Health and Nutrition
Estancia’s grass-fed beef doesn’t just taste great -- our selective breeding practices and ranching protocols produce a high-quality steak with health benefits similar to that of salmon.
Grass-fed beef has about half the fat and cholesterol of grain-fed beef. Additionally, the fat found in grass-fed beef is 41% mono unsaturated (like olive oil), so it’s good for you.
Grass-fed beef is packed with omega 3 fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acid, which are very beneficial to our health. It’s also higher in vitamins A and E.
Corn-fed beef, on the other hand, was invented in the 1950s for convenience, not because it was healthier, better tasting, or more environmentally friendly. It is cheaper to produce and allows animals to be fattened in places where natural conditions don’t otherwise allow it.
A Healthier Way
In Argentina, an almost entirely grass-fed beef producer, the average annual beef consumption is the highest in the world (about 60% higher than in the U.S.). Despite the increase, there is no indication of higher levels of heart disease, obesity, cancer, diabetes, or many of the other near epidemic maladies found in the U.S.
Lifestyle factors may explain the difference, but recent academic studies have attributed the problem in the U.S. to a near total reliance on “concentrate fed proteins.” When cattle, chickens, and pigs are fed diets very different from what they evolved to eat, the basic chemistry of their proteins changes. For example, the proportion of omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acids changes dramatically in solely concentrate-fed animals, and some very healthy components like alpha linoleic acid are lost completely. See our “Learn More” section for some great studies on native populations that highlight the same issue.
A Glut of Corn
For decades the U.S. has consistently produced vast surpluses of corn, an artificially cheap fuel (see Michael Pollen’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma for the details). The all-purpose nutrient is now found in everything from Coca-Cola to hot dogs and steaks. The U.S. beef industry has evolved to be entirely dependent on cheap corn and the feedlots through which it is fed to cattle.
This system puts an enormous strain on human health and the environment. When beef production shifted from free range to feedlot, it shifted from clean and photosynthetic to dirty and fossil-fueled.
Americans have seen and felt the health fallout over the last couple of decades as beef has earned a reputation, we believe, it doesn't deserve – if it’s raised the right way.
