Comments on: Another reason to eat grass-fed beef

By: Queen B

Queen B — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 03:22:54 +0000

“There isn�t a whole lot we can do to deal with the mistreatment of cattle on a feedlot.”

Yuh-huh! Yes there is!

Buy your meat local from farmers who take care of their cattle and grass-feed them. If buying a whole cow is too much for your family, get a co-op together and buy half a cow. Or a quarter cow. Or whatever suits your needs.

It may not be CONVENIENT… but it IS do-able. And if enough people stop buying the grain-fed, ill-treated feedlot cowbeef, maybe McDonald’s will go out of business…

okay, maybe that’s far-fetched… but a girl can dream, can’t she?

By: John

John — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:00:44 +0000

This is encouraging:

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=696651

John

It is indeed.

Cheers

By: Laurel

Laurel — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:51:33 +0000

Hiya Dr. Mike,

We paid between $2.50 & $3.50 per pound for grass-fed beef. Had to buy a half beeve to get that price but it fit easily into our freezer space…. depends on the animal, of course. Find a farmer on http://www.eatwild.com, http://www.localharvest.org, http://www.newfarm.org, etc… there are others, even Craigslist!

With all that said I much prefer the taste of store-bought. The meat that we got from the farmer was incredibly lean and a very dark red, super sticky and dense. Probably much more protein per pound than the water-pumped stuff from the store, but the flavor is quite strong and I have a hard time with it.

Oh well, can’t have everything.

Laurel

By: Grandma Ann

Grandma Ann — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:04:48 +0000

Hi Dr. E,

My free copy of PPLP arrived yesterday. Thank you very much for your generosity. Thanks also for the tip about DGL and bitters. I looked for bitters once in my health food store, and they didn’t have a clue. I never thought to check out a liquor store!

Just to let you know, I have stopped taking Zantac as of last Saturday and so far I am doing fine. I have been exploring the sleep (melatonin) connection to curb reflux and trying to increase my own supply naturally by getting to bed earlier and sleeping in a very dark room. I just finished reading “Lights Out” by TS Wiley. I know that she is a controversial figure, but what she says makes a lot of sense for me. I feel like a missing variable in my own personal health equation has been filled in. If for the best possible health, we should eat like Paleolithic man (low-carb) and exercise like Paleolithic man (Slow Burn), then shouldn’t we also be sleeping like Paleolithic man? Which means that at this time of year especially, we should be getting 9 to 10 hours per night and almost hibernating in the more northern latitudes.

Since melatonin has been found to protect the lining of the esophagus, what if everyone has a leaky LES most of the time, and it is the job of the melatonin in our digestive tract (of which there is usually plenty as I understand it) to protect us? I mean, wouldn’t it be strange if a living muscle needed to be held in tight contraction all day long except for when we swallow?

I am also wondering about salt. The parietal cells of our stomach produce the H for HCl, but where does the Cl come from? Somewhere I read that we need good old salt (NaCl) for the chloride. I have been following a pretty salt-free diet since I eat no packaged or processed foods at all and didn’t add any salt when I cooked. I have switched to using Celtic sea salt to increase the amount of acid in my stomach to see if that will help also. Any comments on this?

Hi Grandma Ann–

You can usually get Angostura bitters at most decent sized grocery stores. The best way to take any kind of bitters (when used to help with GERD) is to hold a spoonful in your mouth for 10 seconds or so before swallowing. There is something about the bitter taste that stimulates the stomach – just throwing it back and washing it down with water doesn’t work.

You indeed have (or should have) plenty of melatonin in your GI tract. Melatonin helps maintain the tone of the LES along with helping with the health of the cells in the esophagus (and the rest of the GI tract – that’s why there is a lot of melatonin there). It is the job of the LES to be tight most of the time, and to loosen when food approaches.

I agree that salt is a good thing. Celtic sea salt – the real stuff – is great. I use it on everything. The whole idea that salt is bad ranks right up there in idiocy with the idea that saturated fat is bad for us.

Cheers–

MRE

By: Migraineur

Migraineur — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 16:52:58 +0000

Replying to Chris – my favorite part of the Real Simple article was:

“Eating smaller, frequent meals is a good weight-loss tactic ….”

No, no, no, no, no! Three meals is the ideal. I maintain that if you routinely need to eat more than 3 times a day, you are not eating properly. After the first month or so of low-carb, I almost never need a snack. And when I do need a snack, it’s usually because I’ve run out of eggs and have therefore not consumed enough protein at breakfast.

By: Anita

Anita — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:51:41 +0000

I would prefer to eat nothing but grass-fed beef but the only place I’ve consistently found it, is at Trader Joes and even then it’s only in ground form (either packages of four patties or one large block), however it is reasonably priced.

As far as doctors go, I switched to a naturopathic one this year and I’m much happier. My insurance doesn’t pay for it but the half-hour I spend with her costs about the same as 8-10 minutes with an MD. She’s mostly is in agreement with me about diet and very open minded. With some changes in treatment I’ve felt better this fall than I have in a long time (even with low carb I still have some thyroid and other autoimmune system issues).

Hi Anita–

I’m glad you scored with a good doctor. I’ve worked with a few naturopathic physicians and have been impressed. For the most part they seem much more willing to learn – especially if nutrition is involved – than do regular MDs.

Cheers–

MRE

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 23:16:31 +0000

This is kinda irrelevant but you would enjoy the link. The first time I tried grass fed beef was a delmonico, my favorite and close to heaven on earth, was from Whole Foods about 7 years ago. I went home and cooked it to what I thought was perfection. After I took one bite, I through the whole thing to the dog. A $16 meal for my pup. It tasted so foul, like gamey liver. Well, I was kinda gun shy on the GF beef. I came across an article in Slate magazine on GF beef and taste. I saw they were comparing big name brands(?) like Allen Brothers (which I’ve heard Rush Limbaugh rave on and on about) and Wagyu beef. I though, Oh boy, the poor GF beef are going to be crushed…based on taste. The article really surprised me http://www.slate.com/id/2152674/
Makes my mouth water reading it. Death before vegetarianism! ( or because of it)

Thanks for the kind offer for your book, a present most will appreciate AFTER the holidays are over.

Hey Robert–

Thanks for the link. I posted on this Slate article when it came out. Hope whomever gets it enjoys the book.

Cheers–

MRE

By: Regina Wilshire

Regina Wilshire — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:11:22 +0000

If I were eating only grass-fed meat, here is what would happen:

- dying of rabbit starvation because grass-fed has so little fat
- becoming poor because grass-fed is so expensive
- never eating fresh meat because the only grass-fed meat available around here is frozen

If you custom order your grass-fed beef, you’d be surprised at how much fat it can have on it…the stuff available in stores is often, IMO, over-trimmed out of fear of fat. We order our beef now by the quarter or half – give the farmer our cutting directions and fat/meat ratio for things like ground beef and also ask for the bones to be able to make stock. We also request the steaks and roasts not be trimmed of visible fat, I’ll do that myself to the level I want, thank you very much.

I can have my order delivered fresh or frozen and usually choose frozen since it’s easier to move it to the freezer when it arrives….and really, when you’re receiving 100-200 pounds of beef at a time, there is no real point to getting it fresh – you can’t eat it fast enough so it’ll spoil…..frozen works for us!

You do have to work with your farmer on price….we pay for cut weight and it’s CHEAPER than if I were to buy grain-fed commercial beef in the grocery store, even on sale. You do need a freezer, which pays for itself within about a year (and room for it too).

I don’t think anyone has to or should eat only grass-fed beef….heck, pastured chickens, hertiage turkeys, wild fish and some game too — rounds out a diet nicely…..along with, of course, lots of non-starchy vegetables!

Hey Regina–

Merry Christmas to you and Gil.

You are, of course, on the money. I’ve gotten some pretty juicy cuts of meat from grass-fed cattle. The taste difference between grass-fed and lot-fed beef comes mainly from the fat, and since a lot of people don’t like the somewhat gamey taste of grass fed do better with the cuts that are less fatty.

Cheers–

Mike

By: Marco Dorbol�

Marco Dorbol� — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:11:54 +0000

Hi Dr. Eades,

Since E. Coli “normal strains” are in everybody’s gut, how could people detect E. coli O157′s presence?

I’ve read that you sometimes have neither diarrhea nor fever.

Which analysis should I do to know for sure?

Thanks a lot.

Marco

If you have E. coli O157:H7 you’ll know it without testing. If you have an infection, you’ll have bloody diarrhea and be extremely sick.

I hope you don’t have it. Besides it’s not common in Italy. I don’t think there are many feedlots there.

Cheers–

MRE

By: Sue

Sue — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:04:07 +0000

I recently filled my freezer with one half of a range fed steer. I am actually saving dollars over buying store bought grain fed beef on an as needed basis. Plus it gives me a variety of cuts I wouldn’t otherwise buy, being stuck in my meal planning rut. The flavor and consistency reminds me of the moose meat I grew up on.