Is Grass Fed Beef Actually Better for You
Grass-fed Angus cattle roam the pasture at Wholesome Living Farm in Winchester, Ky. It's an appealing scene, but is grass-fed beef the best option for the consumer, the animal and the planet? (Luke Sharett/Bloomberg)
Grass-fed beefiness is the meat of the moment. The prototype of cattle dotting green hillsides is an appealing counterpoint to the thought of herds corralled in crowded, grass-free feedlots. Advocates merits a trifecta of advantages: Grass-fed beefiness is better for y'all, for the animal and for the planet.
Is information technology?
[Vegetarian or omnivore: Which diet is ameliorate for the environment?]
First, allow's establish what nosotros're talking nigh. All U.S. beef cattle are started on grass, so "grass-fed" actually ways "grass-finished," or fed grass their whole lives. The USDA specifies that, to authorize as "grass-fed," the animal has to consume "grass and forage" exclusively (after weaning) and must have "continuous access to pasture during the growing season." It does non specify how much feed has to be from that pasture; hay and other harvested forage is immune. (There are likewise 3rd-political party certification programs with varying criteria.)
Now, on to the questions.
Is grass-fed beef ameliorate for you?
It commonly has higher concentrations of some nutrients: antioxidants, some vitamins, a kind of fat called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and the long-concatenation omega-3 fats mostly found in fish. Information technology also has less fat overall.
Nigh wellness claims focus on the omega-3 fats, which are generally regarded as healthful. The other nutrients are less relevant, says Alice H. Lichtenstein, a professor at Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy: Either their amounts are as well minor to be significant or evidence of their value is equivocal. (Read the inquiry on CLA, for instance, and y'all notice that a lot of "farther research is warranted" and "findings are inconsistent.")
As to the omega-3s, we need to look at amounts. Omega-3 levels in grass-fed beefiness mostly are virtually 50 percent higher than in regular beef. But because the levels in regular beef are and then low, that'southward not much of an advantage. Concentrations can vary widely, just according to the USDA, a 100-gram serving (a picayune nether 4 ounces) of grass-fed top sirloin contains 65 milligrams of omega-3 fats, loin has 40 and rib-eye has 37. So even that 65-milligram corporeality is only about 22 milligrams more than that for regular beef and still far below levels in low-fatty fishes such as tilapia (134 milligrams) and haddock (136). The omega-3 powerhouse king salmon has 1,270 milligrams. (The same logic applies to milk from grass-fed cows. Information technology's higher in long-concatenation omega-three fats than milk from grain-fed cows, but a cup still has just 18 milligrams.) Recommendations on how much of these fats we need vary; near are in the range of 300 to 1,000 milligrams per 24-hour interval.
"Grass-fed beef is fine" says Lichtenstein, "simply information technology'southward not a skilful source of omega-3 fats." Although it certainly has a better fat contour than standard beef, she says she's concerned that a reputation for healthfulness will brand people believe that it's better for them than it is, which volition lead to overconsumption.
The bottom line is that grass-fed beefiness is probably meliorate for y'all, but only a lilliputian. Don't hang your hat on it. If you like it (and not everyone does), by all means, swallow information technology.
A grass-fed yearling balderdash. Experts differ over whether grass feeding is better than feedlots. (Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
Is grass-fed beef better for the animal?
■ The answer is a resounding "it depends."
I'yard drawn to the idea of cattle grazing freely in fields. I've seen the pictures of the green hillsides, and I've seen the pictures of the muddied feedlots. I asked Temple Grandin, 1 of our foremost experts on animal welfare, whose work informs livestock systems across the state, whether grazing cattle are happier than feedlot cattle.
The first affair she said was, "grain is like cake and ice foam to cows," and I tin can't help thinking that eating something they discover succulent contributes to the animals' happiness. It certainly does to mine. But, only as it'due south unadvisable for u.s. to brand block and ice cream our sole ration, cattle shouldn't be eating but grain.
"Grain is fine as long as there'south enough of roughage," says Grandin. Otherwise, the pH in the animate being's arrangement can get too acidic, and that leads to all kinds of health issues. The idea that feeding grain to a ruminant, whose digestive system is fine-tuned for grass, leads to suffering is both right and incorrect.
"The trouble comes when you push too difficult," says Grandin. Animals grow faster on grain, she points out, so there'due south a financial incentive for the rancher to up the grain ration. Similar annihilation continued with the care of animals, feeding cattle grain tin can be done well or poorly.
Grandin talked about other bug too. If the feedlot is dry out, roomy and shaded, cattle are perfectly content. If it's muddy, crowded or hot, they're not. One of the keys to cattle happiness, information technology turns out, is drainage. "The feed thousand should take a 2 to 3 percent slope to go along information technology dry," says Grandin. Pastures can pose problems, too. "Cattle also really similar to graze," she says, "merely that hillside when you accept a blizzard is not so nice."
The key to cattle's well-beingness isn't in the venue. It's in the management. What's maddening is that, when you're continuing in forepart of your market's meat case, yous usually tin can't know which feedlot, or which pasture, the beefiness came from, let solitary how it's managed.
Is grass-fed beefiness better for the planet?
Hither's where things go really complicated. In general, beef is not planet-friendly. Cattle produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and beefiness routinely tops the charts of foods you should eat less of to adjourn climatic change.
Grass-fed advocates maintain that well-managed grazing can offset or even completely compensate for methane and other greenhouse gases associated with beef cattle past locking carbon in the soil. The vegetation soaks up and stores, or sequesters, carbon, preventing carbon dioxide — another greenhouse gas — from being released into the atmosphere.
The operative phrase is "well-managed." When poorly managed, grazing can degrade pasture, and scientists and ranchers are experimenting with various densities and grazing patterns to attempt to figure out which ones pb to more constructive carbon sequestration.
Co-ordinate to Jason Rowntree, an assistant professor at Michigan State University who specializes in grass-eating cattle, some researchers have managed to sequester 3 metric tons of carbon per hectare, about 2.5 acres, per year. (Sequestering a ton of carbon is the equivalent of locking away 3.7 tons of carbon dioxide.)
But Rattan Lal, manager of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center at Ohio State Academy, sets expectations lower. He says 1 metric ton per hectare is a reasonable guess of the maximum that grazing can sequester in a place like Ohio, where growing weather condition generally are favorable, and a one-half-ton would be more realistic in drier areas. He supports grass-fed beefiness but says carbon sequestration "tin't completely recoup for the greenhouse gases in beef production."
Weighing carbon sequestration confronting methane production is a dicey business, and I've read many different estimates. To get a dorsum-of-the-envelope sense of how the ii compare, I did the math. The methane produced yearly past a beef steer is approximately equivalent to the carbon sequestered in an acre and a half (at Lal'southward one-ton-per-hectare charge per unit). The steer's methane isn't the just event, of form: The climate cost of each steer has to include a whole yr'southward worth of its mom'southward methane, since cows have only one dogie annually. Then there are all the other inputs, including what goes into growing and harvesting the hay the steer eats when pasture is unavailable. Every bit always, it's complicated.
I plant piffling agreement on how much carbon well-managed grazing can sequester, but all-embracing agreement that it tin certainly sequester some. But, diabolically, then can well-managed grain farming: Systems that use crop rotation, cover crops, composting and no-till also sequester carbon. If nosotros're comparison grass-fed with grain-fed, information technology's merely fair to presume excellent direction in both systems.
There are a few other confounding issues. Cattle fed grain emit less methane and grow faster, which means they're not alive — emitting methyl hydride — as long. Confining cattle in feedlots allows manure to exist nerveless and fed to a digester, which converts information technology to energy — or, of course, it tin can leak out of badly managed facilities to pollute our water. In winter, bringing in harvested hay requires more energy than bringing in grain, because you demand more than of information technology. But grass-fed cattle turn a plant that humans can't eat into high-quality people food, which is of import in places where marginal land will abound grass just not crops. It's a very mixed pocketbook.
Some grass-fed cattle are meliorate for the planet than some grain-fed, and vice versa.
Farmer Raymond Palmer raises grass-fed cattle in Lifford, Ireland. (Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
The upshot
Where does that leave us?
Well, it'southward left me a little less doctrinaire. Well-nigh always, when I talk to scientists and farmers almost food supply issues — whether it'south farm size, organic methods, animal welfare, GMOs, climate impact — the answer is complicated. When it comes to feeding people, in that location is never one correct answer. It depends on the farm, the area, the beast, the crop, the weather, the market and a bazillion other things. Both Rowntree, who has spent years figuring out how best to graze cattle, and Lal, who has devoted a career to climate-change mitigation, are quick to tell me that grass-fed isn't the only way.
"No matter what strategy you choose," says Lal, "there are always trade-offs."
What the grass-fed vs. grain-fed debate actually tells us is how inadequate labels are to differentiate good from bad in our food supply. Even so those labels are regularly embroidered on flags and hoisted over intractable positions. Grass-fed beef is better! Buy organic! Only GMOs tin can feed the globe!
What I wouldn't give for a certificate of prudence, attesting to audio direction, humane standards and responsible stewardship on any kind of farm. It'due south worth working toward, and lowering the flags would be a practiced start.
Haspel, a freelance author, farms oysters on Cape Cod and writes about food and science. On Twitter: @TamarHaspel. She'll join Wednesday's Gratis Range conversation at noon: live.washingtonpost.com.
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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/is-grass-fed-beef-really-better-for-you-the-animal-and-the-planet/2015/02/23/92733524-b6d1-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html
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