It’s simple really…
‘You are what you eat, but also what your food eats.’
It’s a bit of a sentence to get your head around. But essentially if the food you’re eating isn’t grown/raised/fed in a healthy environment, then you won’t receive all the health benefits that food has to offer you.
Why should you buy grass fed and free range meats?
Cows that are pasture fed and pasture finished are a much healthier animal and offer us more nutrient dense meat. We are very lucky in Australia because most of our produce is pasture fed and will only be substituted with grain when there is a drought and grass supplies are low.
However, while most of our meat is pasture fed it is often not pasture finished. What this means is that during the last 6 months of the animals life it will be fed a diet very high in grain to fatten the animal up for slaughter. These 6 months are enough to alter the health of the animal and affect the quality of the meat it provides.
When choosing meat it is important to find out that not only is it pasture fed but that it is also pasture finished. If you are ever stuck and can’t find grass-fed beef than lamb is always a safe option. Lamb in Australia is not fed grain and will always be pasture fed and pasture finished.
The health benefits of consuming grass fed meat:
- 50% more Omega 3 than grain fed meat
- Provides twice the amount of beta-carotene compared to grain fed meat
- 59% more CLA than grain fed meat
- Contains 2.5 times the amount of Vitamin E
The health benefits of consuming CLA:
CLA stands for Conjugated Linoleic Acid and offers us a range of amazing health benefits. CLA reduces the risk of heart disease, it prevents and treats Type II diabetes by improving insulin sensitivity. And it reduces inflammation, improves overall body composition by increasing lean body mass and reducing body fat mass.
Since CLA is a fat it means you need to consume the fat from the animal product to receive all of its benefits. This means consuming animal fat, full fat milk, cheese, yoghurt and butter, exactly the way nature intended for it to be eaten.
