I just watched a documentary on the History Channel about how beef gets to the restaurants and had to blog about it right away because it makes the concept about NO GRAINS clear as day!Grass fed cattle are brought to the "farms" weighing in around 700lbs. In a short amount of time, being fed a mixture of grain, corn, and hay they leave the farm to be "harvested" (as they put it) weighing around 1200lbs. That's almost doubling their body weight!!! These animals are fed grains and starches because it fattens them up. Well duh...what do you think it's doing to you.
Think about it for a second, that's about how long it should take, and make the decision to stay away from grains for your health. Try to stay with grass fed beef and free range chicken to avoid the grains the other meat is fed. It's simple. Our nation is severely overweight because they majority of our diets are grains and sugars. Eliminate that and we'll be back to being grass fed cattle before they hit the "farm".
Obviously I agree with staying away from Grains and starches since I follow the Paleo diet. None the less, I am not sure s cow's digestive system and our's process grains and starches in the same way ?? e.g. insulin response, glucose processing and storage, etc. Thoughts ??
ReplyDeleteYou know Rich, I'm not aware of how a cow's digestive system works, but I don't know that it's that much different from ours. I will look into, thanks for the question.
ReplyDeleteI did a bit of research and what I am finding is that cows and humans digestive tracts are VERY much the same. The main difference is that cows have 4 stomachs (therefore more digestion occurs). Also, humans and cows both have what's called a cecum and this organ helps to digest fiber. Because humans ingest far less fiber than cows, our cecum is much smaller and used less. So, from what I have found and understand we are in even worse shape than cows at digesting grains and fiber...even MORE reason to stay the heck away from it! :)
ReplyDeleteI couldn't find a whole lot on the comparison of insulin in cows vs humans, but what I did find is that there isn't a whole lot of difference.
Jenny,
ReplyDeleteNice blog, I couldn't agree with you more! I would like to add though, that if Americans alone would just eat 20% less meat it would feed all of the starving nations people around the world. I know that you and Marcus are following the Paleo Diet, which I think is great and makes complete sense, we should all try to transform back to eating as the Hunters and Gatherers did. But I would like to also add in that cows were not bread back in the day to eat grains and corn, like they do today to make them double their size in a VERY short period of time. But as we all know with the High Fructose Corn Syrup in everything we eat, corn can be mass produced for super cheap, so therefore we started feeding our cows corn! With that force feeding comes the POOR quality of meat products that you find in your supermarket and I would like to recommend to people to buy grass fed beef, but would like to warn people that if they are buying this meat in their local supermarket it is probably not "really" grass fed beef, most of that meat comes from cows that have been fed the same way and for the last week (at most) of their lives, they are aloud to range free and eat grass, but it is too late at this point. My best advice, if you are going to eat this poor quality meat is to go in with some friends or extended family and buy a cow from a small farmer who is raising the cow in the best and healthiest manner. It actually comes out to be cheaper and you are getting a GREAT source of meat. Plus your supporting a small local farmer! Anyway this is all coming from a vegetarian who has been reading tons of replicable sources on the quality of meats in our world today for years, but not just books coming from vegetarian sources. I recommend anyone to read the Omnivore's Dilemma by: Michael Pollan or any of his books, he is not a vegetarian.
Just some food for thought from me,
Peace~
Carly Clifton
Love it Carly! All true. Thanks for the input. Why vegetarian?
ReplyDelete