Is meat naturally bad for you and something that should be avoided? Is it causing heart attacks and arthritis? Brain diseases and depression? The answer is yes and no. To answer that, first let’s consider the meat we are eating. I am often recommending that humans focus on eating food natural to a human diet. But what about meat? What is the cow/chicken/fish you are eating having for dinner? Your diet can have a dramatic impact on your body composition, and the same is true for that cow or chicken. Make sure you are purchasing grass fed, grass finished beef. This means that the cows have not ever been corn fed. Stated simply, imagine the fat composition of a human who has eaten all corn chips every day. Compare that to a person who has only eaten salad. Different bodies, right? The animal’s diet makes a huge difference.
Historically, the nutrients in fat (fatty acids) looked vastly different. The omega 3:6 ratio was about 1:1. Now it is more like 1:20 in most Americans’ diets. Because of that, we are seeing a horrifying increase in inflammatory diseases and heart disease. Many health experts recommend that you take a fish oil pill to balance that out. Just take a minute to process that. Instead of recommending that we eat foods with a natural fatty acid balance, we are trying to tip the scales by swallowing fat in a pill. You can spend just a little more on the grass fed meats, wild caught fish, grass fed butter, and pastured omega eggs and actually have the right nutrients in your food so you don’t have to take the pill. Personally, I stopped taking fish oil years ago. I am not against it, but I do think it seems a little crazy to eat all the wrong foods and then try to make that balance right again with a capsule of oil. I will take a high nutrient grass fed butter high in Omega 3’s any day. I buy my grass fed meats right from the farmer at the Kansas City River Market and spend little more than I would at the grocery store up the street. Despite a family history of high cholesterol, tests always show great results even on a high fat diet. I would argue that animal products themselves are not bad for you, but the way we raise and process those products can be very detrimental.
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