Worried about what you are "really" eating? Have peace of mind with pasture grazed meats.
Comparing Our Pasture Grazed Beef to Grassfed
In the past three posts we took a close look at our Pasture Grazed beef when compared to typical beef. Thanks to the folks at Mother Earth News, we can see how our beef compares with other grassfed beef from around the country. We were fortunate enough to have DS Family Farm beef included in the recent Mother Earth News pilot Omega 6 to Omega 3 test study with other grassfed beef farms from around the USA. It is an honor to be included with the list of grass based farms that participated. From looking at the list of participating farms I am guessing many of these farms raise grassfed beef similar to our farm.
To clarify, when people ask me about our “Pasture Grazed” beef, my first point is “yes, we are 100% grassfed”. So what is the difference? Basically “grassfed” just involves what feed the animal consumes. In that sense, yes, we are 100% grassfed. When we say “Pasture Grazed” we mean that our herd spends their entire life on our pasture, never confined to a feed lot. For more information please refer to our blog post “Pasture Grazed vs Grassfed Beef“.
Our Pasture Grazed beef compared with the Grassfed beef – Omega 6 to 3 Study
Here is the Data Analysis Summary for beef from the Mother Earth News, 1/11/2016, pilot study.
In the table below I take the pilot grassfed beef values from the table above and compare them against our Pasture Grazed beef findings:
A few points about the above chart:
- We are humbled that our beef expresses 60% higher anti-inflammatory Omega-3s (above average).
- We recognize also that our beef has 24% higher of the inflammatory Omega-6s (above average).
- It is the Omega-6 LA that holds conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), the anti-cancer fatty acid.
- LA was the primary Omega-6 component of our sample.
- Since our animals live their entire lives on grass, we estimate ~75% of our Omega-6 LA is CLA.
- Potentially our sample was above average for CLA, but that is only a guess based on research data.
- Please see our prior post for how we estimated CLA.
- Again we are humbled that our beef expresses a better Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio (above average).
