Holistic Nutrition Bytes--San Francisco Nutrition Consultation » factory farming

To Veg or Not to Veg?

admin — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 05:32:37 +0000

When I was 15, I attended an animal rights workshop. There, I saw for the first time the deplorable and unsanitary conditions associated with factory farming. The mistreatment and blatant abuse. It was inhumane. A lifelong animal lover, I was appalled and vowed never to eat meat again.

And so it was, for the next 13 years. After a bout with anemia, I did reintroduce fish (as if that’s particularly high in iron). I carefully researched how to craft the perfect veggie diet. For the most part, I felt fine. I didn’t crave meat. But I did overdose on soy products, as is common with vegetarians and vegans, and experienced hormonal problems. But when I cut back, I just wasn’t getting enough protein for my physiology. I felt tired and developed some nutritional deficiencies.

So I started eating chicken again. And slowly, some beef here and there. Always organic and sustainable, and usually purchased from local farms. I felt horribly guilty at first, but I also felt…. good.

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that vegetarianism is healthier, that vegetarians experience increased longevity, and that eating meat causes cancer. There is no proof that a healthy vegetarian diet when compared to a healthy omnivorous diet will result in a longer life. And typically, people who choose a vegetarian lifestyle also choose to live a healthier lifestyle.

There is little data to support the idea outright that meat-eating causes cancer or heart disease. However, eating processed meat has been linked to higher rates of colon cancer. Here in America, we have very high rates of heart disease and cancer and these diseases are most certainly linked to diet, mainly because we subsist on trans-fatty acids, boxed foods, and too much processed or factory farmed meats. This meat has an altered and unnatural fatty acid composition over the grass fed meat we are designed to consume, contributing to a higher level of the inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids. Inflammation leads to disease. The French have one of the highest per capita consumption of meat, yet they have low rates of heart disease. In Greece, meat consumption is higher than average but rates of heart disease are low there as well.

Protein is the building block of health. In this country, most of us consume way too much protein, and we’re consuming too may calories overall. We eat like marathon runners and sit on the couch. We have diseases of excess. We need on average about half of our body weight IN GRAMS in protein per day. So, if you weigh 140, you need about 70 grams. And yes, it is possible to get a complete plant protein. This means you are getting all the essential amino acids that are key factors for health, needed to build and repair tissue, and are necessary for brain chemistry and overall metabolic function. But vegetarian protein sources (quinoa, legumes, nuts) do not contain B12, critical for energy and heart health, and nutritional factors like coenzyme Q10, carnitine, and alpha-lipoic acid are only found in animal foods.

Typically, vegetarians survive on soy products. Non-fermented soybeans and foods made with them are high in phytic acid, an anti-nutrient that binds to minerals in the digestive tract and carries them out of the body. Mineral deficiencies are common in vegetarians, zinc especially. Zinc is a critical antioxidant for the immune system. Also, most soy products today are processed, delivering chemicals like soy protein isolate or hydrolyzed soy protein that can cause major health issues. Fermented soy — miso and natto and tempeh — is healthy in moderation.

In keeping with my belief that we should eat according to our ethnicity, here in North America, we evolved on a hunter-gatherer Paleolithic diet of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and meat such as mammoth, sloth, bison, mountain sheep, antelope, beaver, elk, mule deer, and llama. Our stomach’s production of hydrochloric acid is something not found in herbivores – we need it to break down meat. This is one of the many physiological factors pointing to the fact that we are designed for meat consumption.

Here’s the thing. We are all biochemically different. Your nutritional needs are different from mine, and our dietary needs change over time. Some of us require more protein, and some may thrive on a carb-heavy diet comprised mostly of fruits, veggies, and grains. You may thrive on a vegetarian diet. But when vegetarians show up in my clinic with hormonal issues and deficiencies, or if they have health issues that call for a building diet, I supply facts about why introducing some animal protein can be beneficial.

I believe that we thrive on a plant-based diet, with meat as more of a side dish. 50 -60 percent of your plate should be leafy greens and optional starchy veggies/beans with a little fat and a little meat. Those recovering from surgery or illness may require more, or less. Our ancestors probably did not eat meat every meal or even every day. The current Standard American Diet is too high in protein, unhealthy fats, and sugars.

Eat meat heathfully and sustainably. Support local farms. Look for meat CSAs (community supported agriculture) in your area. ALWAYS eat organic, grass fed, hormone-free meat. Buy from the farmers’ market. Eat more fish. Take a vegetarian day every once in a while. Do a vegetable and fruit-based cleanse a couple times a year. In the end, it’s a personal decision, but meat isn’t the enemy – when it’s done right.

Raw Milk

admin — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:39:53 +0000

From models with mustaches to promises that drinking four glasses a day will make you slim, milk has been literally crammed down our throats since birth. And just what is it with this white elixir that supposedly builds lean muscle mass and apparently turns you into a rock star?

got milk? and groupies?

Milk is the ultimate comfort food, associated with nourishment, the first food that sustains us and kicks our immune system into gear with colostrum (proteins, immunoglobulins (antibodies), growth factors and anti-microbial agents passed from mother to child, a reason why breast feeding is so vitally important). But yuck, I hate the stuff. Always have. We were forced to drink milk in elementary school and I had to hold my nose to choke the stuff down.

But milk on the (legal) market isn’t the stuff that comes out of the cow: it’s been pasteurized, homogenized, and skimmed of fats leaving, well, an adulterated dead food. Pasteurization kills whatever bacteria might taint the milk, along with beneficial enzymes to help the body digest the milk. Skimming away the fat leaves a diluted product (not a whole food anymore); fat is what helps the body absorb fat-soluble nutrients A and the all-important D from the milk.

SO. If you like milk, I make a plea to try raw milk, which is unfortunately mostly illegal. You can buy it directly from the farmer, and then you can check out the conditions under which the cows are raised. Because, you know, it’s the dirty factory farms where the cows are crammed together and forced to eat grain (not their natural diets) where the most cases of e coli and other pathogens thrive and taint meats and dairy. Grass-fed milk has natural antibiotic properties that help protect it from pathogenic bacteria. Aside from what the cow is fed, how and where it’s raised and how the milk is collected play important roles in its safety and quality. Cows pastured on organic green grass produce milk with amazing health benefits. Only eight states allow raw milk to be sold in stores for human consumption — Arizona, California, Connecticut, Maine, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, New Mexico and Washington. In other states, milk can be purchased “underground” (illegally). Why should the government tell me what I can eat?

The debate is really heating up: Food safety experts, now solidly backed by the FDA and CDC, argue that raw milk should not be consumed because there is a high risk of contamination with a number of pathogens. But the truth is, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that, on average, there are 70 CASES of raw dairy food poisoning in the U.S. each year, a small fraction of the estimated 76 million annual cases of food-borne illnesses. This is a very low number, MUCH less than are actually sickened from pasteurized milk!

Raw milk is high in vitamins A and D, minerals like calcium, proteins like lactoferrin that help the body absorb and utilize iron, and enzymes. Even better, add cultures and ferment for kefir or yogurt, high in immune-boosting and digestion-enhancing probiotics. Or, buy raw cream and let sour at room temperature, covered with cheese cloth, to make your own sour cream.

Interestingly, those who are lactose intolerant may be able to enjoy raw milk because the enzymes that help the body digest the milk sugars have not been killed during pasteurization. When factory farming became a huge corporate agri-business, the need to irradiate meat and pasteurize dairy arose to offset the deplorable and dirty conditions on factory farms. Great! I’m eating shit-contaminated meat, but if it’s irradiated, the e coli in the shit I’m eating won’t kill me.

Recommended reading: The Revolution Will not be Microwaved, by Sandor Katz

The Cornification of America

admin — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:25:55 +0000

I recently watched King Corn, a documentary film by Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, 2 best friends who move to Iowa, the heartland of America, to find out where their food comes from and how it’s made. After having their hair analyzed and discovering that they are made predominantly of corn, they decide to move to the midwest and grow an acre of corn, immersing themselves in the farming and food production lifestyle.

This film is disturbing for many reasons. First off, the government subsidizes big crops like corn and soy, paying farmers something like $30 an acre to produce them. These “foods” (not really foods once they make their ways into our food supply) are then processed and used as filler, sweetner, oil, and feed for animals that are not designed to eat it. Therefore, when corn is used in feedlots on factory farms, the animals are sickened and bloated and must be fed antibiotics to counteract the effects of a food they are not meant to ingest.

Why? Money. And demand. Corn is cheap: cheap to buy, cheap to produce, thousands of acres are subsidized as an incentive, and corn makes a fat cow, and here in America we like fatty, cheap meat and cheap snacks and junk food and fast food. Food is Big Business, and corporations are profiting from our expanding waistlines. Pharmaceutical companies are profiting from all the drugs we’re taking because we have poor diets and lifestyles. Also, processed foods and candy made with corn syrup are cheap and, well, sweet. We have a 150lb/year sugar habit and what better way to get a fix than from a soda? Or a hostess cupcake.

So, our filmmakers interview a lot of folks along the way – Walter Willett, Michael Pollan – and discover at one point that everything in their McDonald’s meal came from corn: the fries were fried in corn oil; the meat was corn-fed; the soda has high fructose corn syrup, as does the bun. Corn is in everything. Take the corn-free challenge and try to eat corn-free for a day. A week. It’s likely that your chicken was fed corn; there’s corn in your cereal, beverages, snacks, vegetable oils, etc.

Why is this bad? Well, for starters, aside from the factory farming/antibiotics aspect, corn fed meat is higher in saturated fat and has fewer beneficial fatty acids than grass fed beef. All of these foods made with corn are PROCESSED with artificial ingredients, and they aren’t whole foods, since the corn has been stripped of its parts and adulterated; chemicals have been added. Corn syrup is one of the most harmful substances we ingest and contributes directly to diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, etc. And the more you consume something, especially in an adulterated, processed form, the more likely you are to develop food allergies, causing inflammation and an undesirable immune response. A lot of the corn crop is now genetically modified – and not labeled as such – and we don’t really know yet what the outcome of what consuming GM foods will be.

The other sad part of all of this is that small, organic family farms are being edged out while industrial farming is getting $$ from the government. Big is always better in the eyes of the government, who has turned food processing and production into a profit machine. Just ask Monsanto.

Folks, support local agriculture and buy organic food from farmers’ markets. Participate in community sponsored agriculture and get fresh veggies and in some cases, meat that has been humanely raised and slaughtered, delivered directly to your door. Veggies were probably picked the day before, better than the 2 weeks or more that some produce sits on shelves before you take it home.

Recommended reading: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
Food Politics by Marion Nestle