Grass-fed Beef – Ethical Superfood

by | Oct 7, 2013 | High Fat Diet, High Protein Diet, Meat Products, Natural food | 0 comments

Meat Red meat has taken a lot of hits over the years.  Once the obvious cornerstone to a nutritious diet, red meat finds itself stuck in an uphill battle for relevancy. This is largely due to the system from which most Americans by their meat. The factory farm system is riddled with safety issues, both to the animals and the workers.  Animals are exposed to massive amounts of antibiotics. Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation” and the documentary, “Food Inc.” are damning illustrations of a food industry that feeds the public burgers contaminated with poop and cows with large visible holes, surgically implanted holes. There is a way to eat beef humanely and reap the benefits of a forgotten superfood, and that’s through the consumption of grass-fed beef.

According to an article in The Nutrition Journal aside from being significant source of the macro-nutrient protein, “red meat, regardless of feeding regimen, is nutrient dense and regarded as an important source of essential amino acids, vitamins A, B6, B12, D, E, and minerals, including iron, zinc and selenium.” This means even factory farmed meat has its benefits. If you’re worried about contaminants,  Dallas and Melissa Hartwig, authors of It Starts With Food, recommend sticking to leaner cuts of meat, as poisons collect in the fattier portions.

Continue Reading

Trader Joe’s Grass Fed Beef

by | Feb 21, 2013 | Food Choices, High Protein Diet, Low carb diet, Meat Products, Natural food | 0 comments

130049385391lWrO

Grass fed beef can seem to be a bit tougher simply because these animals take longer to get to their butchered weight and as you have discovered they don’t carry as much fat.

As the others have suggested cooking slowly and with extra fat is probably one of the simplest ways of ensuring that the meat is tender when you eat it.

If you like your meat underdone then steaks can also be cooked in the European way flash fried very quickly either side. It’s only when you cook the meat right through that you will find it starts to get tough as a general rule.

Tenderizing the meat using a marinade is also something you can do. A very simple marinade is to mix together a cup of vinegar, a cup of water and 3 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda and just let the meat marinate in that for at least an hour before cooking as gently as possible.

Lastly a tenderization or tenderizing hammer will work wonders as it will tend to break down the longer fibers in  grass fed beef or any grass fed meat come to that and allow you to enjoy your food without having to cut it with a chainsaw.

Hope that helps,

Mark

This is the copy of the comment I made on a forum post about grass fed beef

Omega 3 Feedlot Beef

by | Feb 8, 2013 | Food Choices, Low carb diet, Meat Products, Natural food | 0 comments

 

130049385391lWrOAs far as buying beef goes I prefer my beef to be naturally raised without any additives and in fact the same criteria hold true for eggs.

The first criterium I have is that the farmer has raised them on natural food because if you think about it in both cases, not so long ago farmers didn’t have the choice or the need even to put additives in their food because the food they were giving their animals was better quality.

For my mind the whole thing about Omega-fed beef, Omega 3 eggs or Omega 3 anything is really a moot point. What’s far more important is that the diet the animal received during its life was as close to 100% natural as possible because let’s face it, if we are short of Omega 3 or anything like that we can take the supplements directly far more effectively and that means that we won’t have to pay stupid prices just because the egg or the beef or the whatever has got Omega 3 all over the label.

Cheers,

Mark

A copy of the comment I did on a forum post about Omega 3

Grass Fed Beef

by | Jan 30, 2013 | Food Choices, High Protein Diet, Meat Products | 0 comments

A recent comment that I made on a lowcarber forum post about naturally fed beef

 

JoreyTK’s post:

Hey all,

I asked a local farmer if their cattle are grass finished. I’m pretty clueless about cattle raising but is this basically just as nutrient devoid as the supermarket meats?

 

My comment:

Great question JoreyTK and a super response from Jacki too.

From my perspective there are really two different criteria that needed to be looked at whenever we buy beef. The first thing are the animals fed natural food as opposed to food that is laced with antibiotics, hormones and other drugs and is it GM free? Generally speaking if those criteria are met then the meat product is usually pretty good simply because any farmer who is willing to go the extra mile not to use drugs and hormones and to ensure their feed is GMO-free will tend to take care of their animals far more conscientiously than those brought up on vast feedlots.

Whether or not they are finished on grass or corn fed or any other type of grain for that matter, as Jacki has said, will affect how quickly they come to kill weight and that will obviously  affect in many ways both the texture and the taste  as well as the look of the meat as well.

Then there is a third option for finishing cows off and that’s one they use quite extensively in Europe which is once the  growing season has stopped the cattle are transitioned on to silage which if you don’t know about it is fermented grass. This has the advantage of retaining a much larger proportion of all the good stuff, the nutrients as compared to say, dried hay or something like that.

Another popular feed in Europe is also root crops such as turnips, carrots parsnips, sugar beets and even sweet potatoes. Kale is also a very popular hereabout and it seems to last in the field quite well where the farmers will allow the cattle to strip graze it progressively each day.

So even though there may not be grass growing through the winter where you live, farmers do have a choice to feed their cattle in as natural a way as possible according to the resources they’ve got at hand. Whether they’re finished on grass, whether they’re finished on corn or whether they’re finished on solid or kale or whatever, the key issue for me is more is it natural and free of drugs and other additives that I just don’t want passed on to me through the meat I eat. The rest is really just more of a question of taste.

Cheers,

Mark

I need help.. To stay on the phase one or go on to OWL

by | Jan 17, 2013 | Food Choices, Low carb diet, Meat Products | 0 comments

This is a copy of my comment on a post over at forum.lowcarber.org regarding induction

 

kim_va said:

Hello everyone
I have been on phase one now for 3 weeks. I dont know if I want to move on or not. I want to say on phase one to lose more weight, but then again, I want to move on to OWL because I can have a little bit more food. How long did you all stay on the induction phase/? Thanks

 

My reply:

Hi kim_va,

If staying on induction is working for you, carry on but do make sure that you take a good range of supplement to make sure that you’re getting all the vitamins and minerals that you need.

A lot of people seem to be worried about opening themselves up to temptation when they move on from induction. Whilst that may be a legitimate fear, there are a number of things you can do to lessen the chance of temptation because really the temptation is only there if the extra foods you consider adding back into your diet come from the same range of choice that you’ve had before you started  your low carb journey.

My advice is to increase your horizons and instead of adding back smaller amounts of the same choice of foods that you’ve had before, look for new foods to try. Simply choose low carb new foods, so that’s different types of meat. If you’ve only ever eaten beef, pork and chicken, why not try duck or pigeon or guinea fowl or wild boar. If your vegetable choices before has only ever been potatoes, carrots, peas, parsnips and beans, say, why not go through the vegetable section in your local store and try something you’ve never tried before. If you fish choice has only ever been a nondescript piece of white fish covered in bread crumbs, why not try lobster or shrimp. I’m sure you get the picture.  

We don’t always have to move on from induction. We can take induction along with us for the journey simply  by making new food choices.

 Hope that helps,

Mark

Pork (bacon)

by | Jan 14, 2013 | Food Choices, Low carb diet, Meat Products | 0 comments

Here is another copy of a post I have commented to at lowcarber.org regarding meat products 

Liz53’s Post:

Excellent post, MarkMoxom. I’ve been eating primarily grass fed beef and free range pork and poultry since reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma in 2006, with nothing but improvements to my health.

I truly believe the body is satisfied with less food if it is of high quality. It makes sense because, bottom line, food is fuel for us. The body is going to continue to signal that it needs food, and we will likely continue to eat, till its essential needs are

Stuart, you may want to check out eatwild.com They have a list of local purveyors of sustainably-grown meat and vegetables in the US and Canada, organized by state and province. You might find something close to you.

My Reply:

Liz53,

Thank you for that link. It’s an excellent one by the way. Another one you might consider is polyfacefarms.com. They have a fantastic program of raising food totally naturally themselves. Also they take on apprentices who then go off and start out farms and repeat the same pattern, naturally produced in the old fashioned time all that way.

Hope that helps,

Mark