Is Pastured Food Worth It?
By Sandy Sommer RKC on in Dietary & Nutritional Planning
Only you can know for sure. For me it surely is worth the additional investment. I care about how I eat and where it comes from. I highly suggest you may want to check out Food Inc. and that way you can come to your own conclusion.
Once I educated myself, then it became a “no brainer” for me. First off, my food costs haven’t risen enough to make a difference to me. In fact, I’m not sure that my total food bill has risen at all. When I take into account the fact that I’m not drinking soda, eating chips, going to Starbucks and rarely dining out I think I may actually be spending less on food per month. So in real dollars not much different.
How about actual cost to society? Most of what I eat is raised within 20 minutes of my house. And it’s pastured. So it impacts the environment fairly insignificantly. If it was factory raised then we’d have to count the transportation costs of corn, the production and spreading of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and the production/transport of antibiotics since these herbivores or omnivores don’t naturally eat corn and this feeding practice makes them sick. Frankly I don’t want to consume animal antibiotic or hormones. As you can see a great deal of energy–fossil fuels and/or kcals go into growing cattle on factory farms.
Next is taste. I think that pastured food flat out pleases my palate.Hard to measure the intrinsic value of taste but for me it is important. Nothing like a farm fresh egg to help you understand. Or a nice pastured leg of lamb.
Finally what about general quality of food. Farm fresh eggs contain approximately 30% more Vitamin E than the eggs you buy at the grocery store. They also contain higher levels of Omega-3 fatty acid.
Meat from pastured cows, pigs and sheep is so much healthier I’m not sure where to begin. Amount of CLA,(cis-9 trans-11), which seem to help fight cancer are considerably higher. Vitamin and mineral content is measurably greater as well. The Omega 6-Omega 3 ratio is much smaller in pastured livestock. The fat profile of grass fed beef is quite similar to game meat and grain-fed beef is not even close to it.
Please leave your thoughts for others to read. I look forward to hearing from you on this.
Train with purpose,
Sandy Sommer RKC
3 Comment(s)
By Yusuf on Jan 15, 2010 | Reply
Glad you bring awareness to this Sandy. It’s something I need to do a better job in. The topic of our food and the entire eco-system that surrounds it’s creation, processing, delivery, and consumption is central and pressing. Hope everyone watches Food, Inc. It’s part of the Netflix watch instantly for those that have NF.
By Sanddy Sommer RKC on Jan 15, 2010 | Reply
Food Inc is a great movie Yusuf and really is an awareness creator! Why someone would decide to fuel themselves with mostly Big Ag product is hard for me to understand.
Train with purpose,
Sandy Sommer RKC
By Michael on Jan 15, 2010 | Reply
Good stuff, Sandy. I’m should be be more aware of the food choices around me like these (being more concious of what and how I eat is one of my resolutions for 2010) I live in east Texas, so it shouldn’t be difficult to find.
I think of some talks I’ve had with my dad. He grew up on a farm. When they wanted chicken for dinner, he went outside, grabbed a chicken, and dinner was on a short time later courtesey of my Grandmother. Compare what and how people 50, 60, 70 years ago ate. Lots of meat, milk, REAL butter, fresh veggies, probably grown/raised themselves or from someone they knew. Not much in a bag or a box. No coindicence that the disease level, cancer, heart, etc was much lower then. They certainly didn’t count calories very much. They just ate well, and moved much more than most of us do now.