What does it mean to have a healthy diet?

With all the conflicting information and research it's hard to know

Personal disclaimer The following expresses my own personal opinion of what constitutes a healthy diet. It represents my views only, (which have been formulated by many facts, experiences, and anecdotes), and does in no way constitute any kind of scientific treatise.

To read about the scientific research regarding the health benefits of grass fed beef, such as Omega 3 , CLA , other antioxidants and more, visit our reference page , or visit the research page from the Californial State University at Chico .

How did our ancestors eat?

Just think about how our ancestors must have eaten. Then think about cattle, and what their ancestors must have eaten. For most people and cattle today, the picture is quite different.

Our ancestors ate mostly protein from animals that they killed, and plant material that they had gathered. The plant material consumed by our ancestors did contain some seeds, nuts, and grains, that were probably even processed into breads and cakes, but our modern American diet of empty grain calories and corn syrup has given us a new generation of obese children, with the adults adding more and more pounds every decade. For as obsessed as Americans are with trying to find a healthy diet, most are not succeeding, and are getting unhealthier year by year.

A healthy diet for bovines is forage based

Cattle, oxen, bison, and other bovines ate grass and available forage. They may have obtained a little bit of grain when grazing on mature grass that had “headed out” (grain is nothing but grass seeds), but it was a minor contribution to their diet compared to the large volume of forage that had to be eaten to obtain those seed heads.

Dr. Joseph Brasco , in his excellent article “Low Grain and Carbohydrate Diets Treat Hypoglycemia, Heart Disease, Diabetes Cancer and Nearly ALL Chronic Illness” states: Anthropological study of early hominids has concluded that they lived as hunters-gathers. While nuts, seeds, vegetation and fruit made up an important part of the hunter- gather's diet, his mainstay was hunted or scavenged animal prey.

More recent evaluations of early man's nutritional patterns by Dr. Loren Cordain, estimate that “as much as 65 percent of his calories were derived from animal products. Granted, early man was not eating corn fed Angus beef from Jewel, but he was eating the meat, the organs and the bones of his prey, essentially, a high protein/fat diet. It was a mere 10,000 years ago (or less) that man began exploiting an agricultural niche.”

Later in the article, Dr. Brasco goes on to say: “In a review of 51 references examining human populations from around the earth and from differing chronologies, as they transitioned from hunter-gathers to farmers, one investigator concluded that there was an overall decline in both the quality and quantity of life.

There is now substantial empirical and clinical evidence to indicate that many of these deleterious changes are directly related to the predominately cereal-based diets of these early farmers. Since 99.99% of our genes were formed before the development of agriculture, from a biological perspective, we are still hunter-gathers.

Thus, our diet should reflect the sensibilities of this nutritional niche: lean meats; fish; seafood; low glycemic vegetables and fruit, (modern agriculture has significantly increased the sugar and starch content of vegetables and fruits over their Paleolithic counterparts), nuts and seeds - the evolutionary diet”.

America’s Modern Diet

The very antithesis of a healthy diet

Ironically, in our modern era, many of the so-called foods containing processed grains and corn syrup have been passed off as being healthy, while the good proteins and fats that are so necessary for optimum health were reviled in the mainstream medical establishment and media.

For how many years did the USDA food pyramid recommend grain as the main staple of a supposedly healthy diet, without ever differentiating between the quality of the grain products, as to glycemic index, and complex carbohydrates, verses simple carbohydrates?

Margarine was probably one of the worst hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American eating public. Claimed as “heart healthy” for decades, the truth is finally out that its hydrogenated oils and trans-fats do far more harm than good to the human body, and that fat from good sources (meat and dairy from animals that have eaten as they evolved to – grass fed) is not only just good for you but essential for a healthy diet! Turns out butter is better, and always has been.

Grass Fed Beef as a Dietary Staple

I truly believe that eating grass fed beef is one of the best things you can do for your health. Am I biased? You bet! I raise grass fed beef, and eat it all the time myself. I and my family are all in excellent health. In fact, in 2005 our HMO gave our group an 11% discount because of the health of the group (our family and our employee’s family).

Like most everyone else in the cattle business, for years, we bought into the notion that in order for beef to be tender, it had to be grain fed, and so fed grain to the steers that we had chosen for our own personal beef.

About 4 or 5 years ago, we started reading about and looking into grass fed beef, and the role it can play in a healthy diet, and decided to try some for ourselves. In our searching, we discovered that there were ways to tell if beef would be tender while it was still live and on the hoof, so that its carcass qualities could be known before it ever went to the processor.

We started eating our own grass fed beef, and absolutely fell in love with the flavor. It was like nothing else we had ever tasted! Who knew that for all those years we had been watering down the flavor and nutritional value of our own beef by feeding it grain?

I also fully believe that it was switching from grain fed to grass fed beef (beef has always been the primary staple in our diet because it’s what we produce and have an abundance of) that resulted in my losing 40 pounds.

Click here to read how I lost 40 pounds after switching to grass fed.

Grass fed beef can be a primary staple in a healthy diet, and we are living proof of that. Along with our great beef and other cleanly and locally raised protein, we eat a lot of vegetables and fruit, and a little bit of whole grain and potatoes. Now and then we allow ourselves a certain amount of what we call our “white flour allotment” with some great French baguettes, and of course hamburger buns.

To read more about a healthy diet for cancer and chemotherapy patients, visit my on-line article at Squidoo.com by clicking the "healthy diet" link.

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