Tag Archives: ulcerative colitis

Why Pasture-Raised Meats? No Arsenic

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Why Pasture-Raised Meats?

No Arsenic…

Last time, we talked about why we (Matt and Jerica) chose to pursue eating and producing animal products (meats, bones, fats, eggs, etc) because they are more nutrient-dense and digestible than vegetables. For a sick body, every bite counts, and for impaired digestion, those bites have to be highly digestible. Enter Animal Products.

With his ongoing and terrible flare-ups of ulcerative colitis, Matt could not tolerate the fiber and phytochemicals of raw, and even most cooked vegetable foods. So on his sickest days, he would eat homemade broth, white rice cooked with broth, whole milk yogurt, and pastured meats. 

This pork broth was so gelatinous that I could carry it around in my hand!

Did he choose pasture-raised meats because they are humanely raised?

Nope.

Did he choose them because they are good for the environment?

Again, no.

Not saying those things are not good things, but his primary concern at the time was nutrients to heal his body. Matt needed the most nutritious food he could get into his belly. But he also needed to avoid harmful inputs that might contribute to his ailment. Hopefully another time, we’ll get to things to do with the environmental and stewardship issues, because those are certainly important. Hold on to your hat because we’re going to talk about some of the problems with conventional meats for consumers.

The first, and perhaps scariest, issue with conventional meats is the feed additives–the things they feed the animals that you are ultimately going to eat.

Harmful Feed Additives 

This is not an exhaustive discussion of the problems, and today, I’m only going to address one aspect of the feeding practices of one species of farm animal. But you should know that, shockingly, EVERY time I dig deeper into the questionable practices of the conventional food industry, I discover new atrocities. That’s pretty scary considering how much I have already researched, and considering that I have been in “the industry” for over 8 years now!

Chicken with a Side of Arsenic?

The first additive I want to address is plain ol’ poison. Arsenic. Yep. It’s the stuff of fictional murder mysteries, and yet it is a common feed additive in poultry and pork production. Truth really is stranger than fiction! Why would they add poison to our food, you may ask. The answer: It’s mostly for efficiency and cosmetic reasons (read: profits and marketing reasons). It “pinks” up the poultry, which would otherwise have a disturbing grayish hue. It irritates their intestines causing them to eat more and get fatter faster. It also “helps” combat coccidiosis, a disease that can easily overtake a flock of chickens if they are kept in filthy, crowded conditions, and that last condition is the main one publicly cited as to why arsenic is added to our food’s food.

The justification when this began back in the 40’s was that, first, all the arsenic *should* be excreted in the feces [which are subsequently fed to dairy cows… or spread on organic produce fields! One way or another, the stuff never leaves the food system.]. Just in case it isn’t all excreted, it is the organic (as in carbon-based) form of arsenic, which is not nearly as toxic or potent as the inorganic form.

Fast forward 60 years when technology advanced enough to actually measure the arsenic in the birds’ tissues. Surprise! Arsenic was present at a much higher level than originally supposed. But it’s still the “less toxic” organic form, and so supposedly didn’t pose an immediate threat to consumers, so they quietly removed the first form (nitarsone) and replaced it with another (roxarsone). Eventually they “voluntarily recalled” that one, too, and it’s hard to say whether there is still a product widely in use since technically it’s not illegal, and being an organic compound, it’s pretty easy to come up with a new formula.

I won’t go into my concerns over how they actually did the testing to detect the poison in the meat or their justifications for allowing this to go on even after the testing was actually done, but I will say this: It is clear that for 60 years, the FDA allowed this practice to go on with no studies to prove its safety. Once there were studies that did question the safety, hardly any corrective action occurred, and organic arsenic may still be in use under a new name. Things haven’t changed much–if anything, the industry pressure on the FDA to allow all sorts of untested drugs is far worse now. In fact, a consumer petition to ban the use of organic arsenic in poultry feed was denied in 2013, even after the first recall, because the FDA was still trying to decide whether or not arsenic in poultry is dangerous.

It’s up to you to understand where your food comes from and how it is produced. Once upon a time, someone decided arsenic in chicken was safe, and they didn’t feel the need to tell you about it.

Think if you buy “organic,” you’re safe? If you search carefully on the organic poultry standards, it is mysteriously silent on the use of arsenic in livestock production. It is neither allowed nor prohibited. Does that mean they use it? Not necessarily. But it certainly doesn’t mean they don’t.

Broilers are moved daily to new pasture ground.

We control every ingredient in our chicken feed, and there is no arsenic. Our chickens take at least 2 weeks longer to grow than conventional, in addition to the increased labor it takes to move the birds to fresh ground daily. I know it’s a tough price point, paying 3-4 times as much for meat as you could. And I know cooking a whole chicken can be intimidating at first, especially when it’s so easy to grab one of those rotisserie concoctions from the local grocery store. But it’s important that we, as consumers, open our eyes and support the industries worth supporting. Every bite counts, not only for your health, but also for the success of the farms you care about.

Would you pay extra to know there’s no poison in your chicken? Know your farmer.

Pastured Meats and Your Health

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Report on Pastured Meats and Your Health

We recently put together an event at one of our Longview retail locations: Jack’s Natural Foods. We did a presentation on Pastured Meats and Your Health, and took the time to share Matt’s health story and some of the things we learned about food during his battle with ulcerative colitis. We shared about the Weston A. Price Foundation and Dr. Price’s findings on principles of traditional diets. We finished by demonstrating how to render lard and offered samples of simple favorite recipes like pork shoulder roast and roast chicken.

jacks presentation photo1

We had lots of fun telling our story and talking about how important well-raised meats and eggs because of their high nutrient content and digestibility. Consuming whole animal foods (organs, fat, bones, AND muscle meats) is key for reducing inflammation and restoring the body’s God-given ability to heal itself. It is interesting to note that there are few, if any, auto-immune diseases that are actually curable, not just suppressible, by modern medicine. Matt was one of the many victims of the effects of a toxic, low-nutrient diet which is so prevalent in our society. It has always been close to our hearts to share what we’ve learned so that others can work to be restored to good health as we were.

Perhaps you have never heard his story of recovery from ulcerative colitis. He went from a tall, muscular, athletic young man to a frighteningly thin, anemic, debilitated sufferer of intestinal disease. There was no explanation. According to doctors, diet had nothing to do with the disease and the prognosis was hopeless without drugs and surgery. After his second flare-up, which followed a year of his strict obedience to doctors’ orders, we became convinced that we had to take our health into our own hands. It took several years to get his guts back on track, but we are happy to report that it has been almost 5 years since his last severe flare-up and 4 years since he took any prescription drugs. So what did he do to recover? Those were some of the topics discussed at Jack’s earlier this month. And of course, a big part of his recovery was changing to a Traditional Diet.  

A few of the Traditional Diets principles we discussed were consuming generous amounts of pasture-raised animal fats, like butter, egg yolks and lard. Animal fat, when it comes from well-raised animals, contains lots of otherwise lost nutrients like vitamins A, D, and K. These nutrients are fat soluble and only found in their animal forms in the fat of animals. And it just so happens that these nutrients were plentiful in the most treasured foods of traditional (aka unmodernized) people groups. Nutrients like vitamin D and K are only found in the fats of animals eating green grasses and living outdoors in the sunshine.

Other principles of Traditional Diets are the intentional incorporation of bone broth and the use of unrefined salt. We talked briefly about fermented foods, raw milk, and avoiding vegetable oils.

We discussed preparing simple foods and meals, like roast chicken and pot roast in a crockpot. Real food doesn’t need to be complicated. One of my most effective strategies for implementing real food is not elaborate planning or strict routines, but rather a simple idea: keep basic supplies on hand at all times, like potatoes, onions, ground beef, lard, and broth. Even when you’re feeling uninspired to cook, you can still put something together that is real, nourishing, and delicious.

It seems there is a need in the East Texas area to learn about what is truly healthy based on evidence because there is so much misinformation out there and so many laboratory-based products that make claims upon your health. We’ve always felt that a proprietary “food” that can’t be made or grown at home but only purchased from a particular company cannot be a sustainable way to achieve and maintain health. Yes, sure, we’re selling a product, too, but we aren’t hiding how we do it or where we got our information. You could do it, too, if you wanted to! The truth is, though, that most folks don’t mind leaving the farming to us. 🙂

There also seems to be a lack of knowledge for implementation strategies. How do you incorporate these principles? Where do you get the foods? How do you cook them? Lard is among the most bewildering foods to incorporate, not because it’s hard, but simply because contemporary food wisdom eschews the use of fat almost entirely, and, well, pork fat? Won’t that kill me dead after the first bite?

We might argue otherwise. We’ve been eating it for years! And though eating pasture-raised pork fat in the form of lard is only a small part of our overall eating strategy, we often focus on that because it has the ability to displace some very nasty conventional dietary components, including trans fat and vegetable oils. Not only that, but fat has the ability to satiate the appetite. Try eating a plate of cracklin for dinner. I would guess you’d only get through the first bite or two before your body says, “Enough. I’m full.” It’s very difficult to overeat when you’re eating the good kinds of fats.

So take this as an encouragement to start taking baby steps toward a more traditional diet. Check out the Weston A. Price Foundation and their extensive (free!) database of dietary wisdom. Would you like us to come do an event like this in your area? Let us know and we’ll see if we can fit it in between feeding pigs, moving cows, and taking care of our trio of future Cadman farmers. Happy eating!

 

PS—Glenn Evans at Longview News Journal was kind enough to come and cover our event. Check it out here!