Sunday, September 19, 2010

Free range cow's produce healthier meat

Beef produced by this steer/bull will be higher in good stuff
I have always believed that the studies that showed that red meat was unhealthy was done on barn housed / grain feed animals.

This animal diet produces cows with low carotene levels. By logical deduction it would also have love vitamin E levels. I believe that cattle feed this processed food diet (silage, hay, corn, gains, etc) is equivalent to eating a Western Diet. Where as the free range cattle (like in NZ) would produce meat that is much healthier for you.

Well I have been proved right (I love that feeling). Grass feed cows have higher levels of:
  • Omega 3 fatty acids
  • Carotene
  • Vitamin E 
  • Grain feed animals are kept in cages without fresh  green foods
  • glutathione (GT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) two powerful antioxidants 
It also had lower fat content. 

So you can see that free range or grass feed cattle produce healthier meat. I will be unpacking this information over the next few blog posts.

Reference: Cynthia A Daley, Amber Abbott, Patrick S Doyle, Glenn A Nader and Stephanie Larson. A review of fatty acid profiles and antioxidant content in grass-fed and grain-fed beef. Nutrition Journal 2010, 9:10doi:10.1186/1475-2891-9-10

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