Monday, July 19, 2010

Grass fed, Pastured, and/or Wild caught Meats

This may be where we start getting more controversial. the majority of diets in our current culture will tell you that most meat is bad for you and too high in fat. Eat chicken if you must, but certainly not beef or pork. Fish is also considered okay if you call it a meat (I'm not sure why so many people don't). However, research shows that on the contrary to many popular ideas we do need the nutrients that are in meat. What is killing us is all of the unnatural ingredients given to animals to keep them "healthy" outside of their natural environment so that they can produce an enormous amount of meat at the most efficient rate. Just like toxins in the human body animals store these growth hormones, antibiotics, and pesticides in the large fat reserves that result from a mostly grain diet. That is why traditional research will show that high fat meat is so dangerous to us. It's not the fat itself, although I am sure we could all use less of it, but the chemical poisons in the fat. We need meat, but we are eating the wrong kind of meat. I know it is not easy to come buy in certain areas (erhem, central Texas) but what we need is a moderate amount of beef, chicken, pork, and especially wish that is not only raised, but finished in a natural habitat. Grass fed beef, free range chicken, pastured pork, and wild caught, short life span fish. (short life span relates to how much mercury is built up). Also in most of Dr. Price's healthy cultures people ate at least 10% of their protein from organ meat. This will take me some getting used to, but it surely something I can handle.

This is not to discredit legumes and nuts as a source of protein, since they are excellent, only to say that we do need meat too as long as we are careful of it's source.

Dairy. Dairy too has gotten a bad reputation in modern diet trends, and we try to substitute for it or at least cut out all the fat we can. Here I could repeat most of what I said about meat, only that with dairy there is, in addition to how the animals are raised, an issue of pasteurization. Pasteurization, or rapid heating to kill dangerous micro organisms, hardly seems like a bad thing. In fact, at the time it was invented, before knowledge of infectious disease and sanitation was widespread, it was a lifesaver. However, in our present age, of high sanitation standards, pasteurization is only necessary to kill pathogens resulting from poor living conditions in highly industrialized over packed dairies. Raw milk from organic dairies is consumed safely all over the world. Unfortunately this is even harder to come by than pastured meat, since there are still a lot of misunderstandings. Work to find a source for raw dairy products and eggs, and campaign to make them more available in your area, but if this is unavailable to you at least make the switch to organic. The health of your family is more than worth it.

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