Growers and Grocers

With the recent outbreaks of the virulent strains of E-coli that have caused everything from tragic death to widespread illness, we can be assured that the E-coli contamination scare is not only not over, it’s only just begun.

Where do we turn? What does the consumer do to ensure the safety of food given to our most vulnerable, our children and elderly?

I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to eat anything with feces in it. I really don’t care whose feces it is or which species of feces (say that 10 times fast), I simply don’t want it in my food. How it gets there is even more absurd.

To understand why grass fed meats are a necessity, rather than a niche market, one must understand the mechanism behind E-coli and why strains of these E-Coli super bugs that have never been seen prior to 1982 are now killing our citizens.

The “other hat” I wear as a Certified Healthcare Consultant puts me in nearly constant contact with physicians and nurses nationwide. It isn’t only E-Coli that is putting the American public in serious jeopardy. Many healthcare providers, when questioned, express serious concern to me regarding strains of MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) antibiotic resistant bacteria that are now commonplace in the Emergency Room, Prisons, Daycares and other densely populated communities.

Critics of the grass fed meats movement blame the over prescribing of antibiotics by physicians and non compliant patients who don’t finish all their medicine for the problem. When it comes to antibiotics, the statistics and the good science paint a completely different picture and, in fact, the truth may be that we’re unknowingly eating far more antibiotics than what doctors are prescribing.

A widely cited 2001 report by The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) estimates that the quantities of antimicrobials administered to livestock and poultry for non-therapeutic purposes (growth promotion and disease prevention) far outweigh the amount of antibiotics used on humans. According to UCS estimates, humans use approximately 4.5 million pounds of antibiotics annually. This figure includes all antimicrobials applied in courses of medical treatment (50 million cases or 3 million pounds), as well as in topical creams, soaps, and disinfectants (1.5 million pounds). In comparison, antimicrobial use in the three major sectors of livestock — beef, pork, and poultry — is estimated at 24.6 million pounds annually, eight times the amount used in human medicine. By those numbers, non-therapeutic use of antimicrobials in livestock agriculture accounts for 70% of total antibiotic use. Need more convincing? The study in the Feb. 18th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that all levels of antibiotic use were associated with increased risk of breast cancer and death from breast cancer. What does this all have to do with grass fed meats?

Organic meat would seem safe, considering no hormones or antibiotics are administered to these animals, but is that really enough? With recent E-Coli scares from even organic meat producers popping up, how are we to know?

Understanding why and how E-Coli has become so harmful to humans is key.

When an animal is grain fed, either organic or commercial, the stomach acids in the cattle strengthen. Michael Pollen, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma makes it clear: “The recent strain of E. Coli 0157:H7 is believed to have evolved in the gut of feedlot cattle. These are animals that stand around in their manure all day long, eating a diet of grain that happens to turn a cow’s rumen into an ideal habitat for E. coli 0157:H7. (The bug can’t survive long in cattle living on grass.) Industrial animal agriculture produces more than a billion tons of manure every year, manure that, besides being full of nasty microbes like E. coli 0157:H7 (not to mention high concentrations of the pharmaceuticals animals must receive so they can tolerate the feedlot lifestyle), often ends up in places it shouldn’t be, rather than in pastures, where it would not only be harmless, but also actually do some good. To think of animal manure as pollution rather than fertility is a relatively new (and industrial) idea.”

Grain fed animals, it appears, develop newer and stronger bacteria in response to the overly acidic environment produced by massive grain feeding. The human body cannot kill these strains as they naturally would in similar but weaker strains the human body carries naturally on its own.

These “Super Bugs” in the cattle manure that comes from feed lot cows is then often used as fertilizer on vegetables. When the meat is processed for human consumption, the super bugs find their way into our diet and our bodies, causing illness and sometimes death.

Grass feeding cattle does not promote an acidic environment within the stomach. Humans can easily combat and kill and E.Coli that is present in the gut of a grass fed animal. The digestive system in grass fed animals runs at 7 pH versus 4 pH in grain fed animals.

E. Coli 157 will not survive in the stomach of a grass-fed animal due to the high pH. Furthermore, since cattle raised in feedlots are not fresh from the shower, we should be even more concerned. Feedlot animals are forced to stand all day in confined areas in their own manure and cannot help but be covered in it. Grass raised cattle are not confined and less likely to be covered in their own manure. At the end of the day, pragmatically, the only way to cut down your risk of becoming ill from a virulent strain of E. Coli is to eat grass-fed meats.

Grass IS Good

In the Grass Farmer’s April 2006 issue, Dr. Tilek Dhiman of Utah State University spoke at the American Grass Fed Association’s seminar and reported:

Some of grass fed’s benefits in comparison with the grain fed products are:
- 500% More CLA
- 400% More Vitamin A
- 300% More Vitamin E
- 75% More Omega-3
- 78% More Beta-Carotene

In grass fed meats studies:
- 11 out of 11 found CLA decreases cancer
- Four out of five have found a decrease in body fat
- Two out of two have found a decrease in heart disease
- Three out of three found a decrease in adult diabetes
- Six out of six have found increased immunity to disease
- Two out of two found an increase in bone density

For more information on grass fed meats, please visit the Rosas Farms website.