, E, K, calcium, magnesium
- tastes better!
Now let’s touch on ethics. We personally hate being in confined spaces, we need to feel free and have our own space (this is why we dislike office jobs, oh and tight clothes!) and animals are the same. It’s time to stop ignoring what non-organic factory farming is. It’s cruel, the animals are piled in to a small space, not able to roam or stretch, fed an unnatural diet, pumpled with hormones and antibiotics.
These factory farmed animals don’t live happy lives. We’ve come to realise we care greatly about this, in fact, as kids we had a huge love for animals but somewhere along the way we forgot that packaged meat from the supermarket was once a breathing, moving, walking, thinking animal (extremely glad we have re-realised!). We’ve also done a bit of reading on the energy transfer from unhappy animals to the consumer… but this is a whole other blog post with more research required! If you know anything, get in touch!
“Factory farming causes the most suffering to the largest number of animals in Australia – more than 500 million every year. These factory farming industries operate with very little transparency, but there is hope. As consumers learn the truth behind their food, the call for change is growing louder. Consumer research has shown that 83% of Australians support or strongly support laws to ensure food animals have access to the outdoors, companions, natural materials and enough space to carry out their instinctive behaviour.” Voiceless.
Watch this clip about factory farmed chickens, warning that it’s a little shocking.
There are similar scenarios for pig products and farmed fish. This is a huge and pretty overwhelming problem for the world. We make a small difference by choosing organic but collectively it could make the world of difference!
We don’t know a huge amount of information on this topic, so add to the conversation and comment below. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject!
Always merrymaking,
e + c