Is our protein source safe?
 

I love red meat as long as it is "organic" ,what ever that means, because I worry about the hormones that is given to our red meats because they are stored in fat. I also worry about the heavy metal in our fish supply; mercury etc. Does anyone else have this concern?

Sorry, no. Life is just too short to be overly concerned about our food sources, at least within the confines of our family budget. We do the best we can and don't stress the rest :)

I know grass-fed beef and pastured chicken and pork is best, but I would say the bulk of the meat I eat are not in these categories. I do pay $5 a dozen for pastured chicken eggs from a local Joel Salatin type farmer. We got spoiled by having our own chickens for a few years. There is a sub forum on Organic and Natural eating, you might take a look if you haven't.

Quite a few years ago, my husband and I raised beef (8-10) out in our pature for eating and selling. Grass fed and no hormones but the problem we had was no one except me would eat it, not the kids or hubby. lol. We didn't name the beef but it was too personal for everyone else. I knew that our beef was safe but now I'm reconsidering about raising beef again.I know they pump hormones in beef to make them grow and fatten up.

We get hundreds of toxin exposures a day--the issue is whether or not it overwhelms the rate of disposal. It's not clear to me what or how many illnesses can be pinned on pesticide or mercury, but the toll of refined food is indisputable (e.g. the photos in Weston Price's book).

I think it was Chris Kresser who said the health risks of eating fish are dwarfed several times over by the health risks of not eating fish.

Misitzoom, we raised chickens too for a few years and as above, no one would eat them. I remember when my daughter was 10, she knew it was neck chopping day. She went out early and let all the chickens out of the pen and was shooing them out. We came out to her running around the pen saying, "Run for your lives!!!".

We have 4 acres currently in farmland but would love to try raising our own beef at some point. I will only use grass-fed ground beef at home, but I will sometimes buy other conventional cuts. I actually am more concerned about conventional chicken than beef. I get the free-range/no-antibiotics chicken. I try to check recs for fish - I have an app, can't remember the name right now. I will only buy wild Alaskan salmon, for example, as Atlantic salmon is pretty much guaranteed to be farmed.

Lol, DH did butcher some if ours but they sat in the freezer for a good 2-3 years before we threw them out. He waited way too long to butcher them and they were so old I knew they would be tough. We did eat one a few years ago, and since we had an old-fashioned dual purpose breed it really was nothing like supermarket chicken. Wasn't worth eating to me, unfortunately!

If I could afford only grass fed and grass finished, properly fed meat (which for chickens does NOT mean vegetarian!) and meat-derived products, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I cannot.

I do the best I can, I eat only wild-caught salmon, I avoid farmed fish like tilapia, I eat organic spinach (which doesn't save us from other issues, like the recent e-coli recall), and the rest is what it is. I'm not going to make myself crazy over it, otherwise I wouldn't eat anything.

The hormones they give farm animals are made from proteins. The hormones are broken down into digestible proteins a long time before they even reach the human digestive system. There have been studies on this.

For the heavy metals, it depends on the fish species and how they feed. You don't have to worry about any farmed fish (especially if feeding off corn pellets), but some wild fish you do. There are a list of species that because of their position on the food chain, acquire more heavy metals in their body. The fish that feed off of creatures that feed on the bottom, are the ones that contain the highest amount of heavy metals in their bodies.

I guess we have to die of something anyways... :p

I do what I can based on what's available in our stores.
What I can get hormone-free, antibiotic-free:
-chicken, eggs, venison and fish from hunting and fishing, and we can get local shellfish, and once a year we can stock up on alaskan salmon and halibut from our friend's annual fishing trip
-there's a great farmer's market. The owner grows a lot of his wares and is very good about revealing the sources for the shipped-in products.
-wild pig and also we get sausage and domestic pig from friends who raise them.
-game birds from hunting

Sadly, I do not have a local source for beef, and it is hard to find store-bought fish that's good.

We raised chicken & guinea fowl. We did feed them commercial feeds but never with any of hormones. We let them out to range each day... to eat yard bugs & ticks. They were tough but were ok if stewed well.
We took them to a butcher in the city... one time one of our roosters got away & flew out the door & was gone. So there might just be a rooster in Providence, formerly belonged to me.

The way to keep the children out of the freezer goodies is to put said goodies behind the chickens! We did not name them. Farm animals did not get named. If they were named they were safe.

DD named a chick, kept in her room... drove her nuts with the noise at night... lost into the flock when it went to the barn.

Conventionally raised cattle receive steroid hormones such as estrogen to promote growth, see Steroid Hormone Implants Used for Growth in Food-Producing Animals. I was an Animal Science major in college and grad school and I participated in giving cattle these implants. Steroid hormones are NOT broken down by our digestive system and these excess hormones are considered to be one of the possible causes of precocious puberty in today's young girls, among other things. Naturally raised meat does have naturally occurring hormones in it as well - just at lower levels than in animals that received implants. Naturally-raised steers (male beef cattle that have been castrated) without implants have the lowest level of hormones since they have fewer hormone-producing organs than cows or bulls. Unless you are buying a specific animal, however, it would be hard to know if you are eating a steer, cow/heifer, or bull.

I worry more about the exposure of almost all our food to plastic at some point in the cycle from source to us. The plastic migrates into the food and acts as an endocrine mimic, terrible! now thought to be one of the biggest causes of obesity and diabetes.

I buy most of my meat/dairy, eggs from organic, grass fed sources. There are still problems with the food in my opinion. For example the free range, organic eggs are fed soy and that does impact their eggs.

One great source of red meat is New Zealand lamb. It is grass fed and they do not use hormones. Check it out!

Dairy cattle are never fed these hormones... because there's no benifit of doing so. My uncle owns the family dairy farm & we see ads from some big dairy companies acting like they are the only ones who do this. Totally misrepresentative.

Glad you addressed this~you are 100% correct. Luckily I am single and I can cut back in some areas so I can try to buy as much naturally raised beef, chicken that is not fed antiobiotics, wild fish, ect.
Yes, we do all die from something, HOWEVER, it should not be the food that we feed our families. Why is cancer and different diseases at an all time high? Factory farmed meat is an industry where the bottom line is the money that these companies bring in~I honestly don't think they care one bit about the quality of meat-as long as it meets the governments standards. Who knows what chemicals, antibiotics, steroids are fed to the animal to make it "meet the standard".
And just to point out, this is not ALL meat, you are just taking a gamble when you buy meat from your average grocery store.
I think if more people knew what REALLY happens in the factory farmed meat industy, it would bring a level of awareness, and these companies would have to go about it in a different way. I find it so disheartening that there is such a price difference in naturally raised meat~

If I worried about everything that is bad about different foods I would starve to death...

For me, it's not an issue of worrying about it, but being aware of the choices I make when I spend my food dollars. I don't always make choices that are the best for my health, the environment, or the humane treatment of the animals I eat. But I do try to be aware of the implications when I make choices to eat certain foods.

Those older tough chickens would have made excellent broth. When I was younger and we raised chickens when the rooster needed to be replaced because of age he was butchered and boiled up to make dumplings, best dumplings ever, but of course conventional dumplings aren't allowed now.

I wish we could be more certain about what is in the meat products we eat but unless you can raise and feed everything yourself it's just something you can't worry about. Raising your own meat is ideal but not practical for the majority of consumers plus it is expensive.

I have a steer in my field that we raised on bottle last year and have been feeding all winter. We've already got a lot of time and money invested in him plus when it comes time to butcher him we have to pay the processing fee which is based on hanging weight plus additional if the processor dispatches him. Yes, he has a name but he is not a pet and will go in the freezer this spring and will be mighty tasty on the grill this summer. His name is Smoke by the way, pretty appropriate don't you think, LOL.


Another thing, a few years ago I was reading one of Kevin Trudeau's books and he was listing what we needed to do to eliminate chemicals and poisons from our food and environment and as I read along I was thinking I could do it but then came the subject of jet fuel and the levels of jet fuel found in breast milk. This stuff is everywhere and there no getting away from it unless you live in an area where there is no air traffic. At that point I said forget it and sent the book to Goodwill.

I do have concerns, but then I quickly put my head back in the sand. I buy the best food that my budget will allow. I try to lessen the chemical load at home. No dryer sheets, fragrances, clean with vinegar, etc. I do watch the plastics also.

I think that we all sort of pick and choose. I still color my hair, use nail color and polish remover and drink water from the tap.:eek:

I know, I still feel guilty I didn't make them into bone broth. I intended to many times and never did. We finally had to make room in the freezer for other stuff and I had to give up on the dream.

Unfortunately I can't afford to eat organic right now, the cost of living where I live is high enough. I especially regret it not for my health but for the treatment of the animals - I feel very guilty. I hope I'll be able to do things differently in the future but for now the situation is what it is.

I'm fortunate to live in an area where there is a great local food system. I buy locally raised pastured meats, eggs and dairy products, both because of human health issues and because of animal cruelty issues. Another major reason for me is the environmental impact of CAFOs. It's more expensive (although not wildly so IMO) but I save in other areas. For me the expense equation is similar to that of eating low carb versus a cheap diet with lots of bread and potatoes. My health and my world are worth it.

I am selective about the type of fish I eat and where they were caught or raised, depending on what works best for each species. I mostly buy organic on produce that is at higher risk of high pesticide residue, but don't sweat it on the others. I also buy as much produce as possible locally grown, from farmers who will actually tell me (show me in many cases) how they raise their veg and how they control pests.

IMO, the work to research and the small amount of trouble to make time to get to the farmer's market each Saturday AM is well worth it, as is the extra $$. I easily save that back with VERY rarely eating out, and being frugal in many other areas.

Added: Another HUGE savings is that I buy virtually NOTHING that is processed beyond the very basics such as butter or kimchi. And I buy things that can last or be frozen like tea or nuts in bulk. There are many ways to cut food costs that will allow putting the $$ where they count.

I'm also very fortunate that the 2 places I've lived for the last 15 years both have year round farmers markets - one in upstate SC, one in Northern VA, both in moderate sized towns. I didn't get to this point on my food choices overnight. It's been a slow and gradual progress, and there are things I still hope and plan to change and improve. One area I'm working on currently is using more of the inexpensive cuts - making bone broth (man that stuff is great!) and relearning to love liver and onions.

DH and I have spent some time this year dialing in more organic and pastured food sources. We are paying a LOT of money for this, but we feel it's worth it. We, too, are fortunate to live in an agricultural area within driving distance to the farms where the animals are raised. We recently found a farm that literally pastures its chickens along with the sheep, cows, and goats.

The eggs are amazing, but we are paying $7 to $8 per dozen. The meat is more challenging because it's very lean, and you have to cook it carefully so that you don't end up with a dry, tough piece of meat. Fortunately, DH's employer owns an organic farm, so we get our veggies (and some grass fed meat) at a discount.

Our weekly grocery list at TJ's and conventional grocery stores is getting shorter--very little processed food crosses our threshold except a few things our kids still ask for.

We're not perfect, but we're really trying to reduce the toxins in our food and environment as much as we can. I long ago switched to toxic free cleaning products because the fragrances in conventional stuff was killing my asthma. And I'm slowly getting our kitchen converted over to mostly glass storage, getting rid of as much plastic as we can.

I think there's definite cause for concern with conventional agriculture and we each just have to do what we can within our budgets.

Yes, this study I was referring to discussed all that. The food standards have changed and now the hormones used are much better. They are just pieces of proteins by the time they reach the human digestive system, so no need to be afraid of eating farmed meat anymore. The studies are legit, not just misquoted for the purpose of manipulating the public. Having said that though, organic maybe better so if you can afford to buy it I would. But people that don't have that option, don't need to be afraid of eating regular beef.

I don't want to be rude, but steroids are not proteins, peptides, or amino acids. Steroid hormones are biochemically derived from the cholesterol molecule. They are in no way, shape or form similar to proteins. They are not broken down in our digestive system. They may be inactivated in our bloodstream, depending on the exact steroid, but they are not broken down into proteins. It is not possible biochemically.

I can't wait until I am able to have my own chickens, for meat and eggs. I do believe we need to be eating grass fed beef and grain fed chickens and free range eggs, it's important for me and my family BUT we just do not have the money to buy these things from the fancy organic stores.

I am planning on cutting back my red meat consumption drastically and indulging in high quality grass fed beef once in awhile. Quality over quantity.

This is a serious lifetime goal of mine. I have worked on farms my whole life and I would love to have a small farm with fresh veggies, chickens for eggs, and a couple of dairy cattle for ice cream (ha ha). I don't think I am into butchering the animals I take care of, that is too much of a stretch for me, but I am fine with the idea of buying free range animals that have already been butchered. I absolutely cannot afford it now, but hopefully at some point in the near future!