Author Topic: Pastured pork  (Read 5357 times)

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Offline svrn

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Pastured pork
« on: December 17, 2012, 05:29:12 am »
is pastured pork good enough to eat? Does it mean that it was raised on grass and whatever was around without grain or just that it was outdoors
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Offline cherimoya_kid

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Re: Pastured pork
« Reply #1 on: December 17, 2012, 12:30:25 pm »
Dude, unless you've been to the farm, don't eat it.  That's pretty much my rule, when it comes to pork and chicken.

Offline svrn

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Re: Pastured pork
« Reply #2 on: December 17, 2012, 01:01:25 pm »
i havent been to the farm but I know these peoples operation is top notch. everything i get from them is the most pure tasting iv ever had and I  completely trust my instinct with that. My main concern would be if the grains were cookedd. Do you guys think that any grain would be bad?
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Offline eveheart

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Re: Pastured pork
« Reply #3 on: December 17, 2012, 01:26:24 pm »
If you know the people who run the farm, try asking them about the particulars of what they feed their stock. I've found that a clean operation is always glad to brag. Remember that pigs are not ruminants like cattle, so "grass-fed" is not what you are looking for.
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Offline TylerDurden

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Re: Pastured pork
« Reply #4 on: December 17, 2012, 04:05:34 pm »
Actually, I've found that it's the really unhealthy farms which are really proud of feeding their animals on unnatural 100% grains- or 100% vegetables etc. diets.
"During the last campaign I knew what was happening. You know, they mocked me for my foreign policy and they laughed at my monetary policy. No more. No more.
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Offline svrn

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Re: Pastured pork
« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2012, 12:24:33 pm »
they say its mostly forage with a bit of ground raw corn. is that cool?
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Offline eveheart

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Re: Pastured pork
« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2012, 01:19:36 pm »
From Wikipedia: "Pigs are omnivores, which means that they consume both plants and animals. In the wild, they are foraging animals, primarily eating leaves, grasses, roots, fruits and flowers."

Also, "a bit of ground raw corn" doesn't sound right. Unless you typed it wrong, pigs are fed a mash of soaked corn kernels, not ground corn. I wouldn't make a distinction between raw or cooked corn - either way, I wouldn't eat the animal. Corn is fed to make livestock gain unnatural weight, and farmers are paid by the pound.
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Offline svrn

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Re: Pastured pork
« Reply #7 on: December 21, 2012, 10:44:43 pm »
im gonna give it a try since i already eat eggs that are given a bit of grain and they make me feel great regardless. And I wouldnt eat any animal that ate any cooked food.
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Offline Suoaei

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Re: Pastured pork
« Reply #8 on: December 29, 2012, 03:12:31 am »
Animals that are fed nothing but corn are unhealthy. You would be, too, if you ate nothing but corn. But personally, I don't see anything wrong with grain as a supplement to a foraging diet. Grass-fed cows, for example, aren't actually fed only on grass--they also eat a certain portion of hay and grain, as part of their 'natural' seasonal cycles. Sometimes when a milk cow over-pastures on fresh grass, it actually gives the milk an unpleasant sour taste which is quite unique.

Also, none of the animals we are talking about are actually wild animals with a natural diet. They have been bred to produce more meat, and therefore they depend on humans to provide them with more high-energy food than they would find naturally.

One thing to be wary of is whether the grain they use as a supplement is organic--because if it isn't, then it was probably genetically modified, and you have to decide if you are willing to eat an animal that was fed on GMO grains.

Offline TylerDurden

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Re: Pastured pork
« Reply #9 on: December 29, 2012, 03:41:53 am »
Cattle can be fed 100% on grass and hay with no grains. Even small amounts of grains can foul up the nutrient status of beef, according to eatwild.com
"During the last campaign I knew what was happening. You know, they mocked me for my foreign policy and they laughed at my monetary policy. No more. No more.
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Offline cherimoya_kid

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Re: Pastured pork
« Reply #10 on: December 29, 2012, 03:32:17 pm »
Cattle can be fed 100% on grass and hay with no grains. Even small amounts of grains can foul up the nutrient status of beef, according to eatwild.com

I've heard that Jersey cows, bred specifically for milking, have to have at least some grain in their diet, because their milk production is so ridiculously high that grass and hay alone can't provide enough protein and calories.  I believe the breed is Jersey, it's one of the milking breeds, anyway.

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Re: Pastured pork
« Reply #11 on: December 30, 2012, 01:12:45 am »
What most people don't understand about grassfed farming is it's not just a matter of getting the cows out on grass and making sure they have all the green grass they could eat. It's a matter of having healthy, lush, nourished pastures with dozens of varieties of grasses and legumes such as clover, alfalfa, vetch and so on. I always hear people talk about how modern cows can't be raised on 100% pasture, this is patently false. Usually the people making these claims are either conventional farmers who know cows well, but they only know them under the disgusting, imbalanced CAFO system, NOT artisinal pasture grazing. OR, it's people who have never farmed before and only have a limited working knowledge of the theory, IOW they're not relying on first hand experience.

It doesn't matter how overbred the cow is, if the calf is raised on her mother's milk and then moved directly on to pasture, and that pasture is varied, lush and high brix, then that calf, whether a jersey or a holstein, will be the best possible specimen it can be, it will reach it's genetic potential and you'll see an extremely hardy, nutrient dense, and healthy cow living all on grass.

The case is different for animals raised for a significant portion of their life on grains, supplemented or otherwise. These animals can be very difficult to convert back to grass. I personally feel it can be done, but only if the pasture you're moving them to is AAA quality (nourishing, nutrient dense, high brix, high moisture) and you wean them off the grains slooooowly.

This is based on my last 3 years raising cattle on 100% grass (and poor pasture at that). The cows that had been fed grain supplements for the first few years of their lives at the 'Organic Valley' farm we bought them from(6lbs corn, oats, wheat mix, per day, the  rest hay) did well the first year, but then the poor pasture caught up with them and they began to experience some health issues. After I realized the reason for these health issues, I took great pains to take the cows on walks in certain places or through the forest so they could choose the best forage for themselves...and believe me, they have preferences!!

However, all of these cows' offspring thrive on our poor pasture alone and have not had one single health issue to date from any offspring we've had. I would like to see a conventional farm try that (without resorting to drugs, which is a fail by itself), it doesn't exist.

Also I don't have the reference right now unfortunately but, raising cows for their maximum nutrient density on grass is one of those things that requires times and there's not much one can do about that. If you were to go to a CAFO, buy a grain supplemented cow and convert that cow to really lush pasture, it would take about a year (according to the studies I've read in the past and this makes sense to me) to reverse the damage (in terms of the skewed, inflammatory fat profile..and by proxy everything else that would be harmed by high levels of carbs and low levels of biomass and real nutrition to where you could call the animal 100% grassfed. In otherwords, if that animal has been eating grass only for even 6 months, it still won't have the nutrient density it would if it had always been on grass.

Unfortunately it works against us the other direction as well, if you took a 2 year old cow, that had been on mother's milk and pasture it's whole life, and then started supplementing with grain, it would only take about three months for all of those starches, many 1000's of % more than what would be natural in the animals diets (plus it's almost empty calories, more like energy, not nutrition), to skew the nutrient profile from anti inflammatory back to inflammatory (omega 6, and all the other problems that accompany grain feeding).

Of course it's a personal choice how much grain you tolerate in your food, but given that the prolamines from these grains seem to wind up in the meat and milk, probably best to avoid as much as possible. You know what I'm talking about if you're hypersensitive and you can't  tolerate any grains at all, you aren't able to eat CAFO meat (at least not healthfully and I believe that is about 100% of reports that I've heard).

I was able to find that chart, and it reads slightly differently than the figure I pointed to initially, 3 months to deplete the vast majority of the omega-3's and increase the level of Omega-6. The fat ratios are just a marker though, damage is being done throughout the animal and you are going to have less of everything good, and more of everything bad, in very broad terms.

The link for said chart...

http://chriskresser.com/9-steps-to-perfect-health-3-eat-real-food

Also this applies to all farm animals, even if grains/seeds are a natural part of their diets as in chickens and pigs. They should only be eating small amounts of that stuff, the rest of their diet should come from fresh vegetation, roots, bugs, small animals and even meat if it's clean meat (of course why wouldn't you just eat it? The answer is, squiggly bits that you might not normally use, make good nourishment for pigs/chickens. This includes rotting (high) meat.
« Last Edit: December 30, 2012, 04:49:22 pm by TylerDurden »

Offline cherimoya_kid

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Re: Pastured pork
« Reply #12 on: December 30, 2012, 12:00:48 pm »
Good post, Thoth.  It sounds like you know your cattle farming.

I think you're the only other person on the forum who knows anything about Brix, besides me.

 

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