This may come as a surprise to those people who equate "organic" with "more nutritious." Alas, this is not always true. For the most part, the term "organic" is simply a guarantee of what the food does not contain. You can be reasonably assured it will not contain any of those six syllable chemicals you can't pronounce. But organic food can still be deficient in nutrients or loaded with sugar and "bad" fat. An organic label does not guarantee good nutrition.
When a ruminant is taken off pasture and fattened on grain, it loses a number of valuable nutrients. For example, compared with grassfed meat, grainfed meat has only one quarter as much vitamin E, one-eighth as much beta-carotene, and one-third as many omega-3 fatty acids. It doesn't matter whether the animal is fed ordinary grain, genetically modified grain, or organic grain. Feeding large amounts of any type of grain to a grazing animal will have this effect simply because grain has fewer of these nutrients than fresh pasture.
Compared with grassfed products, organic grainfed products are also relatively deficient in a cancer-fighting fat called "CLA." When you feed a ruminant grain --- even as little as 2 pounds a day --- its production of CLA plummets. CLA may be one of the most potent cancer-fighting substances in our diet. In animal studies, as little as one half of one percent CLA in the diet has reduced tumor burden by more than 50 percent.
The underlying problem is that grain makes the digestive tract of a ruminant abnormally acid. This acidic environment causes the E.coli to multiply and to become more acid-resistant. According to a recent study published in the journal Science, these altered bacteria are much more likely to survive the cleansing acidity of your digestive juices and make you ill.
Choose grass-fed beef over organic!
When a ruminant is taken off pasture and fattened on grain, it loses a number of valuable nutrients. For example, compared with grassfed meat, grainfed meat has only one quarter as much vitamin E, one-eighth as much beta-carotene, and one-third as many omega-3 fatty acids. It doesn't matter whether the animal is fed ordinary grain, genetically modified grain, or organic grain. Feeding large amounts of any type of grain to a grazing animal will have this effect simply because grain has fewer of these nutrients than fresh pasture.
Compared with grassfed products, organic grainfed products are also relatively deficient in a cancer-fighting fat called "CLA." When you feed a ruminant grain --- even as little as 2 pounds a day --- its production of CLA plummets. CLA may be one of the most potent cancer-fighting substances in our diet. In animal studies, as little as one half of one percent CLA in the diet has reduced tumor burden by more than 50 percent.
The underlying problem is that grain makes the digestive tract of a ruminant abnormally acid. This acidic environment causes the E.coli to multiply and to become more acid-resistant. According to a recent study published in the journal Science, these altered bacteria are much more likely to survive the cleansing acidity of your digestive juices and make you ill.
Choose grass-fed beef over organic!
