Bionutrients in Beef?

What is a “bionutrient”? If you search the internet, you will find NASA has a definition for it. Trust us, we are more interested in the work of the Bionutrient Food Association than what NASA is experimenting with. We have been watching the mission, work, and education of the Bionutrient Food Association (Dan Kittredge) for several years. We are excited to be working with The BIONUTRIENT Institute during this beef harvest year as part of the “DEFINING NUTRIENT DENSITY IN BEEF” project.

It is a simple design of nature that nutrition follows flavor. Have you ever bitten into an apple or some other whole food (like our beef or chicken) and thought to yourself “WOW, that is the best (insert your food) I have ever tasted”. Most “food” today is bland due to producing quantity over quality. So when you happen to take a bite of nutritious food, your body instinctively knows it. This happened to Doug a while back when eating some cantaloupe. He immediately took some of the juice from the cantaloupe and tested it for BRIX (with a handheld Brix meter). Doug’s taste buds were backed up by a very high BRIX reading (see BRIX chart for Vegetables and Fruit). We ran back to and picked up more from this batch of cantaloupe before it was gone!

High Brix Forages

Using a Brix meter to measure forage quality has many “variables” involved such as changes in barometric pressure, temperature, and sunlight (variables controlled for in other uses of Brix meters). The meter is just another tool in the toolbox to monitor with. Overall it is agreed that cattle grazing “high” Brix forages will experience fewer health issues. Of course, the reason that one farm may have higher quality forages will depend on many management variables.

Taste buds as a nutrition meter

Brix meters and potentially The Bionutrient Meter are great tools to check the produce you are about to purchase for nutrient density. We hope that our contributions to the nutrient density in beef project will help the institute develop data for future simpler methods for testing beef for quality. We have annually been testing our beef for Omega 6:3 fatty acid profile but this study will take a deep dive into other phytochemicals by looking at multiple (holistic) data points on our farm including:

1. Soil samples (soil monitoring posts)
2. Forage samples (pasture monitoring posts)
3. Manure samples (manure sampling post)
4. Meat samples (meat sampling posts)

The desire to better define “high-quality beef” sounds like a good idea, but remember we are all biochemically unique individuals. So the overall best testing tool you have available is in your taste buds. Then listen to what your body is trying to tell you following a meal. If you are currently on a Standard American Diet (SAD) of highly processed foods, fast foods, and seed oils, making the switch to whole foods will be a journey. Like any journey, take time to do your research, slow down and try to listen to what your body is telling you along the way. This is intuitive to all of us, we just need to pause and be mindful during the journey.