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Sustainable Beyond Organic Meats: we are what the animal eats

01/19/2012 in Cooking, Food, Health, News, What Matters Most by Evelyn | No comments

What if everything you’ve been told or read about beef is wrong? Well, wrong that is unless you have been buying and eating beef that has been raised on grass all their lives, hormone-free, no antibiotics. There’s an enormous difference between store-bought meats raised in fedlots, certified organic, and beyond organic. Here I am talking about ‘beyond organic’ meats because I do not support the lax standards the certification has put into place the last decade.Steak

Myths About Beef??? Depends on what kind of beef you’re buying and eating.

  • High in saturated fats
  • Marbled with fat is a better cut
  • Increases your risk of certain diseases
What if I were to tell you that it turns out that a lot of these issues are triggered by an unnatural pH in a cow’s first stomach. The fermentation chamber that initiates what will ultimately be the critical balance of fatty acids, amino acids, vitamins and enzymes that are essential for human nutrition, the first stomach must be healthy in order for an animal to produce healthy meat.

Forage-grazing animals have a healthy, highly-functioning pH of 7, which allows for an abundance of the essential fermentation bacteria that create high levels of CLA, omega-3s, branch-chain amino acids, vitamins and digestive enzymes. But even a small amount of grain can throw all this off: just 30 days on a grain diet can offset 200 days of grazing chemistry.

For over ten years I had searched high and low to find a source for the best quality, most nutritious meats; a reliable source that went beyond organic. Here’s what I found, I support this farm and their practices entirely, their standards are as high as my own. Here’s their story…

John Wood, the founder of U.S. Wellness Meats, has always been a farmer. In fact, he comes from a long line of farmers. And for the last few decades, they farmed the “standard” way. They raised their animals on pasture before fattening them on grain in confinement, and then selling them off to a big animal processor when it was time for them to be harvested.

But in the late 1990′s, John began to question the “standard” way of farming…  Continue reading “Sustainable Beyond Organic Meats: we are what the animal eats” »

Evelyn Vincent Evelyn Vincent

Native Plant Landscaper, Gardener, Labyrinth Design, Feng Shui Practitioner,  Aromatherapy / Essential Oils, Big Fan of Nature and Living Simply.

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller

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Yummy Lamb Meat Loaf

01/08/2012 in Cooking, Food, Health, Recipe by Evelyn | 1 comment

I’m not sure how I came up with this recipe years ago. All I remember is that we had some ground lamb and we felt like having meat loaf. I need to point out that the best flavor results come when grass-raised meat is used, we get ours from US Wellness Meats. Don’t let the simplicity of this recipe fool you, it’s amazing and is so tasty that it makes my mouth water just writing this!Ground Lamb, food

You will need:

  • 1 pound ground Lamb
  • 1 cup homemade bread crumbs or crushed crackers
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 onion, diced
  • optional: 1 tomato, diced

Put egg into a large bowl with the bread crumbs, mix together well with a fork. Add onions and lamb, mix together (tip: I do not mix well because I don’t care for the texture when it is over-mixed). Add fresh tomato now if you like.

Pour the mixture in the bowl into a baking pan and form into a nice loaf shape.

Bake at 325*F for 50-55 minutes. Remove pan from oven and let rest for 5 minutes, slice, serve and enjoy!

Fun Fact: When we cook with grass-raised meats we do not drain off any of the fat. Grass-raised animals tend to be less fatty and because they are grass-rasied they are literally a different animal. Meaning that when animals are allowed to eat their ‘natural’ diet the nutritional content is vastly different than conventionally-raised and even organically-raised meats. Grass-raised animal meats go way beyond organic meats (see Organic Certification: is it all it’s cracked up to be?) and have a proper ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, these ARE good for us to eat! Many don’t realize that conventional meat and even organic meats; the animals never get to eat their natural diet, as such the meat we eat from them is extremely unbalanced and unhealthy. Thus, we happily eat the fat too, just the way Mother Nature intended us to eat!

More of Our Delicious Recipes

Grilled Flat Iron Steaks

Grilled Wild Alaska Halibut on Tabouli

Orange Cranberry Muffins

Pot Roast with Baby Vegetables

Crockpot Braised Lamb Shanks

Turkey with Pesto Pasta

Evelyn Vincent Evelyn Vincent

Native Plant Landscaper, Gardener, Labyrinth Design, Feng Shui Practitioner,  Aromatherapy / Essential Oils, Big Fan of Nature and Living Simply.

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller

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Beef Bacon and Sweet Potato Brunch Casserole

01/07/2012 in Cooking, Food, Health, Recipe by Evelyn | No comments

This recipe is unique in that it contains ‘Beef Bacon’, which I have only ever seen at one source. This dish is grain-free, dairy-free, and nut-free!Beef Bacon and Sweet Potato Casserole

Ingredients:

  • 1 Tbsp coconut oil
  • 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and sliced into 1/8″ thin rounds
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 8 eggs
  • 1/2 tsp herbs de provence (or your favorite dry herbs)
  • 1/2 C carrots, peeled and shredded
  • 1/2 C zucchini, peeled and shredded
  • 3/4 lbs sliced sugar-free nitrate-free beef bacon (Beef Bacon is available through US Wellness Meats, they have excellent grass-raised meats!)

Directions:

Grease 13×5″ glass dish thoroughly with coconut oil

Lay out the sweet potatoes in a single layer, overlapping so that a crust can be formed by sealing out the egg (it’s OK if egg leak under) and set aside

Whisk together eggs, seasoning, carrots and zucchini until frothy with air bubbles

Pour eggs over sweet potatoes

Gently lay strips of beef bacon in an overlapping pattern over the uncooked egg mixture

Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes

Recipe from: PaleoParents, thanks!

Evelyn Vincent Evelyn Vincent

Native Plant Landscaper, Gardener, Labyrinth Design, Feng Shui Practitioner,  Aromatherapy / Essential Oils, Big Fan of Nature and Living Simply.

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller

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How To Cook Grass-Raised Beef

01/06/2012 in Cooking, Food, Health, How To, Old Ways, What Matters Most by Evelyn | No comments

SteakHumans have been eating and cooking grass-fed beef for centuries. The unique properties of grass-raised cattle is the omega 3-6 ratio is about 2:1, whereas the omega 3-6 ratio in grain-fed cattle is about 20:1; the omega 3s are what cause inflammation, the omega 6 are anti-inflammatory – there’s a huge difference here! The meat from grain-fed feedlot animals typically contains only 15 to 50 percent of the Omega 3′s of grass-fed livestock. This makes it easier to understand one reason why grain-raised beef is a rather unhealthy food for us to eat.

Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) is the other unique property of grass-raised beef. CLA is produced in the cattle’s pH 7 stomach. CLA is a nutrient associated with lowered cancer risk, higher CLA levels assist humans eating grass-raised meats in burning fat and putting on more lean muscle mass. Two facts that have been very well documented.

Grain-raised cattle has a pH 4 stomach, which is quite acidic and doesn’t produce much CLA.

This means that even if you do chose leaner cuts of grain-fed beef you are still not getting any of the benefits of CLA, which may explain why many who do choose leaner cuts for health and weight loss find limited benefits.

No matter which way you look at it and analyze it, grass-raised beef out-shines grain-raised beef any day of the week.

Already we can see huge dietary differences in these two farming methods and the impacts to our health and wellness… and this does mean that we will want to cook our grass-raised beef in a different way, the ways humans cooked meat before grain-raised meats came into the picture.

The grass-raised beef fat is less and somewhat different and is healthy for us to eat. I think the largest difference I’ve found is that you really don’t want to grill, broil, roast, or cook your grass-raised beef fast as this causes the meat to become tough and dry.

Slow cooking, using a slightly lower temperature, is the way to go! This is why I also enjoy the Slow Food movement, it’s helping us to restore the way food once was handled. prepared and eaten.

If you don’t already have a source for grass-raised beef and other meats I highly recommend US Wellness Meats, they are a favorite of ours!

Grain-fed beef which contains considerably more fat is more forgiving of sloppy cooking and too high temperatures, whereas grass-fed beef needs a little extra attention and care; the same care people have taken in preparing food over the centuries.

How To Cook Grass-Raised Beef  Continue reading “How To Cook Grass-Raised Beef” »

Evelyn Vincent Evelyn Vincent

Native Plant Landscaper, Gardener, Labyrinth Design, Feng Shui Practitioner,  Aromatherapy / Essential Oils, Big Fan of Nature and Living Simply.

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller

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Crockpot Braised Lamb Shanks

01/04/2012 in Cooking, Food, Health, Recipe by Evelyn | No comments

The crockpot is a favorite! Thanks to Diane Sanfilippo at Balanced Bites for posting it!Meat, Lamb Shank Stew

If you don’t have a source for grass-raised lamb (and other meats and poultry) you can get it through my best source, US Wellness Meats; grass-raised meats are far healthier than certified organic!

Ingredients:

  • 2 lbs of lamb shanks (preferably grass-fed for best nutrition and flavor)
  • 1- 32oz can of organic canned marinara sauce*
  • 1 yellow or white onion, roughly chopped
  • 2 large carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
  • 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
  • A few shakes of of Celtic sea salt
  • Black pepper to taste – I used a few grinds over the pot
  • Optional: 1/4 c of liquid from kalamata or green olives

Directions:

Place frozen lamb, tomatoes (spices optionally), onion, carrots, garlic, salt, and pepper into the crock pot on low for 8 hours (overnight or all day).

The dish is done when the meat is falling off of the bone.

Variations:

You may also braise the lamb in a dutch oven pot like this one at around 250 degrees for 6+ hours.

Try this dish with beef instead of lamb!

Yield:

This dish will make anywhere from 2-4 servings depending on how much meat vs bone is in your lamb, who you are feeding, and how much they eat. I’ll probably enjoy it at 3 meals.

*Note: If you can’t find a good pre-seasoned sauce without weird additives or extra sugar, use plain tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes and add 1 tsp each of dried basil and oregano or other seasonings you like.

Other favorite recipes

Wheat Berry and White Bean Salad

Lentils: info and a Lentil Salad Recipe

Butternut Squash Gratin

Evelyn Vincent Evelyn Vincent

Native Plant Landscaper, Gardener, Labyrinth Design, Feng Shui Practitioner,  Aromatherapy / Essential Oils, Big Fan of Nature and Living Simply.

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller

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Grass-raised Beef Recipe: Pot Roast and Baby Vegetables

01/03/2012 in Cooking, Food, Health, Recipe by Evelyn | No comments

Since childhood, pot roast has been one of my favorite meals! To make an outstanding pot roast use grass-raised beef, if you don’t have a source for this high quality meat try my preferred source, US Wellness Meats.Beef Pot Roast

Ingredients:

  • 1 Center Cut Shoulder Roast (grass-raised beef is by far the best!)
  • Seasoned salt & lemon pepper
  • 1 onion, peeled and halved
  • 1 carrot, whole
  • 1 c beef broth
  • 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 2 garlic cloves, whole
  • 1 rosemary sprig
  • 2 thyme sprigs
  • 1 pound new red potatoes
  • 1 cup baby carrots
  • 1 cup boiling or pearl onions
  • 1 cup baby squash
  • 1 cup button mushrooms, stems removed

Directions:

Sprinkle roast with seasoned salt and lemon pepper to taste.

Place onions and carrots in the bottom of a 5 or 6 quart crockery cooker or Crock Pot.

Lay the meat on top of the vegetables.

Pour in the broth and Worcestershire sauce. Season with garlic, rosemary and thyme.

Cover and set dial to low-heat. Allow to gently simmer for 5 to 6 hours.

Remove the cover and add the baby vegetables around the roast. Sprinkle with seasoned salt and continue to cook covered on low-heat for an additional 1 to 1/2 hours.

Substitute about 1 teaspoon dried rosemary and thyme if you don’t have fresh.

More delicious recipes

Yummy Lamb Meat Loaf

Pot Roast with Baby Vegetables

How To Cook Grass-raised Beef

Evelyn Vincent Evelyn Vincent

Native Plant Landscaper, Gardener, Labyrinth Design, Feng Shui Practitioner,  Aromatherapy / Essential Oils, Big Fan of Nature and Living Simply.

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller

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Braised Slow Cooked Beef in Red Wine with Onions and Carrots

11/20/2011 in Cooking, Food, Health, How To, Old Ways, Recipe by Evelyn | No comments

This is one of our all-time FAVORITE slow cooked grass-raised beef recipes! This recipe is a good example of how to slow cook meat too.Grass-raised Beef Roast

It takes only 10-15 minutes to prepare and while it’s cooking for 4-5 hours we can be out doing gardening or other work, how much better does it get than to smell amazing aroma’s coming from the kitchen while you’re outdoors doing yard work or gardening! Not to mention, coming indoors hungry and having this incredible meal ready to eat!

You will need:

  • 1 thick cut of grass-raised Beef (any cut and size is great, however, it must be 2″ or more in thickness though, we prefer grass-fed beef from US Wellness Meats because it’s healthier and better tasting)
  • 1 cup of Red Wine (we like to use Merlot)
  • 1 Onion, diced thickly
  • 6-8 organic Carrots, sliced into pieces about 1/2″ thick (bite-sized)
  • 2 TBSP Coconut Oil
  • 4-5 cloves Garlic, chopped
  • water

Method

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

In a heavy Dutch Oven pot, over medium on your stovetop, melt coconut oil, then place your cut of beef in and allow to cook on each side until dark brown; about 4 minutes or so on each side.

Lift the meat out of the Dutch Oven and put on a plate while you cook the onions in the same pot (do NOT brown your onions!)

Before onions brown, add red wine; allow wine to cook for about 3-4 minutes to evaporate the alcohol.

Put beef back into the Dutch Oven, add carrots and garlic, then add enough water to just barely cover the ingredients.

Put a lid on the Dutch Oven and place in the preheated oven. After 3-4 hours remove the lid and let cook for one more hour (doing this evaporates out some of the water, making a more robustly flavored sauce).

After a total cooking time of 4-5 hours, remove Dutch Oven from oven and left sit for 10-15 minutes before serving (that part is REALLY hard to do!)

Serve with mashed potatoes or noodles.

More of our favorite recipes:

Pot Roast and Baby Vegetables

Yummy Lamb Meat Loaf

Grilled Flat Iron Steak

Thyme Crusted Sablefish

Serving Tip: We like to serve this slow-cooked meal right from the Dutch Oven so the meat never leaves the juices it’s been cooking in; simply allow each person to break off a hunk of beef with a fork (this is so easy to do as the meat is fall-apart-tender!). Then, spoon out some juices with carrots and onions onto meat, potatoes, or noodles.

Leftovers Tip: If you’re fortunate to have a large cut of meat and have leftovers this recipe tastes delicious reheated -or- slicing the meat and making a sandwich! Makes my mouth water just typing this recipe!

Evelyn Vincent Evelyn Vincent

Native Plant Landscaper, Gardener, Labyrinth Design, Feng Shui Practitioner,  Aromatherapy / Essential Oils, Big Fan of Nature and Living Simply.

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller

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Grilled Flat Iron Steak

11/14/2011 in Cooking, Food, Health, Recipe by Evelyn | No comments

Flat Iron SteakWe’ve been buying our meats and raw milk butter from US Wellness Meats for the past several years. We’re totally hooked on the quality of their grassfed meats – grassfed is QUITE different nutritionally than feedlot raised beef. Anyway, one day while I was shopping on their website I saw a cut of steak that I had never seen anywhere before… they called it a “Flat-Iron Steak.” It’s a very affordable alternative and great for grilling. It has great flavor, and is terrific when marinated. I highly recommend this cut. More on How To Cook Grass-raised Beef

Grilled Flat Iron Steak (2 servings)

Ingredients

  • 2 – Flatiron steaks (17 ounces)
  • 2 – tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 – tea spoon chopped rosemary or thyme
  • 1 – tea spoon parsley
  • 2 – garlic cloves
  • ¼ – cup cabernet sauvignon wine
  • ½ – tea spoon dry mustard
  • generous amount fresh ground pepper to taste
  • celtic sea salt to taste

Instructions

Mix all ingredients thoroughly and marinate flatirons for one hour.

Grill over hot coals for a short 4 minutes per side. Prepared at medium rare for maximum tenderness. 
I like my steaks medium to medium well and it’s juicy, tender… YUM!

More of our favorite meat recipes

Bison Tips in Merlot

Yummy Lamb Meat Loaf

Braised Slow Cooked Beef in Red Wine with Onions & Carrots

Evelyn Vincent Evelyn Vincent

Native Plant Landscaper, Gardener, Labyrinth Design, Feng Shui Practitioner,  Aromatherapy / Essential Oils, Big Fan of Nature and Living Simply.

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller

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Bison Tips in Merlot

02/20/2011 in Cooking, Food, Health, How To, Recipe, What Matters Most by Evelyn | No comments

Bison, or any grass-raised animal is vastly different in flavor, nutrient content, and health benefits. When I see or hear how red meat is unhealthy I always say… “yeah, if you’re buying the stuff they call meat in the stores!” The same is true with organic meats, the label does NOT mean that the animal lived its life roaming pastures in the sunshine, it only means it may have done so briefly when it was a very young animal, from there the animal is brought to a feedlot where it is fed a diet of organic corn and soy beans… an extremely un-natural diet for any grazing animal!

Unfortunately, 95% of the bison raised in the US goes to the feedlot for the last 120-180 days of their life during which time they are given corn and soybeans to make them fat. This makes the wrong kind of fat. The desirable Omega 3s are converted to Omega 6s that congest human circulatory and lymph systems.

Grass-raised bison are raised pretty much exactly like bison should be raised! They are free to roam and are rotationally grazed so they move just like a wild bison herd.

Grass-raised bison get a variety of grasses to graze on freely. Native prairies have 50-60 different species of grasses. Of the newer grasses include brome, perennial rye, orchard, fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, and even crab grass. Bison ranchers usually make sure there are at least 10 percent legumes in their herds diets; which are clovers, alfalfa, lespedeza, birdsfoot trefoil, little bluestem, buffalo grass, and others. There are medicinal effects of certain “weeds” which can act as a wormer or even an antibiotic or stomach tonic. This translates into animals that are ingesting foods that their systems were designed to digest and utilize. Unlike corn and soy diets. Continue reading “Bison Tips in Merlot” »

Evelyn Vincent Evelyn Vincent

Native Plant Landscaper, Gardener, Labyrinth Design, Feng Shui Practitioner,  Aromatherapy / Essential Oils, Big Fan of Nature and Living Simply.

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller

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The Trail of Corn; going where no man (or woman) has gone before

02/18/2011 in Cooking, Food, Health, Plants, Things that Suck, What Matters Most by Evelyn | No comments

A feedlot raised cow eating cornWho would have ever thought that ‘corn’ might be the cause of many of our common illnesses and diseases today. This article from US Wellness Meats newsletter by Catherine Ebeling, RN, BSN puts the issue of corn and the foods we eat into perspective. The one most startling fact that Ebeling points out is that… “corn has a peculiar carbon structure which can be traced in everything that consumes it. Compare a hair sample from an American and a Mexican and you’ll discover that the American contains a far larger proportion of corn-type carbon.” This reminds me of the Monsanto ‘tracker gene’ in Genetically Modified seed crops, when cross pollination occurs between farms, via insects or wind, the farm that may have been saving their own seed for generations can become contaminated by the Monsanto seed and the tracker gene can be found in the seed that had been saved for generations (that was NOT genetically modified)… but that’s a topic for a different article; The Skinny About Supermarket Meat and Your Health.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy corn just as much as the next gal. I just don’t believe it’s necessary to have corn in some 45,000 different products in our stores.

The point Ebeling makes is valuable and insightful on the trail that corn has had over the decades. Clearly this makes a great case for why we need factual information available to us so that ‘we’ can make educated choices and not be blinded by the glitz lining store shelves and the convincing billions of dollars a year of marketing has on consumers.

The American Feedlot, by Catherine Ebeling, RN, BSN

America is turning into one big gigantic feedlot… and WE are the cattle.

In the same way that commercially raised cattle are now living on a diet that consists mostly of corn, wheat, and soy products, so too, is the American public.

Like it or not, these industrialized farm products have found their way into our food supply in thousands of insidious ways.

From the myriad of packaged, processed items available at the grocery store, all the way to the commercially raised meats – corn, wheat and soy seem to be on the ingredient list if you look long enough.

Our American diet is not balanced.  It’s heavily weighted with grain, grain-based food products (foods and drinks laced with high fructose corn syrup and other grain-type additives), and grain-fed livestock products.

About a third of your local supermarket’s 45,000 ingredients have corn, wheat or soy products or their derivatives in them. Continue reading “The Trail of Corn; going where no man (or woman) has gone before” »

Evelyn Vincent Evelyn Vincent

Native Plant Landscaper, Gardener, Labyrinth Design, Feng Shui Practitioner,  Aromatherapy / Essential Oils, Big Fan of Nature and Living Simply.

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller

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