by Ethan Huff
(Health Secrets) The vast majority of meat sold in grocery stores today hardly resembles meat from fifty years ago and prior. With the emergence of post-WWII industrial agriculture that focused heavily on grain cultivation, American grasslands and pastures were replaced with endless rows of corn and wheat. Subsequently, cows and other pasture animals began being fed high-protein, high-grain diets that fatten them quickly but change the composition of their meat and fat. Thus meat, a once healthy and nutritious food source, has become the primary culprit in dietary-invoked illness and disease among the population due to its dramatically altered nutritional composition.
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Long before the days of commercial grain farming and what is deemed modern agriculture, mankind hunted, foraged, gardened, and lived entirely off the land. Wild animals ate the grasses and plants native to the region, as well as smaller prey animals, and man would then hunt and gather these animals for food.
As burgeoning technology led to advances in farming and animal husbandry, substantial alterations in food-raising methods ensued, leading to a slew of unintended consequences.
Most American cattle used for food today are confined to feedlots for most of their lives. Cesspools of manure and disease, feedlots are where typical commercial cattle are fed grains like corn and soy (almost all of it GMO) to fatten them up before slaughter. In contrast to open, green pastures, feedlots are filthy, unnatural environments that constrain cattle and summon them to misery and disease. The unnatural concentration of large masses of manure often runs off into streams and water supplies, contaminating nearby farms, groves, and even municipal drinking water reservoirs.
The grains used to feed cattle also requires tremendous swaths of land and pasture to be transformed into industrial agriculture factories in order to produce the crops, destroying the natural habitat and ultimately depleting the soil of nutrients. Chemicals and pesticides are used relentlessly in the crop-growing process, contaminating both the ground and the crops. This pesticide contamination is passed on to consumers who eat the meat.
Besides the land alterations, the entire composition of meat is changed when cattle is fed grain rather than grass. Ruminant cattle like cows and sheep possess a special digestive system in which grasses are converted into digestible nutrients. Unlike humans, who are unable to properly assimilate grasses and their nutrients, these animals are able to convert plant cellulose into protein and fats. The result is a meat composition of roughly a 1:1 ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids with omega-3 dominating slightly. Other benefits include high amounts of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), beta carotene, and Vitamins A and E.