Page 111 - How to Be a Conscious Eater - Making Food Choices That Are Good for You

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THE GRASS-FED

QUESTION

ot to beat a dead horse, er, cow, but the only sustainable
way that a growing population can eat animal-based
Nfoods is to eat less of them. In the “First, less. Then, bet-
ter” equation, we covered “better” for animals, workers, and
the planet, so now we turn to the unique case of grass-fed
cattle, which is about those things too, but also, importantly,
about the impact it has on us.
Ruminant animals—again, such as cattle, sheep, and
goats—are not meant to eat grains. Their digestive systems
were designed for the way they have eaten from time imme-
morial, which is to say on pasture. Grass. The stuff that gets
stuck in your soccer cleats and offers summer employment for
the neighbor kid with a mower. When cows eat grains, soy, and
corn, they get fat faster (the goal of CAFOs, after all), but their
gut microbiomes get totally hijacked. This, in turn, throws off
the usual fermentation that would occur in their stomachs to
convert grass and hay into nutrients. Instead, you’re left with
a bunch of cows craving wagonloads of Rolaids. As a result,
they get sick more often and require more antibiotics. Bad
news all around.
By contrast, cattle that are pasture-raised get to move about
and graze as they are naturally inclined to do. They burn more
calories since they get more exercise; grass has fewer calories
and more nutrients, so the product—the meat that you then
put into your body—has fewer calories and more nutrients. In

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