What’s the beef?

Most of the beef you see on the supermarket shelves comes from cows that have at some point been fed grain, corn or soy.  Cows are ruminants, which means that their digestive systems are designed for grass and feeding them corn or grain is detrimental not only to their health, but ours as well. Antibiotics are used to combat the illnesses that inflict these cows and hormones are used to increase their growth to get them to the slaughter houses and onto our plates in as little time as possible, for as little money as possible.

So how does that affect us? Well, Kurt G Harris can explain it much better than I can at his paleo nutrition blog but essentially, grass fed beef gives a balanced omega-3 to omega-6 ratio, and grain fed beef gives way too much omega-6. But what's so bad about omega-6? Aren't they all essential?

Here is a quote from an article at The Healthy Skeptic:

The more omega-3 fat you eat, the less omega-6 will be available to the tissues to produce inflammation. Omega-6 is pro-inflammatory, while omega-3 is neutral. A diet with a lot of omega-6 and not much omega-3 will increase inflammation. A diet of a lot of omega-3 and not much omega-6 will reduce inflammation.

From ‘How too much omega-6 and not enough omega-3 is making us sick’

Inflammatory diseases include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity, IBS, asthma and arthritis (and many, many more), and are examples of the diseases of civilisation which just so happened to come about after the introduction of grains and highly processed vegetable oils into our diets.

To combat this unhealthy balance of 6s and 3s, I take a cod liver oil supplement, not every day, but particularly when I feel that my 6s will be up (for example when eating out). But I would prefer not to take supplements and get my nutrients from the food that I eat which is why I'd like to eat meat that comes from healthy happy animals that have spent their lives eating their natural diet. I’ve been considering getting a monthly meat box delivered to my house and I have found several companies that look after their animals well. Here are my picks:

The Well Hung Meat Company

Not only do they have an awesome name, but their website it beautiful and easy to navigate which is always much appreciated (when it comes to creating a website, there is NO excuse for shoddiness, imho). They have won award after award for their meat and they pride themselves on being “the best online butcher”.

Their ethos is one which I am completely on board with:

"We sell only organic meat from farms where we know they do things right. Our animals live outside, eating grass – this is hugely important for us. As fas as we’re concerned the quality of an animal's life has a direct effect upon the quality of the meat they give us. Ours enjoy the fresh air and fodder of some of the best pastureland in Britain. So they’re happier, their meat is sweeter, and the environment benefits too."

The Well Thrifty Box is the product that I am drawn to the most as it contains a good selection of cuts including offal and stock bones! It costs £55 plus £8 for delivery which I think is reasonable for the following items:

Whole Chicken (1.2kg)
Half Shoulder of Lamb (800g)
Beef Chuck Steak (300g)
Pork Belly Slices (300g)
Pork Sausages (350g)
Streaky Bacon (150g)
Lamb Mince (400g)
Beef Stock Bones (800g)
Liver (300g)

An alternative for me would be the Small Monthly Meat Box which costs only £4 more than the Thrifty Box. I would of course have to buy extra bacon, and the beef stock bones are only £2, but here are the contents:

1 Small Joint or Chicken (1kg average weight)
1pk Chops (400g)
2pks Seasonal Cuts (400g per pack)
2pks Charcuterie (50g per pack)
1pk Beef Mince (400g)
1pk Sausages (350g)
1pk Chicken Pieces (375g)

Laverstoke Park Farm

When I first started searching for grass-fed meat online last year, I came across Laverstoke Park Farm which was a small independent online butcher that specialises in buffalo meat and buffalo dairy products. I am very pleased to see that this company has flourished over the past year or so and their products are now being sold in Waitrose and Sainsbury’s supermarkets so we can all have easy access to their wonderful buffalo products.

Unlike the Well Hung Company who use trusted farms for their meat, all of the meat from Laverstoke Park comes from its own 2500 acre farm in Hampshire and 130 acres of fields in Lymington.

They have a laboratory! They analyse soil and food to provide the agricultural community with reliable data so that they can make better decisions on management practices.

They have similar philosophies to The Weston A Price Foundation (who they are affiliated with) and The Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation and they believe (as do I) that human health depends on the food that the animals eat.

Healthy Soil = Healthy Grass = Healthy Animals = Healthy Meat & Milk = Healthy People!

There are several boxes that have caught my attention. The Laverstoke Taster Box at £46.99 contains rib eye steaks,  pork chops, lamb cutlets, bacon, buffalo sausages, buffalo burgers and buffalo mozzarella.  This is a good selection, and probably enough for about 15 meals for me which would be enough for about 10 days. The downside is that there is no chicken (which I can make stock out of) and no mince. However, I think it would be good to try as a one off.

The Family Selection Box costs £49.99 and contains 4.8kg of food that would probably be more suited to my everyday needs with the following items:

*Organic Whole Chicken
*Organic Beef Mince 0.5kg
*Organic Pork and Leek Sausages x 6
*Organic Beef Rump Steak x 2
*Organic Pork Loin Chops x 2
*Naturally-reared Buffalo Burgers x 5
*Buffalo Mozzarella 125g x 1

They claim that this box will make up to 20 meals, which would last me just over one week, maybe two. The downside to this box is that there is no bacon!

Although I absolutely adore Laverstoke Park Farm, I have not yet ordered from them because I have been put off by the fact that they advertise their meat boxes as weekly, and I’m just not in a position to spend £40 or £50 on meat every week. Also, I have found that their meat boxes are sometimes lacking and I would inevitably spend £10-15 more on additional items to suit my needs

My ideal meat box would contain the following: a beef cut, a lamb cut, a pork cut, a whole chicken or roasting joint, lamb or beef mince, bacon and some offal, and the Well Hung Company’s Thrifty Box is the closest match that I can find, and I think that with its inclusion of beef stock bones and the chicken carcass, I will be able to stretch the meals a lot further by making some broths.