Grass Fed vs Grain Fed: The Lines are Blurring

For those of us who believe that animal products are good for you, the inevitable debate comes up. Should I spend the extra money for grass-fed beef? Am I wasting my money on grain-fed because I’m not eating the nutrition I need.

Truth be told, I feed grain-fed beef to my assisted living residents. And we still see great health outcomes. I really try to keep my assisted living homes affordable for our families. Feeding 40 people grass-fed beef every day would be challenging based on the revenue.

Most of the meat we purchase comes from local supermarkets. Probably not the greatest. Still better than the standard American diet. However, we buy the snacks from a farmer in Iowa. He sends us great packages of beef jerky and meat sticks for our residents to gnaw.

We’d buy meat from him but the transportation charges would kill us - especially with refrigerated trucks.

The Iowa farm is called Garrett Land and Cattle (GLC). They’re a family farm that has been passed down through six generations since 1881. The owner Kelly and his wife Amber could not be nicer to me.

Kelly Garrett recently sent samples of his beef to the Utah State University Metabolics lab for analysis. He wanted to see how his grain-fed beef stacked up to the nutrient content of grass-fed beef.

The results were pretty impressive.

“Conclusion: Mike Evans/Kelly Garret’s samples are more nutrient-dense than most grain-fed beef samples and approach or exceed grass-fed beef levels in certain nutrients”.

More specifically:

• Fatty Acids: Omega 6:3 ratios comparable to grass fed beef (2.25 to 3.27 range)

• Vitamins: Higher levels of Vitamins B2 and B3 than both grain AND grass-fed beef. His ‘ancestral blend’ ground beef product (which has 10% beef heart and liver mixed in) had B12 levels better than grain and grass-fed and is comparable to eating beef liver for vitamins

• Antioxidants: Again the ancestral blend was close to grass-fed. And their ribeyes were still better than grain-fed even if they did not match grass-fed.

• Minerals: All blends of the GLC beef exceeded both grain and grass-fed beef in calcium, iron and magnesium. Zinc levels were similar across the grain, grass and GLC beef. The ancestral blend had iron levels on a par with beef liver.

• Macronutrients: Total fat content of the GLC beef resembled grass-fed fat content and far exceeded the standard grain-fed beef.

I’ve attached the full report if you would like to read it. Kelly attributes the great results to feeding his animals high-quality grains and other good food.

It’s interesting to see how grain-fed beef can be as nutritious as grass-fed if you raise your cattle well.

All those measures of nutrients are some of what we test in our assisted living residents who have dementia. Deficiencies can result in a whole host of chronic issues.

If you’re interested in purchasing beef from GLC Beef, I highly recommend it, especially if you live in any neighboring state to Iowa. For a decent-size order they include free shipping.