American Meat—An Inside Look at Sustainable Farming in America
November 23, 2013
Story at-a-glance
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The documentary American Meat is “a pro-farmer look at chicken,
hog and cattle production in America,” featuring full-time
organic farmers
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There are vast differences between meats from animals raised in
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and
organically-raised, pastured animals, both in terms of nutrient
content and contamination
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When it comes to choosing a source for chicken and eggs, the
closer you can get to the “backyard barnyard,” the better. Buy
them from small community farms with free-ranging hens that are
organically fed and locally marketed
-
You can also farm your own food. It’s all a matter of scale. You
can start small by growing some sprouts to eat with your daily
meal. Sprouts are some of the easiest, least expensive, yet most
nutritious food you can grow at home
-
You can then progress to a larger organic garden, using pots and
planters if you live in an apartment, or dedicate a part of your
back yard to a vegetable garden. If you have the time and space,
you could move up to chickens
By Dr. Mercola
If you put good old-fashioned organically-raised, pasture-fed and
finished meat in a nutrition analyzer, you’d find it’s one of the
most nutritious foods you can eat.
However, many are still in the dark about the vast differences
between
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and
organically-raised, grass-fed meats, in terms of nutrient content
and contamination with
veterinary drugs, antibiotics, genetically modified organisms,
and disease-causing pathogens.
Differences in the animals’ diets and living conditions create
vastly different end products. For example, most CAFO cows are fed
grains (oftentimes genetically engineered grains, which make matters
even worse), when their natural diet consists of plain grass.
If you’re under the age of 40 or so, and have never spent time on
a real farm, chances are you have a rather dim concept of just how
different today’s food production is from traditional,
time-tested farming practices.
These differences have monumental ramifications for our
environment, for the health and wellbeing of the animals being
raised, and for your own health.
There are basically two very different models of food production
today. The first, and most prevalent, is the large-scale
agricultural model that takes a very mechanistic view toward life,
whereas the other - the local, sustainable farm model - has a
biological and holistic view.
American Meat
The featured documentary, American Meat,1
is “a pro-farmer look at chicken, hog and cattle production in
America.” The film features full-time organic farmers
Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface farms in Virginia; Chuck Wirtz,
a life-long hog farmer; and Dr. Fred Kirschenmann, who manages a
family farm in North Dakota.
“Beginning with a history of our current industrial
system, the feedlots and confinement operations are unveiled,
not through hidden cameras, but through the eyes of the farmers
who live and work there.
From there, the story shifts to Polyface Farms, where the
Salatin family has developed an alternative agricultural model
based on rotational grazing and local distribution. Nationwide,
a local-food movement of farmers, chefs, and everyday people has
taken root.” ~ American Meat2
As a physician, it's obvious to me - and I'm sure most of you
viewing this - that the food you eat plays a major role in your
health. Sadly, as a society, we've strayed so far from our dietary
roots and become so disconnected from our food sources that our
health is now in serious jeopardy.
About 90 percent of the money Americans spend on food is spent on
processed foods,3
and the health of the average American is a testament to the abject
failure of such foods to support good health. It's a proven fact
that factory farmed and processed foods are far more likely to cause
illness than unadulterated, organically-grown foods.
Fortunately, more and more people are now beginning to recognize
this, and are making efforts to get back to
real food - the
kind of food grown by the dedicated farmers featured in this film.
The Invention of CAFOs
Chickens, like most animals and humans, depend on sunlight to
produce vitamin D, and as such spend a great deal of time outdoors
pecking around for bugs, which is their natural diet.
Alas, once farmers realized they could simply add vitamin D and
other vitamins and medications to chicken feed, they also realized
they no longer had to let the chickens outdoors. And with that the
CAFO chicken farm was born...
Chicken CAFO’s took root in the 1950’s, followed by cattle and
hog CAFO’s in the 1970’s and ‘80’s respectively. Today, CAFO’s
dominate all livestock and poultry production in the US, and gone
are hundreds of thousands of small farms that simply could no longer
compete in this new market setup.
The intensive animal farming methods of today were developed to
increase food production while pushing down prices. And while
successful in that respect, it has given rise to a number of
significant problems that probably were not considered at the
outset, when increasing capacity to feed the sprawling suburbs were
foremost on everyone’s mind.
For example, about 95 percent of the eggs produced in the US now
come from gigantic egg factories housing millions of hens under one
roof. You can only imagine how difficult – if not impossible – it is
to keep millions of birds in one location and still produce a
product that's safe to eat.
CAFO’s Promote Food-Borne and Antibacterial-Resistant Disease
Chickens raised in these unsanitary conditions are far more
likely to be contaminated with pathogens, and to lay contaminated
eggs. In one British study, 23 percent of farms with caged hens
tested positive for
Salmonella compared to just over 4 percent in organic flocks,
and 6.5 percent in free-range flocks.
The problem of contamination is not limited to the eggs these
chickens produce, but also to the meat. To combat the potent threat
of disease caused by crowded conditions, unnatural diets and
inability to roam free, cage-raised chickens have to be given
routine doses of antibiotics and other drugs, all of which have
serious health implications, including the spread of
antibiotic-resistant pathogens in humans.
It has even been suggested that a growing number of
antibiotic-resistant cases of urinary tract infections in women are
linked to the overuse of antibiotics in chickens, and their
resultant drug-resistant bacteria strains transferring to humans.4
The lesson here is, the closer you can get to the "backyard
barnyard," the better. You'll want to get your chickens and eggs
from smaller community farms with free-ranging hens, organically fed
and locally marketed. This is the way poultry was done for
centuries... before it was corrupted by politics, corporate greed
and the blaring ignorance of the food industry.
Fortunately, finding high-quality pastured chickens and organic
eggs is relatively easy, as virtually every rural area has small
farmers with chickens. If you live in an urban area, visiting the
local health food stores and farmers' markets are typically the
quickest route to finding high-quality local egg sources.
Why I Only Recommend Eating Organic Grass-Fed Beef
When it comes to red meat, pasture-fed and finished beef is
vastly superior to grain-fed beef, and in my view it’s the only beef
worth eating. Keep in mind that it’s far more important to choose
“grass-fed” than “organic,” as most grass-fed beef are also organic
anyway. Not only is grass-fed beef raised in a more sustainable way
for the environment, and a more humane way for the animal, but it’s
the superior choice for your health.
That said, be aware that there is a load of deception when it
comes to grass-fed beef, so be sure to ask your seller if it is
grass finished as that is the key to make sure the animals are
not fed grains. Ideally the pasture should be raised on a
cocktail cover crop and provide high quality pasture for the cattle.
The natural diet for ruminant animals, such as cattle, is grass.
When left to feed on grass-only diets, levels of
conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA are three to five times more
than those fed grain-based diets. And that's just for starters. A
joint effort between the USDA and Clemson University researchers in
2009 determined a total of 10 key areas where grass-fed beef is
better than grain-fed for human health.5
In a side-by-side comparison, they determined that grass-fed beef
was:
Lower in total fat |
Higher in total omega-3s |
Higher in beta-carotene |
A healthier ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids (1.65 vs
4.84) |
Higher in vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) |
Higher in CLA (cis-9 trans-11), a potential cancer fighter |
Higher in the B-vitamins thiamin and riboflavin |
Higher in vaccenic acid (which can be transformed into CLA) |
Higher in the minerals calcium, magnesium, and potassium |
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Avoid Consuming too Much Meat
While I’m a strong advocate of regularly consuming animal protein
for its nutritional benefits, it is my observation that most people
eat too much
animal protein overall. It would be very unusual for most
people reading this to need more than four to six ounces of beef or
chicken a day. That is not very much. Additionally, if a
personal or spiritual belief limit or prevent you from eating meat,
fish, eggs, or dairy, these food items can easily be substituted.
However you’ll still want to limit your protein to about one-half
gram per pound of lean body mass unless you are doing strength
training or are pregnant, in which case you would benefit from about
25 percent more protein per day.
Yes, You CAN Grow and Raise Your Own Food
Real Meat reveals many of the simple and age-tested
techniques used to raise chickens, pigs and other livestock at
Polyface Farm, run by Joel Salatin. I’ve previously toured Salatin’s
farm and
interviewed him about his methods as well. Salatin is a
sustainable farming pioneer who has also devised a number of
creative processes that allow small farmers to grow food in a more
efficient manner. One of Salatin’s inventions is the “Egg Mobile,”
which allows the farmer to easily move chickens from one paddock to
another. By dividing the land into sections (paddocks), and rotating
cattle and chickens through the paddocks in turn, you can take full
advantage of their symbiotic relationships.
Every couple of days, cows are moved into a new paddock where
there’s fresh grass. The cows eat the grass and deposit manure,
which attracts insects and worms. When the cows are moved into the
next paddock, the chickens are wheeled into the first, where there’s
now plenty of natural food for the chickens to eat. This system can
work quite well for many small farmers. You don’t have to become a
full-fledged farmer to raise your own food, however.
Growing sprouts is probably the easiest, least time-consuming
and most inexpensive way to get started growing your own nutritious
food. Unlike a conventional vegetable garden, you’ll have food ready
for harvest in about one week, and sprouts are among the
most nutrient-dense foods out there. Depending on the sprout, the
nutrient content can increase as much as 30 times the original value
within just a few days of sprouting!
When it comes to animals, chickens are well-suited for a wide
variety of locales, and raising chickens for fresh eggs can be
another great way to “get your feet wet,” provided you have the
right setting, and a little more time. Depending on the breed of the
chicken, and the amount of daylight it receives, a chicken will
typically lay one egg every 36 hours or so. (They will typically
stop laying eggs over the winter, unless artificial day light is
provided.) If you are interested in the possibility of raising a
few chickens yourself, a good place to begin is by asking yourself
the following questions. You can also visit Joel's
Polyface Farm Web site
for more details on raising chickens.
- Can I dedicate some time each day? You can expect to devote
about 10 minutes a day, an hour per month, and a few hours twice
a year to the care and maintenance of your brood.
- Do I have enough space? They will need a minimum of 10
square feet per bird to roam, preferably more. The more foraging
they can do, the healthier and happier they'll be and the better
their eggs will be.
- What are the chicken regulations in my town? You will want
to research this before jumping in because some places have
zoning restrictions and even noise regulations (which especially
applies if you have a rooster).
- Are my neighbors on board with the idea? It's a good idea to
see if they have any concerns early on. When they learn they
might be the recipients of occasional farm-fresh eggs, they
might be more agreeable.
- Can I afford a flock? There are plenty of benefits to
growing your own eggs, but saving money isn't one of them. There
are significant upfront costs to getting a coop set up, plus
ongoing expenses for supplies.
Support Sustainable Agriculture by Buying “Real” Food
If you want to optimize your health, you simply must return to
the basics of
healthy
food choices. And, as Joel Salatin says in the film, you CAN
farm! It’s all a matter of scale. As just mentioned, you can
start really small by growing some sprouts to eat with your daily
meal. This can progress to a larger organic garden; using pots and
planters if you live in an apartment, or by dedicating a part of
your back yard to a vegetable garden. If you have the time and
space, you could move up to chickens.
Besides growing and raising your own, buying your food from
responsible, high-quality, sustainable sources is your best
bet, and I strongly encourage you to
support
the small family farms in your area. This includes not only
visiting the farm directly, if you have one nearby, but also taking
part in farmer's markets and community-supported agriculture
programs. Not only is the food so much tastier and healthier when
you get it from sustainable, non-CAFO sources, but there is
something about shopping for fresh foods in an open-air, social
environment that just feels right. If you want to
experience some of these benefits first-hand, here are some great
resources
to obtain wholesome food that supports not only you but also the
environment:
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Alternative Farming Systems Information Center,
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
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Farmers' Markets -- A national listing of farmers'
markets.
- Local Harvest
-- This Web site will help you find farmers' markets, family
farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area
where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other
goodies.
- Eat Well
Guide: Wholesome Food from Healthy Animals -- The
Eat Well Guide is a free online directory of sustainably raised
meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants,
inns, and hotels, and online outlets in the United States and
Canada.
- Community
Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) -- CISA
is dedicated to sustaining agriculture and promoting the
products of small farms.
- FoodRoutes
-- The FoodRoutes “Find Good Food” map can help you connect with
local farmers to find the freshest, tastiest food possible. On
their interactive map, you can find a listing for local farmers,
CSAs, and markets near you.
© Copyright 1997-2013 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.
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