Pastured animals are raised on grass, outside, eating natural forage. If it’s a chicken, there’s bugs, grass and more. If it’s a cow, there’s a variety of grasses, weeds and other forage.
Any animal that eats the diet it was designed to eat (that includes Humans!) will be naturally healthier than one eating a diet designed by scientists and factories.
Sick animals get that way because of what they are fed and how they are housed. Corn and soybeans are NOT the diet of a cow, sheep or goat!
Healthy animals have higher ratios of CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), a highly beneficial and rare form of fat not found in most foods. Grass-fed animals also tend to be leaner, and the fats they do have are not the dangerous kinds that cause ill health to humans.
Surprisingly, animals raised naturally on grasses can help eliminate the catastrophic impact of commercial feedlots. It takes less petroleum and less chemicals to feed an animal roaming loose than to fertilize and grow corn, process it, ship it, and concentrate it in one area. There are no wastes to deal with, and no negotiating with Monsanto for the rights to grow your crops.
When animals are raised synergistically, things get better. Thus, the pigs are fed the leftover whey from the milk cows, the chickens follow the cows from pasture to pasture and dine on fresh bugs, and the animals make fertilizer for the grasses and crops.
All in all, a win for everyone.
I buy most of my meat and chicken from PaiDom Ranch near Lubbock. Owner Alan Birkenfeld will be my guest on 1/04/12 on my first radio show and he’ll tell us more about the ranching process. Listen in and get his special first-time-order offer!
By the way, PaiDom’s meats are less expensive than any other source of pastured beef, lamb, chicken, pork and goat than I have found. Check out his huge product list at www.paidom.com.
If you want some great reading on farming and ranching in a natural way, any book by Joel Salatin will be a treat. He’s smart, funny, educated, and a man on a mission.
