"If it's pink it's meat!" ~ Jo Ann Smith, [former] USDA Under Secretary
As I've shared before, we started a journey more than a decade ago due to my husband's Rheumatoid Arthritis diagnosis. Our first impulse was engrained, "modern medicine" was the path we would travel. But, shortly after starting down that path, a close family friend passed away from the side effects of the same pharma-cocktail that my husband had started. Andy, our family friend, had been taking the meds for nearly a decade, and the last year of his life had been a battle with liver cancer that resulted from the various medications.
After his funeral, the reality of the severity of RA really hit me. So, I began researching the alternatives to drugs and happened across Robb Wolfe's "Paleo" lifestyle. I had no idea why it seemed to work for others or if it might work for us, but was willing to dive in and make lifestyle changes for our entire family in order to protect my husband from the ill effects of modern medicines.
*I want to clarify that this blog series isn't to encourage alternative medicines or an attack on the medical treatments available. It is simply to share information that will enlighten and inform readers in a condensed and central point. Anyone experiencing illness should work and coordinate with their medical team to identify the best balance for their personal course of wellness.
For our family, RA opened the door to years of research and experience that made a huge impact on our lives. The realities of what we were consuming under the FDA's guise of "healthy" weren't in sync with how our bodies were responding.
Mass Production Meat - What is it?
I think "Pink Slime" was the first real eye-opener for me. So, that is where I want to begin.
First, what is it? We need to understand that the notorious pink slime is a by-product produced from unused or undesired leftovers. In industry terms, it is referred to as LFTB (lean finely textured beef) or BLBT (boneless lean beef trimmings).
When an animal is processed and packaged, there are undesirable "leftovers" such as connective tissues and meat left on bones. (If you've ever given your dog a bone from the local butcher, you can likely picture what I am referring to).
These traces of skeletal muscle meats are scraped, shaved, or pressed from the bone and heated to remove the melted fat through centrifugal force using a centrifuge process and then flash frozen to 15 degrees in a press freezer. Once the process is completed, this product is then added to grind as a filler, most often to reduce the fat content of hamburger. So, when you're buying "lean" ground at the grocery store, it probably has some LFTB added.
This is where it gets...icky!
To avoid contamination, the product is washed in Anhydrous Ammonia to kill pathogens that may cause e.coli, for example. NH3 is a toxic gas or liquid that when concentrated is corrosive to tissue upon contact. It can be fatal if exposure is sufficient. It becomes a toxic gas when it is released into the environment, forming large vapor clouds under the right conditions. If inhaled in this form, effects can range from lung irritation to severe respiratory injuries that result in death. And, the corrosive nature can burn skin and eyes causing severe and lasting consequences.
However, when used safely, it will greatly increase the pH level in LFTB damaging the microscopic organisms. With the freezing, ice crystals will then form and puncture the organism's cell walls and are destroyed in the final stressing. Now, that product is finely ground, compressed into pellets, and flash frozen for shipping where it will be re-added as an additive to the ground meat on our grocery shelves.
Did you catch that? The LFTB, a product that contains 'waste' material from multiple animals is processed and prepared to ship to another facility in some other part of the country and then added to yet another animal (or animals) being processed for mass production for grocery stores all across the country.
Somehow, we as a consumer have been convinced the flavor is delicious and the protein is healthy.
Maybe it is...but, the majority of mass-production meat is products from feedlots. This is where my ethical issues started. The process of a feedlot is pretty nailed down. Most major producers do care about the protocols they have in place. But, not in the ethical realm - the protocols are to create as consistent a product as possible. They know exactly how much feed, what feed, and what treatments are necessary to get the animals to market as soon as possible. And, those protocols are to increase weights and gains, and therefore profit, rather than animal health.
The producer-end of raising beef is something we'll dig into in the third post of this series, Follow the Money. I think you'll be surprised at where this all leads, but in cliffhanger fashion ~ it isn't necessarily the producers that are the infamous bad guys in this story.
Impacts on the consumer
We can look at the increase of auto-immune diseases, cancer cases (in a host of variations), and neurological disorders and conclude confidently that environment and diet have changed. And, without a far stretch, we should be able to connect the same changes in our livestock, wildlife, and even our pets. We are all consuming these products in some manner.
In a 2020 article, Texas A&M associate professor of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical, Dr. Shay Bracha, shared staggering statistics that 1 in 3 dogs and 1 in 4 cats will be diagnosed in their lifetime with cancer. In comparison, 1 in 5 humans will face a cancer diagnosis.
While the world awaits a cancer cure, many of us wonder what we can do to perhaps keep such a diagnosis at bay. Some may never smoke a cigarette, or drink alcohol, others may avoid products with certain metals. And, most of us will choose to try eating healthy, exercising, and overall keeping fit ~ if not to avoid cancer, then to just feel better and reduce the risk of ever needing pharmaceutical interventions.
Every living being is impacted by the changes in how we're growing grain and what is consuming it. When do we start down the rabbit hole of how food is produced compared to how it was once produced?
Oh. My. It is quite a journey!
For many of us, grain isn't necessarily an issue. It does impact the taste of our proteins and, to a degree, maybe the preferred flavor influence. One of the first things that I realized when I made my husband choose Paleo was the impact of grains. Honestly, I had never considered how grain feeding a cow might carry into our hamburger or steak. Not once in my life had I given thought to how a supermarket or grocery store managed to keep the shelves stocked with proteins.
I jumped into Paleo and being grain-free without any understanding of how grain influenced meat. I just hadn't made the connection yet. Truly, I didn't make the connection until we started raising our buffs. All I knew was that I wanted to raise them grain-free for a multitude of reasons.
Before grains were heavily modified by Monsanto and others...before the mechanical processes were implemented in the late 1800s...grains were a natural forage that would have likely been a normal part of regular diets for our cattle and bison. Wheat, barley, oats, and more may have been grazed with little to no real disadvantage.
You've heard the phrase "got a threshing" -- before the grain industry industrialized in the late 1800s with then-modern technology grains were flailed by hand, or threshed, after scythes were used to chop and cut. Then, the stocks were reused as bedding for the animals that pulled the plows to start the process all over. The original process fermented grains naturally, whereas today, grains encounter no fermenting process ~ especially in a natural manner.
It is suspected that the change in production alone is one of the greatest reasons we are seeing a societal change in health. Celiac and other gluten allergies are growing daily it seems. And, a quick trip through even the smallest of grocery stores indicates the increasing need to feed people that cannot tolerate grains.
For our pets, we're seeing more allergies and health issues, unlike in recent decades. Our dogs have skin allergies, chronic yeasty ears, and intolerances that didn't use to exist.
While experts seem incapable of pinpointing the root cause of so many increased cases of cancers to allergies, the one thing we can identify is the most common thread. Grains and meat by-products.
We'll examine labeling realities in the next post in this series. For today, let's stay focused on what is in our selected proteins.
You're probably wondering why grain is an issue in a post about what is in our meat.
Mass Meat vs Grass Meat
So many studies and opinions have been formed throughout the years about the two variations of raising livestock. Each side can make an argument for why one is better than the other.
Knowing that grains have been modified, that the process has been changed and automated, and the increase in unhealthy guts and immune systems for humans have all caused me concern about what I make available to my animals.
If they're unhealthy, they are stressed. If they are stressed, they're susceptible to illness. If they're ill, they require treatment, and if they require treatment, they aren't healthy.
It's a cycle that I want to avoid, both for the sake of the animals and for the confidence that I'm eating healthier proteins.
This is where so many nutritionists and health experts seem to disconnect in my opinion. If we're putting in the work to eat healthy and take care of ourselves to the degree that we want to avoid GMOs, grains, pharmaceutical intervention, etc. Why aren't we paying attention to the proteins themselves? After all, "we are what we eat" and certainly the USDA, FDA, and FSIS all recognize this. If not the case, dewormers, and antibiotics used in livestock care wouldn't have withdrawal periods specified.
Logically, if pharmaceutical treatments can remain any threat of being absorbed into our meat source, wouldn't the content of what sustained that animal the majority of its life be equally (or more) potential of passing on to the consumer?
And, during the life of that animal, what is that GMO grain doing to the quality of that animal's life? Granted, I'm not going to go too deep into this today because I struggle personally with my ethical issues of "feedlot" setups. I made the personal choice to avoid consuming proteins that were subjected to an 'industrial' environment. But I don't necessarily condemn them because I realize that to meet the demand of feeding a nation adequately they are a necessary part of civilization until there are better options (besides going vegan or vegetarian, that's not an option at all in my opinion).
Learning more and more every day about how to measure health in our herd, I've realized that if our forages are inadequate, the herd doesn't perform. By perform I mean they experience lower energy or less gains, for a couple of examples. But they can also experience infertility or lower milk production for nursing. The answer for some ranchers is to supplement their herd's protein intake with the use of grain.
It's cheap, it influences the flavor of their end product, and can be easier controlled to maintain a consistent flavor. It also quickens growth, allowing for culls to take place at younger ages (the younger the cull the less time and money had to be invested). And, it is still a healthy protein to provide to consumers. In some ways, grain-fed animals are healthier than grass-fed and finished when we examine the nutritional values.
Still, if we are raising livestock with grain supplements or strictly grain-fed many could argue that the animals have been acclimated to the process and therefore do not experience any resulting issues. And, perhaps that would be true if the grains were not changing. But is it true?
If grains are impacting the health of humans and pets, why would we not examine the impacts on the animals we depend on to sustain us?
Some studies indicate (I won't say they prove anything because new studies present often that counter former studies, as science is always expanding and changing) that grain-feeding cattle interrupts the healthy gut by diminishing necessary microbial diversity to a degree that results in acidosis. Less concerning for producers raising beef cattle would be as simple as heartburn or stomach upset that is caused by the necessary increase of stomach acids to aid in breaking down the harder grains in comparison to softer forages. Sure, it's unlikely that heartburn would kill a cow, but it does create stress - and certainly stress will do at least two things:
Lower immunity, increasing susceptibility to other illness or disease
Impact the quality and taste of the meat after processing
But we have to understand that unlike humans and our pets, beef and buffalo or bison are ruminants. Their four-chambers stomachs and digestive systems are designed to perform a pretty remarkable task of breaking down grasses and forages to extract the nutrients that our systems can't.
You all know that "ethical and humane" are simply a part of who we strive to be with our buffalo. I work hard to keep that balance of healthy and happy animals. I also know that our herd members may be here longer than others - and for that very reason, I do not want them unhealthy, in pain or discomfort, or anything but as natural as possible.
Unlike animals that are bred and raised for the meat industry, our animals roam the pastures and fields at will. The counterparts whose sole purpose is to be culled and processed at 30-months old however may spend as long as a year in a feedlot environment consuming grains that cause bloat, illness, and stress.
Rather than me re-writing what I've learned from personal experience with our animals and compiling it with what I've read and studied, I'll share a really informative interview that PBS conducted with Professor Micahel Pollan several years ago. It's a long read (maybe longer than this article), but it is so informative and contains really valuable detail in how the ruminant works, the interruption of the process (and why), and much more. Trust me. READ IT!
I need to take a moment just to apologize for the length of this post. And, mostly to thank you for reading through it.
There is still so much that goes into our meat that I want to share. I guess I should wrap this up and ask you to re-join me for another addition after this series. I think just what I've shared here is enough to give thought to and, hopefully, encourage you to ask questions about what your journey is and what is important along that journey in order to reach your destination.
Is it to be healthier? Are you dealing with a chronic illness or disorder? Do you just want to support humane practices? There are as many reasons for wanting to know what is in your food as their are individuals.
It's a wrap!
The best advice I hope to give, don't be afraid to ask questions!
The second piece of advice? In order to get better, we need a community. And, I'm not focusing on a health community here. For many of us we're living in a rural, or suburban, community and everyday we see the urban expansion on the horizon.
If you look around the town or small city that you live in, I'm sure you have seen green pastures not far off in the distance. If there is, chances are you have local beef or other protein "growing in your backyard." Make connections. Form relationships. Support your local farmers and ranchers.
These are the people that will stop, or at least slow down "progess" of the urbanization that the country is witnessing. Supporting local ranchers provides you the chance to know what is in your food, your farm visits allow you to see how that animal lives its life and more importantly ask what the husbandry protocols are.
Do you use grains to feed or supplement at any time?
How do you manage a sick or injured cow/pig/chicken/buffalo?
Do you ever test - soil, forage, water?
Do you ever test meat samples for nutritional values?
Do you have corrective action plans for underperforming animals?
Most of us that invest so much time in raising quality animals aren't getting rich, we're getting satisfaction in knowing that we are doing the best we can possibly do. And, much of that reward is the opportunity to share it among our community.
And, obviously, we love to talk about what we do and especially our animals.
Again, a great read. How do you know so much? How do. manner, compile it and write your blog? It was really good. I really didn’t know all those details about pink slime.
Thank you for taking the time to prepare this and present it to us
Barbara Ann