We’ve never been a huge beef family; I simply never bought it due to the high fat content and the knowledge that most of the cows don’t get any exercise or natural diets.
When I started researching the difference between normal beef and grass fed beef, I learned that it was important to bring grass-fed beef into our diet. That we were missing some incredible vitamins and Omega 3’s that we would not necessarily get in chicken or turkey.
A break down of why you should choose grass-fed over factory farmed beef:
Virtually all the meat, eggs, and dairy products that you find in the supermarket come from animals raised in confinement in large facilities called CAFOs or “Confined Animal Feeding Operations.” These highly mechanized operations provide a year-round supply of food at a reasonable price. They feed their animals (whether it be chickens, pigs or cows) on a highly suspect diet. Cows are not physically designed to be able to eat corn, however, due to the large amount of government subsidies, corn has become the highest-producing product in the US… so much so that it is in virtually everything you buy (if you’re not a label-reader)…if not stated, all of this corn is in fact, genetically modified, meaning that it is chemically created to produce at a faster rate (did you know that 70% of food in a grocery store has a genetically modified ingredient in it?). It is then turned into unnatural products that not only humans can’t digest, but cows themselves have difficulty digesting.
This is where e-coli comes from. Technically, a cow’s digestive path cannot handle the corn and bacteria starts forming in their digestive system. This bacteria can lead to e. coli, which has been found in over one-half of a million children since 1993. E coli is deadly and dangerous and a direct result of our government and these mass-beef producing companies' irresponsibility.
What is the CAFO’s response to any of these deadly diseases? To create a new solution to the problem, scientifically, not by fixing the problem naturally. They then decide to give antibiotics and other drugs to all of the cattle in the CAFO, just to remain safe and kill the bacteria… if you have any knowledge on the danger of antibiotics and what it does to a system, you will know that the food we put in our mouth is treated the exact same, although they don’t put the care into providing probiotics to these animals or monitoring their health (in fact, the FDA approved for cattle with cancer, tumors, and other diseases to still be slaughtered and sold as meat--GROSS).
Another solution to killing bacteria is that they have decided to mix ammonia into remains of other animals (horse and cattle, even cat and dog carcasses until 1997’s Mad Cow disease scare… then the government tightened the control a bit and only allowed horse and cattle remains to be re-fed back into these cows… how kind of them). Seriously, a solution to bacteria and disease would be to add ammonia into their systems while turning herbivores into carnivores? Sounds appalling…it is! And that’s why we are so undereducated about the meat that we are buying… the government knows that as soon as American’s learn what they’re consuming, the treatment of the animals, and many other factors including poor labor condition and land a water pollution, I’m pretty sure people would be running from the beef isle.
This is just a small break down of what goes into the beef. Once you start researching, you will be overwhelmed with the conditions of the animals and the process in these factories…The motivation that prompted me to write this post was after Daddy Mock and I watched Food Inc., … a very important movie to watch, I highly recommend it. It is extremely eye opening and even if you have done your research and already do believe in consuming food in it’s most natural state, you can learn a lot about the CAFO’s and how our government is involved.
This post was strictly about beef, but the same story goes for poultry and pork (which we don’t consume). The best you can do now is to buy free-range, organic chicken… grass-fed beef is hard to find, but if you ask around at your local farmer’s market, there should be some contacts that can send you in the right direction. Don't get me started on corn and soybeans... 90% of soybeans in America are GMO... and there is a ton of politics behind the soy industry, which has stripped away virtually all rights of soy bean farmers (as stated in my candle post)...
I can’t say this for all Trader Joe’s, but ours has recently started carrying Organic, Grass-fed ground beef! What a relief as we don’t have a deep freezer and typically when buying grass-fed beef, you usually buy it in large portions and need storage for it.
Let me know if you have any other suggestions for documentaries, books, etc. Again, I highly recommend Food Inc if you haven’t seen it. Also, read Fast Food Nation. It’s again eye-opening over the decline of our health in America (and how horribly weaved in the government is to this decline!).
It can all be so overwhelming, but as Food Inc states several times, our right is to choose what we eat. Farmers will respond to our needs (much of the organic industry has done that in the past few years)... this is all encouraging. It just takes US choosing what's healthy and right and eventually it wouldn't cost so much... who's a front runner with me?
When I started researching the difference between normal beef and grass fed beef, I learned that it was important to bring grass-fed beef into our diet. That we were missing some incredible vitamins and Omega 3’s that we would not necessarily get in chicken or turkey.
Virtually all the meat, eggs, and dairy products that you find in the supermarket come from animals raised in confinement in large facilities called CAFOs or “Confined Animal Feeding Operations.” These highly mechanized operations provide a year-round supply of food at a reasonable price. They feed their animals (whether it be chickens, pigs or cows) on a highly suspect diet. Cows are not physically designed to be able to eat corn, however, due to the large amount of government subsidies, corn has become the highest-producing product in the US… so much so that it is in virtually everything you buy (if you’re not a label-reader)…if not stated, all of this corn is in fact, genetically modified, meaning that it is chemically created to produce at a faster rate (did you know that 70% of food in a grocery store has a genetically modified ingredient in it?). It is then turned into unnatural products that not only humans can’t digest, but cows themselves have difficulty digesting.
This is where e-coli comes from. Technically, a cow’s digestive path cannot handle the corn and bacteria starts forming in their digestive system. This bacteria can lead to e. coli, which has been found in over one-half of a million children since 1993. E coli is deadly and dangerous and a direct result of our government and these mass-beef producing companies' irresponsibility.
What is the CAFO’s response to any of these deadly diseases? To create a new solution to the problem, scientifically, not by fixing the problem naturally. They then decide to give antibiotics and other drugs to all of the cattle in the CAFO, just to remain safe and kill the bacteria… if you have any knowledge on the danger of antibiotics and what it does to a system, you will know that the food we put in our mouth is treated the exact same, although they don’t put the care into providing probiotics to these animals or monitoring their health (in fact, the FDA approved for cattle with cancer, tumors, and other diseases to still be slaughtered and sold as meat--GROSS).
Another solution to killing bacteria is that they have decided to mix ammonia into remains of other animals (horse and cattle, even cat and dog carcasses until 1997’s Mad Cow disease scare… then the government tightened the control a bit and only allowed horse and cattle remains to be re-fed back into these cows… how kind of them). Seriously, a solution to bacteria and disease would be to add ammonia into their systems while turning herbivores into carnivores? Sounds appalling…it is! And that’s why we are so undereducated about the meat that we are buying… the government knows that as soon as American’s learn what they’re consuming, the treatment of the animals, and many other factors including poor labor condition and land a water pollution, I’m pretty sure people would be running from the beef isle.
This is just a small break down of what goes into the beef. Once you start researching, you will be overwhelmed with the conditions of the animals and the process in these factories…The motivation that prompted me to write this post was after Daddy Mock and I watched Food Inc., … a very important movie to watch, I highly recommend it. It is extremely eye opening and even if you have done your research and already do believe in consuming food in it’s most natural state, you can learn a lot about the CAFO’s and how our government is involved.
This post was strictly about beef, but the same story goes for poultry and pork (which we don’t consume). The best you can do now is to buy free-range, organic chicken… grass-fed beef is hard to find, but if you ask around at your local farmer’s market, there should be some contacts that can send you in the right direction. Don't get me started on corn and soybeans... 90% of soybeans in America are GMO... and there is a ton of politics behind the soy industry, which has stripped away virtually all rights of soy bean farmers (as stated in my candle post)...
I can’t say this for all Trader Joe’s, but ours has recently started carrying Organic, Grass-fed ground beef! What a relief as we don’t have a deep freezer and typically when buying grass-fed beef, you usually buy it in large portions and need storage for it.
Let me know if you have any other suggestions for documentaries, books, etc. Again, I highly recommend Food Inc if you haven’t seen it. Also, read Fast Food Nation. It’s again eye-opening over the decline of our health in America (and how horribly weaved in the government is to this decline!).
It can all be so overwhelming, but as Food Inc states several times, our right is to choose what we eat. Farmers will respond to our needs (much of the organic industry has done that in the past few years)... this is all encouraging. It just takes US choosing what's healthy and right and eventually it wouldn't cost so much... who's a front runner with me?