In 2006 the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization released a report that attributed 18% of the world’s man-made greenhouse-gas emissions to livestock. That is more than what’s produced by transportation! According to Nathan Pelletier, an ecological economist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, N.S., cows produce 13 to 30 lb. of carbon dioxide per pound of meat. It is not surprising that after these reports not only vegetarian groups, but also many environmentalist have been calling for an end to eating meat.

In this context, it is quite surprising to hear that two of the most highly regarded organic-vegetable farmers in the country –Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch- have started growing cattle themselves. What do they know that the others don’t?

“Conventional cattle raising is like mining,” cattleman Ridge Shinn explains. “It’s unsustainable, because you’re just taking without putting anything back. But when you rotate cattle on grass, you change the equation. You put back more than you take.”

So, even though it is true that of all the animals that humans eat, none are held more responsible for climate change than the ones that moo, it looks like grass-fed cows may have the opposite effect. Grass is a perennial. If cattle and other ruminants are rotated across pastures full of it, the animals’ grazing will cut the blades, spurring new growth, while their trampling helps work manure and other decaying organic matter into the soil, turning it into rich humus. And healthy soil keeps carbon dioxide underground and out of the atmosphere.

“Much of the carbon footprint of beef comes from growing grain to feed the animals, which requires fossil-fuel-based fertilizers, pesticides, transportation,” says Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. “Grass-fed beef has a much lighter carbon footprint.” Indeed, although grass-fed cattle may produce more methane than conventional ones (high-fiber plants are harder to digest than cereals, as anyone who has felt the gastric effects of eating broccoli or cabbage can attest), their net emissions are lower because they help the soil sequester carbon.

Allan Savory, a former wildlife conservationist in Zimbabwe, confesses that a while ago he “was prepared to shoot every bloody rancher in the country.” But through rotational grazing of large herds of ruminants, he found he could reverse land degradation, turning dead soil into thriving grassland.

Like him, Coleman now scoffs at the environmentalist vogue for vilifying meat eating. “The idea that giving up meat is the solution for the world’s ills is ridiculous,” he says at his Maine farm. “A vegetarian eating tofu made in a factory from soybeans grown in Brazil is responsible for a lot more CO2 than I am.” A lifetime raising vegetables year-round has taught him to value the elegance of natural systems. Once he and Damrosch have brought in their livestock, they’ll “be able to use the manure to feed the plants, and the plant waste to feed the animals,” he says. “And even though we can’t eat the grass, we’ll be turning it into something we can.”

So, grass-fed cows could save the planet. And not only that. The meat coming from grass-fed cows is much healthier that that coming from grains and hormones fed cows. Unfortunately, most of the beef available for us today does not come from a farm, but from a factory.

Grass-fed cows have radically different nutritional benefits. Gras-fed animal products are a great source of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA).

Studies suggest that CLA:

• Increases metabolic rate
• Decreases abdominal fat
• Enhances muscle growth
• Lowers cholesterol and triglycerides
• Lowers insulin resistance
• Reduces food-induced allergic reactions
• Enhances your immune system

Feeding cows what they are supposed to eat –grass- would make a big difference both for our health and for our planet.

Reference:

Time Magazine

Dr Mercola

Food, Inc.

Ruth Taylor

Everybody in America seems to be obsessed with diet. People count their calories. Food stores sell all these “light” and “fat free” sorts of almost any food or drink, and that is, obviously, because this is big thing customers are after. And then, as if dieting is not enough of a worry when eating, entertainment also features it. “The Biggest Loser” is one of the most popular shows on TV.

Then how come there are so many people who are overweight or dealing with obesity?

Has it ever occurred to you that our parents and grandparents, who ate more fat than we do (they never saw a “lite” snack), still weighed less on the average than we do? If we were to compare one regular meal today and a regular meal 30 years ago, we would see the difference is not as much in quantity as it is in quality.

For example the beef our parents had, came from grass fed cattle. Nowadays, small farms are fewer and fewer and they have been replaced with conglomerates that no longer feed the cows with grass, but with corn, grains, antibiotics and growth hormones. The beautiful image of cows grazing in green pastures is now only a nice memory to think of.

Cows are raised in massive feed lots. The whole process of their growing is now much faster and the meat from these cattle has more fat than the meat from grass fed cattle. And this fat we get more of is unhealthy, not to mention the hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, and other synthetic chemicals found in most every package of beef at your local supermarket.

One important nutrient that helps control the fat in our body is conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a fatty acid. Fatty acids play an important role in our body. The body produces all the fatty acids it needs, except three -linoleic acid, arachidonic acid, and linolenic acid. The body can produce linolenic acid and arachidonic acid from linoleic acid, so, ultimately, linoleic acid is the only fatty acid that our body needs for optimal health, but cannot produce.

CLA occurs naturally in many foods, including some vegetable oils. The best natural sources of CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) are beef, veal and some dairy products. But the amount of CLA found in beef and dairy products has drastically been reduced by 65% due to the way cattle are raised nowadays. This means we are no longer naturally getting from our diet the amount of CLA we need to keep our body fat under control. This is obviously one of the reasons why the incidence of overweight and obesity has skyrocketed over the past few decades.

What can you do about this?

Even if more expensive, grass-fed beef is still available, so try to have more of that, instead of the forage-fed beef. Another thing you can do is help your body get the amount of CLA it needs by taking supplements. There are many different companies that sell CLA. The leading CLA brand is Tonalin.

For more information about CLA follow this link: conjugated linoleic acid

To compare shopping for CLA go here: shopping for CLA

Ruth Taylor

In researching different weight loss products, I ran across one in particular that seems to have all the benefits I want, without the side-effects of the “lose weight fast” type of supplements that abound on the market today. I also didn’t want to increase my heart rate, (scary) and I didn’t want any other strange happenings in my body. One of the top products (especially considering price) that I found was CLA.

CLA, in short, is an essential fatty acid (EFA) found mainly in meat and dairy products. One of the downsides to having cows that are given substances that support an increase in size or milk production is that they convey that substance through the meat (that we consume) and through the milk products. So, we are fighting a battle, where we are trying to get the proteins, calcium, etc. of the beef products and actually getting less of the other elements that help those products to be worthwhile to eat. I have slowed down eating beef just because of this. In fact, many of the cattle are no longer pasture grazed, they are fed through new methods. These new methods don’t include the CLA that the cows would pick up from the pasture grasses; stopping that natural flow of nutrients and not supplementing the cows.

CLA has been extensively researched (*see note on bottom of page) and the benefits of CLA are numerous. CLA has been pointed towards suppressing cancer development in animals, and in human cancer cell lines in vitro. It has also been associated with preventing and treating Atherosclerosis, as well as affecting and treating certain forms of Diabetes.

This is definitely a product to take a look at. Here is a link to purchase high-quality CLA.

*1980s, Michael Pariza, working at the University of Wisconsin