What are Grass-fed animal products?
All ruminants, including cattle, sheep goats and bison are raised on pasture for the first months of their lives. Then the vast majority are transported to feedlots where they are “finished” on a grain-based diet. Typically, commercial animals are treated with hormones, feed additives and low-level antibiotics to speed their production and minimize the health problems that come from eating an artificial diet, living in stressful and crowed conditions.

Commercial chickens, turkeys and pigs are raised in confinement all their lives. Tightly packed into cages, sheds or outdoor pens, they have no access to green plants. Their diet and environment are carefully controlled to bring them to market size in the least amount of time for the least amount of money. Antibiotics and growth stimulants are used to accelerate their growth and control disease the spreads so rapidly in confined quarters.

“Grass-fed” or “Pasture-raised” animals live dramatically different lives. To begin with, they are raised from birth to market on a family farm. Cows graze high-quality grasses during the growing season and then eat stored grasses during the winter months.
Our animals live such stress-free lives, are rarely sick and have no need to be treated with pharmaceutical drugs. As in nature, their rate of growth is determined by their health and the quality of the forage, not by hormonal implants and growth-promoting additives. Our products are healthy, wholesome and natural in every sense of the word.

Health Benefits of Grass-fed Products

Products from pastured animals are ideal for your health. Similar to wild game, they contain the amounts and kinds of nutrients that your body “expects” to be fed. Switching to grass-fed products may reduce your risk of a number of diseases, including diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Lower in Fat and Calories. There are a number of nutritional differences between the meat of pasture-raised and feedlot-raised animals. To begin with, meat from grass-fed cattle and sheep are lower in total fat. If the meat is very lean, it can it can have only one-third as much fat as a similar cut from a grain-fed animal.

Because meat from grass-fed animals is lower in fat than meat from grain-fed animals, it is also lower in calories. ( Fat has 9 calories per gram, compared with only 4 calories for protein and carbohydrates. ) The greater the fat content, the greater the number of calories. For example, a 6-ounce steak from grass-finished steer can have 100 fewer calories the a 6-ounce steak from a grain-fed steer. If you eat a typical amount of beef ( 66.5 pounds a year ), switching to lean grass-fed beef will save you 17,733 calories a year-without requiring any willpower or change in your eating habits.

Extra Omega-3s. Meat from grass-fed animals has two to four times more Omega-3 fatty acids than meat from grain-fed animals. Omega-3s are called “good fats” because they play a vital role in every cell and system in your body. Of all the fats, they are the most heart-friendly. People who have ample amounts of Omega-3s in their diet are less likely to have high blood pressure. Remarkably, they are 50 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack. Omega-3s are essential for your brain, as well. People with a diet rich in Omega-3s are less likely to suffer from depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder ( hyperactivity ) or Alzheimer’s disease.

Another benefit of Omega-3s is that they may reduce your risk of cancer. In animal studies, these essential fats have slowed the growth of a wide array of cancers and also kept them from speading. Although the human research is in its infancy, researchers have shown that Omega-3s can slow or even reverse weight loss that accompanies advanced cancer and also hasten recovery from surgery.

Omega-3s are most abundant in seafood and certain nuts and seeds such as flax seeds and walnuts, but they are also found in animals raised on pasture. Sixty percent of the fatty acids in grasses are Omega-3s.

When chickens are housed indoors and deprived of greens, their meat and eggs become artificially low in Omega-3s. Eggs from pastured hens can contain as much as 10 times more Omega-3s the eggs from factory hens.

The CLA Bonus. Meat and dairy products from grass-fed ruminants are the richest know source of another type of good fat called conjugated linoleic acid or CLA. When ruminants are raised on fresh pasture alone, their products contain from three to five times more CLA than products from animals fed conventional diets. A steak from the most marbled, grass-fed animals will have the most CLA, as much of the CLA is stored in the fat cells. CLA may be one of the most potent defenses against cancer. In laboratory animals, a very small percentage of CLA—a mere 0.1 percent of total calories—greatly reduced tumor growth. There is new evidence that CLA may reduce cancer risk in humans. In a Finnish study, women who had the highest levels of CLA in their diet had a 60 percent lower risk of breast cancer than those with the lowest levels.

Vitamin E. In addition to being higher in Omega-3s and CLA, meat from grass-fed animals is also higher in Vitamin E. In humans, Vitamin E is linked with lower risk of heart disease and cancer.