New Zealand Meat
We Kiwis are extremely lucky when it comes to the meat we have available in our own back yard.
In contrast to other parts of the world, it is fair to say we live in the best country for nutritionally superior meat.
In large countries like the united states, many cattle are raised in cramped, unsanitary lots (resulting in the necessity to be pumped with antibiotics) and to meet the huge demand of meat consumption in the states, they are often given bovine growth-hormone injections to shorten the time from birth to butcher shop (in 2005, 32.5 million cattle were slaughtered to provide beef for US consumers
(1) ) and these artificial growth hormones in beef production poses a potential risk to human health.
In addition to all of this, these cattle are being fed
grain-based diets.Why is this bad you ask? Let's have a think about evolution for a moment. Cow's have been around for...a
really long time- in Europe the first fossil records of bovine cattle date from before 5.3 - 2.6
million years.
For most of this time (up until the late 1930s when industrial factory farming of animals came into play)
CATTLE ATE GRASS. This is because cattle were designed by evolution to eat grass, leaves of certain plants and herbs. They are herbivores remember.
So what happens when we feed them something they weren't designed to eat?
Cattles digestive systems have a really hard time with grains.
"Feeding grain to cattle makes their normally pH-neutral digestive tract abnormally acidic; over time, the pathogenic
E. coli bacteria becomes acid-resistant. (This is not at all nice for our bovine friends and
really not nice for us) If humans ingest this acid-resistant
E. coli via grain-feed beef, a large number of them may survive past the stomach, causing an infection...."
(2) We have all heard of the major E.coli break outs in America and the resulting mass meat call-backs.
How does this help me and my health?
It helps in many ways; A study by Cornell University has determined that grass-fed animals have as much as 80% less of this strain of
E. coli in their guts than their grain-fed counterparts.
When cattle eat grain their fat mainly consists of mainly omega-6 fatty acids. When cattle eat like they are meant to (i.e grass) their fat consists of mainly omega-3 fatty acid
. We know that a healthy ratio of omega 6:omega 3 fatty acids is about 2:1 but with our modern diet high in vegetable oil and processed foods it looks more like
15:1 and even up to over 50:1. This is not good.
Scientists have discovered that
a diet higher in omega 3 fatty acids improves health in a number of ways. When you have a diet higher in omega 3 fats
, you have a decreased risk of dementia, heart disease, cancer, stroke and other inflammatory diseases.
Why Meat Cuisine?
Meat Cuisine sources meat from 100% grass fed and New Zealand grown animals .
Meat Cuisine is approved by New Zealand meat producers board as a supplier of "Quality Mark" beef & lamb and has been since it launched in September 1997. This means that all of Meat Cuisines products contain no hormone-growth promotants and not reacted to Tuberculosis (TB) testing, as well as many other standards you can read about
here.
In summary of why Meat Cuisine grass fed beef & Lamb is a good choice for your health:
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Perfect source of healthy fats & proteins
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No hormones, antibiotics, or other drugs
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Reduced use of chemical fertilizers & pesticides.
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More of the healthy Omega-3 fatty acids-less of the Omega-6 (not so good)
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High in Vitamin E
So the answer to health is not avoiding beef...not at all! It is eating unadulterated, grass-fed beef.
The kind that is (luckily for you and I) abundant in New Zealand, and of course at Meat Cuisine.
Written by
Kirsty-May Lillis
1.USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, "Livestock Slaughter 2005 Summary," March 2006.
