A couple years ago, I was invited by the director, Robert Kenner, to attend a screening of Food, Inc. in Los Angeles. This invitation was all thanks for my brother who filmed much of the movie. I jumped at the opportunity to see the film.
Food, Inc. “lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA” (www.foodincmovie.com). It does so in a way that is honest and not intended purely for shock value but to inform and educate the often misguided and undereducated consumer. If you haven’t seen the movie yet I highly recommend it.
What struck me the most while viewing the film is that food works best if we let it do what it was created to do. Tomatoes left to ripen on the vine are sweeter, have a much greater nutritional value and a flavor that cannot even compare to the tomatoes that were plucked while still green and left to ripen on the truck while in transit. The same goes for cows.
Cows were created to eat grass. Their digestive systems were designed to consume grass and yet lately, due to ease, cost and control, many cows are being fed grain. Now we all know grain in and of itself is not a bad thing but when cows start eating something other than grass things start to go wrong.
As things have started to go wrong for cows because of their unnatural diet, science has solved the problem by creating antibiotics that combat the diseases that arise. Rather than solving the problem by changing their diet, which would eliminate the need for antibiotics, we are now consuming meat from “cows that are essentially being kept alive by drugs” (baronbeef.com).
So now that we got that out of the way, let’s focus on the benefits of grass-fed beef. For me the most important part is that it just plain tastes better. Richer, meatier and more complex in flavor. But there are other reasons as well. “The animal itself thrives because it is getting the food it was designed to eat and it converts that food to muscle and fat that is higher in minerals, vitamins, CLAs (conjugated linoleic acid) and Omega 3 fatty acids, and lower in cholesterol and fat” (baronbeef.com). Even though grass-fed beef isn’t injected with antibiotics you have a much lower risk of getting diseases associated with beef such as E-Coli and Mad Cow Disease.
To learn more about this and in general where our food comes from I can’t recommend the film Food, Inc. enough. Also, any of Michael Pollen’s best-selling books like the Omnivores Dilemma provide a very thorough look into the world behind the food on our plate.
In the meantime, I highly encourage you to take advantage of this great opportunity to purchase and enjoy grass-fed beef (see below for more information). Not only can you eat it in good conscience but you will be thrilled with the wonderful taste that comes from cows who eat a diet that they were created for.
by Ashley Rodriguez – Chef, food blogger, and full-time mom. You can read more of her writings at www.notwithoutsalt.com
Order Your Local All Natural Grass-fed Beef Today!
good for the animal … good for the land … good for you
“Last fall when I bought beef I was very nervous about buying a product I had never had, as I was so fussy about my beef and other meats. I did not know how grass-fed beef could possibly be better than grain-fed beef. Well, I could not have been more wrong. The hamburger was full of flavor, the roasts divine, but the steaks were where you separate the ‘men from the boys.’ The steaks were out of this world–reminiscent of Michigan back when beef was ‘beef.’ The New York strips were melt-in-your-mouth perfect! Please reserve another 1/4 for me.”
– C. in Arlington
If you are interested in providing yourself and your family with a healthy alternative to conventional feedlot beef, then Klesick Family Farm’s grass-fed beef program is for you. Our cattle are free from growth hormones and antibiotics and are raised and finished on quality grass pasture and moved often to maintain healthy pastures and healthy cattle.
Call for more information or visit:
www.klesickfamilyfarm.com/ main/order-meat
Beef – the way it was meant to be!