Tuesday's Q & A in Lafayette LA - 8/12/14

Q: I've found a drastic price difference in meats sold at our larger supermarket chain than at our local store - why the "nearly $2.00 difference"?

A: These days in Lafayette LA, just about everything is mass-produced, including our food, with large, factory-style farms churning out a seemingly endless supply of meat, chickens, eggs and dairy products. All that mass production equals abundance and lower prices, but if those factory-farmed products are eroding your health, is the savings really worth it?

Here's what's really going on with mass-produced meats (and why we prefer the local butcher)…

1. Factory-farmed animals eat crap. Literally.

To keep production costs low, animals raised in factory farms are fed the cheapest possible grains and feeds containing among other things, "by-product feedstuff, " which begs the question, what's feedstuff? It's a nausea-inducing assortment of disturbing ingredients, including municipal garbage, stale cookies, poultry manure, chicken feathers, bubble gum and even restaurant waste. So, when you eat factory-farmed animals, you're also getting an unintentional serving of "feedstuff." In short, their bad diet becomes your bad diet - which is counter-productive to your health.

2. Bad diets make for sick animals - and people too.

Cud-chewing critters such as cattle, dairy cows, goats, bison and sheep were designed to eat fibrous grasses, plants, and shrubs-not starchy, low-fiber grains and feedstuffs. When these animals are switched from pasture greenery to grains, many wind up suffering from a number of disorders and painful conditions. The sickened animals are then given chemical additives, plus constant, low-level doses of antibiotics. Their drugs in turn enter your system when you eat antibiotic-treated animals, setting the stage for drug-resistance in your body, particularly if you're a meat-lover.

3. Lousy ingredients won't create a nutritious product.

It should come as no surprise that animals fed a crappy diet will make for a less nutritious meal. Compared to grass-fed, factory-farmed, grain-fed meats have less vitamin E, beta-carotene, and little of the two health-promoting fats called omega-3 fatty acids and "conjugated linoleic acid," or CLA. So what's the end-result of the feed-'em-fast-and-cheap factory farmed method? Inferior food with negligible nutrients and more of the unhealthy fats. Small wonder the stuff is so much cheaper than grass-fed.

4. Stress hurts everyone.

If your goal is to sustain wellness in Lafayette, factory-farmed products just don't deliver the nutritional goods. In factory farms, chickens, turkeys, and pigs are typically raised in inhumane conditions, tightly packed into cages and pens, unable to practice normal behaviors, such as rooting, grazing, and roosting. In these conditions, the animals get stressed and wind up producing products that are lower in a number of key vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids - talk about empty calories!

5. Factory farming pollutes the earth.

In a conventional feedlot operation, for example, confined cattle deposit large amounts of manure in a small amount of space. The manure must be collected and removed. As it costs money to haul it away, the manure is often dumped nearby, close to the feedlot. As a result, the surrounding soil gets over-saturated with the stuff, resulting in ground and water pollution. But when animals are raised on pasture, their manure is a welcome source of organic fertilizer, not a "waste management problem." Bottom line: raising animals on pasture is kinder to the environment.

In short, though factory farming enables us to have plenty of cheap and convenient food, it's food with little nutritional benefit, that can increase your resistance to antibiotics as it pollutes your air, land and water. With so little going for it, does it make sense for you to feed your family factory-farmed meats? The choice is yours. Educate yourself on the processing of these meats at the larger supermarket chains and take 3 minutes to watch this informative animated cartoon about factory farming: www.themeatrix.com.

And if you're going to eat meat, buy the good stuff: choose grass-fed beef, lamb, bison and poultry, to insure that you're eating nutritious and healthy meats, as nature intended. And if you have to pay a bit more for it - than perhaps that's not such a bad thing because you will eat it less often thereby preparing more meals with nutrient rich meat alternatives like legumes, whole grains nuts and fresh veggies J

For this week's recipe - we're going PALEO…

Ground Beef with Kale

• 1 lb. organic, grass-fed, ground beef
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 small red chile, finely sliced
• 1 large bunch kale, finely sliced crosswise
• 1 lemon

Salt & Pepper to taste

Heat a little olive or coconut oil in a large pan on a high heat. Add the beef and chile, stir-frying for a few minutes until well browned. Add the garlic and the kale and continue to cook, stirring now and then until the kale is wilted and tender - another few minutes. Squeeze fresh lemon juice, and season with salt & pepper.

By Francesca Marino D.C.