Pastured Raised Beef Has More Health-Promoting Nutrients
All beef is not created equal
I’ve written a lot about how healthy soils contribute to the nutrient content of plants and those plants then contribute MORE to our health and wellbeing.
But healthy plants also contribute to the nutrient content of the livestock we raise for meat (well - if you choose to eat meat, that is). Even if you are a dedicated vegan, the results from this study on beef cows offer some useful insights into mammal nutrition, diets and climate change.
Let’s dive in.
A new study in Nature (Aug 2024) looks at the differences between pasture-finished beef raised on Western US rangelands compared to Mid-western feedlot, grain-finished beef. The researchers analyzed 1575 compounds found in beef and found that 907 of these were different between the two finishing methods.
Pasture-finished beef means the cows were free to move around on range land and select their own diet from the grasses, forbs and shrubs available on the land.
Grain-finished beef were confined in feedlot pens and fed a combination of grains (mostly corn) and hay.
Perhaps this should come as no surprise that cows raised on pasture, moving and eating in ways that meet the biological needs of a ruminant herbivore showed higher levels of compounds associated with good health, compared to cows held in feedlots and fed grain-based diets.
I summarized some of the key findings in the table below.
Key among the findings was that grass-finished beef had 4.1 times more Omega 3’s than the grain-finished beef. And this resulted in grass-finished (pastured) beef having an Omega 6:3 ratio of 1.58 +/-0.25 compared to the grain-finished beef at 10.85+/-7.00.
Beef is generally not considered to be a good source of Omega 3 in the US (where as little as 4% of the beef on the market is grass-finished). However, in countries with a larger percentage of grass-finished meat such as Ireland, UK and Australia, studies have shown that regular consumption of this meat can improve Omega 3 levels in humans. Omega 3’s are an essential indicator of cardiac health.
The Vitamin E precursors in grass-finished beef (alpha-tocopherol) is the most common form of Vitamin E found in mammals and the most biologically active, even though gamma forms are what is served up most commonly in supplements. Similarly Niacin is 9.4x higher in grass-finished beef whereas the form most commonly found in supplements Nicotinamide is 1.6x higher in grain-finished beef and likely derived from the corn in the diet.
Two of the most interesting findings to me where the phytochemicals and the presence of antibiotic metabolites. Phytochemicals are plant-derived biologically active antioxidant compounds such as phenolic acids, flavonoids and tannins. These phytochemicals support cow health, and their presence in pastured-raised meat means they are available in the diet of meat-eaters. This reminds me of a First Nations tradition where if you are sick in the winter time when medicinal plants are not available, then you make soup from a grouse or similar type bird that would have eaten the medicines you needed and derive them that way.
The case of antibiotic metabolites is much more disturbing since the discussion says that no antibiotics were administered to the feedlot cows. That means somehow they are transferring from the plant-based ration fed the cows?? Perplexing! And that the fact that this metabolic residue was detected in nearly all samples draws into question the validity of marketing statements such as ‘raised without antibiotics’. Where exactly are they coming from?
You are what you eat
Cows eating a diet chosen from available rangeland forage have higher concentrations of compounds associated with good cow health, and with good human health when the meat is consumed. As always, further studies are needed to fully determine the health benefits of pasture-raised beef for the people who eat it, and these studies are complicated and expensive to perform. What is not expensive, however, is to remember that humans survived for thousands of years consuming meat that was free-ranging on natural forage (because chemical agriculture has only existed since the 1950’s). And when people raise the alarm about the health impacts of meat, they are nearly always talking about feedlot and confined animal production.
You cannot make blanket statements about the health benefits (or harms) of various meats when there are highly significant differences in quality based on how animals are raised and treated.
This is also the first study I have seen that hinted at the difference in stress metabolites between the pasture-raised and feedlot cows which the researchers speculated may have been due to the long transportation of the pasture-cows to the processing plant. I have long argued that you ruin 2 years of effort raising cows in low-stress, pastured herds when you then load them on a truck and drive them for hours before they stand around in unfamiliar crowded settings waiting to be processed. The move to centralized mega-processing plants adds another layer into this story, which alters the quality of meat, and which has never been fully investigated by researchers not directly tied to the corporate outcomes of feedlots and processing plants.
I recognize not everyone is in a position to buy local, pastured meat. But the benefits for your health and the planet mean that eating less meat of higher quality makes the most sense for meat-eaters. Research into the ecological benefits of rotational grazing and regenerative farming are adding up fast. They demonstrate clearly that natural cycles of food production (where livestock help to circulate nutrients back to the soil on which food is grown), have the ability to help reverse climate change. And this is key for vegans as well, because without those natural grazing cycles and complete food webs, soil health suffers. There isn’t a system on earth in which plants exist in the absence of their animal counterparts (or if it does exist, it is an exceptionally rare thing). All things are connected.
The current agricultural model of monoculture grains being shipped to feed confined cows generating tons of manure that literally goes to waste because it is produced in extreme excess to what the feedlot land can support is a disaster. Soils are left bare and blowing away in the grain fields, and elsewhere polluted with excess nutrients in the feedlots. It makes no sense at all. Not when the prior system of multi-use farms sustained humanity without destroying the planet. And not when the vast majority of the meat is used to create fast and ultra-processed foods that contribute to human disease and obesity.
This study doesn’t solve the world’s problems. But it sheds light on the fundamental difference between grass-fed and grain-fed beef. It adds more knowledge around what healthy diets for livestock mean in terms of the nutrients that then become available to people. Better systems for cows - old, traditional systems - produce higher quality meat. If you are going to eat meat, best to make it count.
What part of this story surprised you? Tell us in the comments.