Whenever we talk about the food chain, we’ve learned in school that there is a relationship between the food we eat, and what they (plants & animals) have consumed. Vegetables are deemed to be healthier when eaten directly, compared to when an animal has consumed it previously. Well needless to say, there are also external factors affecting our nutrition.
Farming in the 1990s
In the 1990s, most cattle were fed through grain, and so are likely injected with hormones and other feeds, to make food production fast and profitable. This may sound good in that time, but if we’re going to think about its effects today, we have to reconsider the traditional ways before.
Skills Training in Farming
For any farmer, it is difficult to take care of cattle that are nourished by grass. One should need to be educated, and also be skillfully familiarized with this kind of farming. Providing a healthy diet for cattle also mean having healthy soil and careful pasture management to provide the plants an optimal stage of growth. Having high quality pasture often means having good quality animal products. This alone is an art, and also a science.
Nutrition and health
Speaking of health and nutrition, grass-fed animals are indeed more nutritious when they partake in food that is naturally made for their digestive systems. Cows, for example, are ruminants that have “rumen” inside their digestive systems, which ferments the food they partake, especially grass. They thrive in different types of grass that gives different nutrients, and among them are bluegrass, the Bermuda grass, rye, foxtail, brome grass, canary grass, and others. They may also live on eating different kinds of legumes.
Grass-fed animals are usually free than those that are caged in, or in confinement. This provides to them added exercise that is good for them physically, and also for the consumer, simply because it gives leaner meat. Those which are not raised in concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, have more access to fresh air, and to the warm heat of the sun. This makes them to be less likely sick, underdeveloped, and have diseases.
Impact on the surroundings
Environmentally, those animals which are fed with grains produce manure which has harmful pathogens, contaminants, and chemicals. Over applying livestock manure can overload soils with nitrogen and phosphorus, which can lead the soil to its destruction as well as other issues. But not only land does this contaminate, but also, groundwater, which is also a source of life. This condition pollutes land, water, and also the air. Compared to animals on outdoors, their manure is spread in a wide space of land, that may work as good mulch and fertilizer.
Healthy Choices
Choosing to eat meat, eggs, and dairy products from grass-fed animals means you’re looking after the welfare of the animals, helping solve environmental challenges, aiding small-scale farmers and ranchers make a living from the land, helping to sustain rural communities, and providing your family members with healthy food choices possible.
Do you want to know where you can buy fresh and nutritious grass-fed beef, grass-fed lamb, pastured pork nags head, pastured chicken along with other farm fresh fruits and vegetables? Come and shop at the Farmers Market in Raleigh, North Carolina. Visit us now!
Please visit: http://spruillbros.com/going-back-to-basics-of-grass-fed-animals/
Spruill Bros. 