What You Need to Know When Buying Eggs and Meat

 

Click HERE to Discover these 80 Keto-Friendly and Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

Cage-Free vs. Free-Range vs. Pasture-Raised – Here’s What They Actually Mean

When you buy eggs and meat, you probably look for terms like cage-free, free-range, or pasture-raised. Here are the critical differences between these terms, and why it matters.

The last time you visited the grocery store, you probably walked out with a skip in your step. After all, you’d just purchased cage-free eggs and free-range meat for the week, and nothing feels better than supporting farms that raise happy, free, healthy animals. You supported farmers that care for their animals, and you feel confident that you’re eating quality meat.

But, what if you found out that those terms on the brands you purchased might actually mean next to nothing?

Labeling: Diving into the Murky Waters

When you buy products with labels like “cage-free, free-range,” or “pasture-raised,” it’s easy to be fooled into thinking that these terms mean the same thing – that the animal was not in a cage.

Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. In fact, choosing one popular term over another could mean the animal you’re eating had only a couple of feet of “freedom” its entire life!

Read on to discover the important differences between these terms so you can better support brands offering truly healthy, high-quality animal products.

The Difference Between Labels

No Labeling

If you don’t see any mention at all of the animal’s lifestyle on the package, you can be sure the animal was caged throughout its life. This goes for eggs as well: terms like “fresh” and “real,” may be written on the carton, but these terms are not regulated and have no official meaning.

“Caged” animals like chicken receive only 67 square inches of cage space, which is less space than a single sheet of letter-sized paper! In general, caged animals spend their entire lives with no room to turn around or spread their wings, let alone engage in vital natural behaviors like nesting or dust bathing.

To top this off, caged animals are fed unnatural diets of corn, soy, and wheat, and most often of the genetically modified or GMO variety. This leads to unhealthy animals rife with infections and inflammation.

In fact, researchers have found that GMO-fed caged pigs have over twice the occurrence of stomach inflammation than pigs fed non-GMO feed because these modified proteins erode the lining of the stomach.

Cage-Free

It may seem like “cage-free” products are the answer to these problems but, unfortunately, this is a misleading term. While the label sounds synonymous with free-roaming, “cage-free” really means that chickens have only a single square foot of space to move around.

The term does not mean they were given access to the outdoors. Not entirely the sunshine and pasture image the term “cage-free” conjures up!

Free-Range

“Free-range” hens don’t fare much better than their “cage-free” cousins. In essence, “free-range” simply means that at some point in the animal’s life, it had some access to the outdoors.

However, the term is also not regulated, and doesn’t have any requirements regarding the size of the outdoor area, the condition, or even how long or often the animal is outside.

When it comes to beef, however, there are slightly more rules involved if farms want to place the “free-range” label on their packages: that the animals are given free access to the outdoors for a minimum of 120 days per year.

However, this also doesn’t require disclosure of the condition of the outdoor space, or even how big it is.

Free-range animals also aren’t exempt from the corn, soy, and wheat diet – they are simply able to move a couple feet more as they eat it.

Pasture-Raised

“Pasture-raised” is the best term to look for if you want to ensure the meat and/or eggs you’re consuming came from animals with access to the outdoors, as well as some grazing opportunities (although this term doesn’t mean they exclusively grazed outdoors – they could still be receiving supplemental feed).

While “pasture-raised” dairy and egg-laying hens were not raised entirely indoors, there is no official definition or regulation around the term “pasture,” or a regulation on the amount of time spent in this outdoor space.

Poultry and meat labels fare only marginally better, requiring written descriptions of how and where the animals are raised. While “pasture-raised” is the best term to look for, you’ll want to look for additional labels to make sure this is a meaningful claim.

What About Organic Products?

Organic is great to look for if you want to ensure your animals weren’t fed GMO corn and soy. However, “organic” doesn’t mean that the animal was free-roaming, it simply means they were fed organic feed and not injected with anything artificial.

Pasture-Raised, Grass-fed, Certified Humane, Organic Meats Are Best

If you want to ensure the dairy or beef you’re consuming was from a cow that roamed on a pasture and ate a natural diet, look for the term “grass-fed” on the label.

When buying eggs, look for the Certified Humane seal or Animal Welfare Approved label as they indicate the chickens live in decent conditions with monitoring for factors such as ventilation, air quality, and environment.

To add another layer of protection, it would help to buy organic as well, as this means the animal was not administered antibiotics or hormones. Not only are pasture-raised and grass-fed animals happier with more space to roam, but they are also healthier, which translates into important health benefits for us.

More Anti-Inflammatory Benefits

Studies have found that pasture-raised eggs contain twice the amount of omega-3 fatty acids than regular eggs. As for meat, research has shown pastured chickens have greater nutritional quality.

This is important because non-pastured animals fed a diet of corn and soy have a high omega-6 fatty acid ratio which is pro-inflammatory for them (and for us when consumed). Omega-3, on the other hand, is anti-inflammatory and reduces the risk of heart attacks.

More Essential Vitamins

Specifically, pasture-raised eggs contain twice as much vitamin E and 38 percent more vitamin A than their caged counterparts.

In addition, pasture-raised pork has been found to contain up to 200 percent more vitamin E, while pasture-raised beef contains up to 700 percent more beta-carotene.

Here’s a scary fact: Nearly half of all feedlot, caged animal meat in the U.S. have tested positive for the antibiotic-resistant Staph bacteria. If you don’t want to consume Staph, buy pasture-raised.

Where to Find Pasture-Raised, Grass-fed Eggs and Meat

Grocery stores like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods all carry pasture-raised, grass-fed products. If you don’t live near any stores with organic products, your best bet is to search online for local farms that fully disclose their animal welfare practices. Some may even let you visit their farms to see their free animals up close.

Another option is to order online and have quality meat shipped to you. We recommend brands like US Wellness or Butcher Box for quality meats that are verified grass-fed.

Being informed on what label terms actually mean, is crucial to supporting your health and humane farming practices. Don’t be fooled by meaningless marketing terms!

Watch these 2 videos-

Everything You Need To Know About Eggs – Cage Free, Free Range, Pasture Raised, and More

Everything You Need To Know About Buying Chicken At The Grocery Store

Written by Megan Patiry

Author Bio:

Megan is an inquisitive nutrition and wellness writer harboring an editorial love affair with the decadent and the nutritious. She is a dedicated researcher in all areas of ancestral health, a certified specialist in fitness nutrition, personal trainer, and professional almond milk latte addict.

A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.

Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.

To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook

Butter vs. Margarine – The Natural Benefits of Grass-Fed Butter

 

Click HERE to Discover these 80 Keto-Friendly and Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

Some of the most interesting cultural (and culinary) changes in the first 16 years of this century have been overturning popular, sustaining myths. Case in point: butter.

For many years, it was considered one of the worst things to be eating on a regular basis. This largely stems from the heart disease epidemic, which began around 1930.  Heart disease is still one of the world’s leading causes of death. 

Around the 1950s, with the popularity of Ancel Keys, a nutritional researcher, came the idea that foods like butter, meat, and eggs were the problem. The problems were – supposedly – saturated fat and cholesterol. Keys gained popularity with his theory, but he also disregarded a lot of his own data, focusing instead on the data that did support his idea.

While the science is a little bit complex, one of the biggest flaws in this theory came from data that was obtained from feeding cholesterol to rabbits. Cholesterol then caused problems in the rabbits. This would be notable – except that rabbits are herbivores, and should not be able to tolerate cholesterol.

Another major flaw with the research was that Keys didn’t attempt to differentiate between heart healthy, beneficial fats and the detrimental kinds. He also didn’t take the real culprit behind many of the discovered health problems into consideration, i.e., sugar.

Both of these scientific errors would be corrected in due time – though many researchers of the day openly critiqued his poor science. In fact, there was no correlation of dietary fat and heart disease when more countries beyond Key’s original picks were added.

Unfortunately, the idea that saturated fat and cholesterol were bad was accepted wholesale. Luckily, as time (and better science) has proven, the idea of saturated fat and cholesterol causing heart disease doesn’t really hold up under basic scrutiny.

The changes that came from Keys may have done more harm than good, though. Once we stopped consuming foods like butter and replaced them with choices like margarine, our disease rates skyrocketed. 

If the problem of heart disease was simply caused by our traditional foods, we likely would have seen the lessening of disease rates, not an increase. Clearly something was off in recommending lower cholesterol and saturated fat intakes. As many in the scientific community have noted, saturated fat is simply not the problem.

Isn’t Margarine Healthier?

Another issue in our recent history has been the quality of our butter, or butter-like products, like margarine. There was a 20-year period in which margarine was thought to be a much better alternative than butter. That couldn’t have been a worse choice.

Margarine is, for starters, one of the least natural “foods” ever created. It was created entirely in a lab, and was devised just as a cheaper way to serve butter. Cheaper – not healthier.

That’s because margarine is made from poor quality oils, like sunflower, soybean, cottonseed, or rapeseed oil. These oils are pro-inflammatory and actually cause negative results for our health.

Since margarine wasn’t yellow, scientists had to further “enhance” their product by dying it yellow. Perhaps worst of all, margarine has always been made from trans fat.

Trans fat is one of the only things that all health professionals can agree on: that it is utterly useless and completely dangerous to our health. Scientific studies have shown that trans fat can cause heart disease. It also may lead to diabetes, clogged arteries, and high cholesterol.

Why Grass-Fed Butter Is Better

Why is butter so much better than margarine, and why has it been avoided for so long? For starters, the idea that saturated fat is damaging has been proven untrue.

Debunking this myth gets rid of a lot of the poor evidence presented by Keys and takes the impact out of many others who have used it to push the blame onto butter.

Saturated fats can actually help your blood lipids. That is because saturated fats not only raise your good cholesterol, but they change the type of LDL cholesterol to the less dangerous, “large and fluffy” kind.

We now know that there is much to measure in terms of cholesterol, not just total cholesterol. With advances in modern science and the widespread availability of information, we are able to much better discern the benefits of butter, and weed out poor science.

The Type of Butter Makes All the Difference

When it comes to the benefits of butter, the quality and source make all the difference. Just like the benefits of grass-fed beef are unique compared to grain-fed, grass-fed butter trumps all other kinds.

Grass-fed butter is high in vitamin K2, which is a uniquely beneficial vitamin found in hardly any other foods. With the idea of healthy eating becoming more and more mainstream by the day, it is now easy to find grass-fed butter in nearly every store.

My personal favorite that I put on everything is Kerrygold Pure Irish butter. Get the unsalted kind if you are looking for the absolute healthiest choice. Grass-fed butter is high in vitamins A and K2.

Grass-fed butter is also high in vitamin A, which is another overlooked nutrient we need. In addition, grass-fed butter can help build muscle and burn fat because it is rich in conjugated linoleic acid (CLA).

Grass-fed butter also has a near-perfect balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fats. The specific type of acid found in grass-fed butter can help with cognitive function, your skin health, and even prostaglandin balance.

Grass-Fed Butter Is Anti-Inflammatory

Once upon a time, heart disease was thought to be caused by too much cholesterol.

However, as time moved on, we have come to realize that inflammation is the real culprit behind many diseases. In fact, it is now known that excess inflammation in the endothelium is a critical part of plaque formation and – eventually – heart attacks.

One important nutrient in grass-fed butter that is particularly beneficial is butyrate (or butyric acid). Scientific studies have shown that this particular fatty acid is a potent anti-inflammatory substance.

This means that grass-fed butter – long thought to worsen your odds for disease, is – instead – likely lowering your odds for developing disease. Cholesterol doesn’t cause heart disease. Inflammation does.

Remember – quality is what counts. No matter what you are eating, the nutrient density and health effects of many dairy products can vary greatly, depending on the diet of the cows.

Since grass is the natural, normal food for cows, dairy products from these cows is much healthier, specifically being much higher in omega-3s and vitamin K2.

By contrast, grain-fed cows produce food with lower levels of beneficial nutrients.

The positive effects of grass-fed butter are not just anecdotal – studies show that in areas where cows are grass-fed, individuals who ate the most high-fat dairy products had a 70% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease. Those are some pretty strong numbers.

Is Butter Paleo?

This topic is a bit tricky, and the truthful answer is no, as butter was not around during the Paleolithic time period. However, it is important to note that if one were to limit oneself to truly Paleolithic foods, they would not be able to eat most meat or vegetables, either.

Another issue is that butter is a form of dairy. However, butter is usually the least problematic dairy food to be consumed since it’s largely fat and low in problematic compounds like casein and lactose. If you’re still worried about butter being hard to tolerate, you can clarify it to get ghee. Ghee can be a tasty alternative if you’re sensitive to butter.

What Is the Science Behind Grass-Fed Butter?

While you might look at grass-fed butter and think it only consists of a block of yellow flubber, there are actually 400 different fatty acids at play inside the yellow exterior.

There are also a large quantity of fat soluble vitamins as well as the aforementioned beneficial omega-3s. Remember, the science behind the “Lipid Hypothesis” has proven to be bunk.

This poor science perpetuated dangerous health myths for many years, and we are only now beginning to understand just how damaging this misinformation has been to our collective health.

Watch these 3 videos below to learn more about the natural benefits of grass-fed butter –

How Is Margarine Made? (And Why I Stopped Eating It)

HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE BUTTER IN 3 MINUTES RECIPE

Why Can Eating Butter Make You Skinny? – Dr.Berg On Weight Loss & Benefits Of Butter

The Bottom Line

Grass-fed butter is one of the healthiest forms of fat you can include in your diet – full stop. Though it is hard to unlearn years of poor misinformation, it will benefit your health to understand why the recommendations of the past were actually harmful.

However, remember that just because grass-fed butter is healthy, that doesn’t mean you can skip on all other elements of a healthy diet – namely eating plenty of vegetables and nutrient-rich foods.

The main takeaway is to skip the margarine, use grass-fed butter instead (in moderation), and enjoy the taste of good health!

Written by Casey Thaler

Author Bio:

Casey Thaler, B.A., NASM-CPT, FNS is an NASM® certified personal trainer and NASM® certified fitness nutrition specialist. He writes for Paleo Magazine®, The Paleo Diet® and Greatist®. He is also an advisor for Kettle and Fire and runs his own nutrition and fitness consulting company, Eat Clean, Train Clean®.

A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.

Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.

To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook

How to Strengthen Your Immune System and Avoid Falling Sick?

 

Click HERE to Discover these 80 Keto-Friendly and Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

No diet, workout, supplement, herb, or medicine holds the key to health – we do.

A big part of that is making sure we’re creating a nourishing environment that lets our immune system protect and keep our body in balance.

Here’s how to make daily choices that will strengthen your immune system and avoid falling sick.

1. Eat an Antioxidant-Rich Diet

The most primitive way to keep the immune system strong is by choosing the right fuel sources. The majority of our immune system is found right in our guts in the form of bacteria. Though many aspects of a lifestyle will affect our gut flora, food is a big one.

To keep the immune system strong, we need to keep our gut bacteria strong, and to do this, we need to feed them properly.

But what does healthy bacteria like to eat? The simple answer: real food, as natural as it can come. Adhering to a Paleo diet is a great foundation.

A Paleo diet – when done right – is rich in fresh, local produce, ethically-raised animal products, herbs, nuts, and seeds. These foods benefit the immune system by providing an array of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, antioxidants, and other nutrients.

Antioxidants come in many forms, and their main job is to balance the body from the offsets of stress. When the body is stressed, free radicals form and cause oxidation. Choosing the right foods is one simple way to keep the body protected from the damaging effects of oxidation.

2. Get Enough Minerals

I mention minerals separate from diet because in the modern world, it’s not uncommon to find mineral deficiencies even in the best diet. This could be caused by several different factors, like the health of the soil the food is grown in, a lack of variety in foods, and even one’s personal digestive abilities.

Some research suggests that deficiencies in minerals like zinc, selenium, copper, and iron can lead to immune deficiency. The good news is that there are easy ways to make sure we’re meeting our basic nutrition requirements.

First, we need to stop doing the things that throw our bodies off-balance. Digestive inflammation and inflammatory foods can make it difficult to absorb important minerals like zinc. Switching over to a nutrient-rich diet is the first step toward keeping the digestive system strong.

Then we can look at consuming particular foods rich in the minerals we want for a healthy immune system. Selenium is best found in wild-caught seafood and Brazil nuts (be sure to sprout your nuts first).

Pumpkin seeds and grass-fed beef are rich in iron and zinc. Overall, the best way to go is choosing a Paleo diet with an emphasis on food rotation, variety, wild foods, and optimal digestion.

3. Consider Medicinal Herbs and Spices

Take one trip into a health food or vitamin store, and you will see hundreds of bottles of herbs claiming to boost the immune system. However, can we trust that they actually work?

The truth is, we still don’t know for sure if certain herbs actually raise the level of antibodies and how exactly they impact the immune system. The complexity of the immune system is still one of science’s greatest mysteries, as it ties into endless components. However, this doesn’t mean that the use of herbs should be discredited completely.

Many ancient forms of healing, tracing all the way to Biblical times, acclaim the use of herbs for healing. Some of the most studied and used herbs for immune function include: aloe vera, echinacea, astragalus, ginseng, garlic, and turmeric. These herbs have been used for centuries with renowned benefits. 

As always, speak with your functional practitioner first and remember to seek out the freshest and highest-quality of these herbs.

4. Understand Stress

Stress can dramatically affect both our mental and physical well-being.

Stress comes in many forms: nutritional, physical, mental, emotional, electromagnetic, heat, and more. Stress from a physics standpoint is force counterforce, or one intention against another. This is why you feel stress when you are pushing weights or in an argument.

The way to manage stress is to first identify what the exact stress is. Is it dietary stress from a food intolerance? Is it from too much work and too little sleep? Maybe even a relationship?

Stress is going to be found wherever there is a certain conflict. Remove the conflict – your opposition to the situation – and the stress goes away.

For example, if you are stressed from lack of sleep, confront both sides of the conflict. Why do you need more sleep (not able to concentrate on work, easily irritated by others) and why aren’t you getting it?

Once you pinpoint these factors (more easily said than done), you can start to come up with a solution. If getting more sleep is something you need to work on, get easy sleep tips here.

5. Be Grateful

It is said that our realities are shaped by our own perspective. If it’s beautiful outside, it is because you looked outside, liked what you saw and you decided it was a good day. Being thankful for life’s everyday occurrences is a great perspective. Gratitude has even been associated with better sleep, better mood, and less fatigue.

As Einstein said, “There are two ways to live. You can live as if nothing is a miracle, or you can live as if everything is a miracle”.

6. Focus On Intimacy & Relationships

Trying to scientifically measure the physiological effects of stress from lack of intimacy and healthy relationships is inevitably difficult. This is largely because, as we learned in the previous point, each individual responds to stress differently.

For one individual, more isolation than normal may be required to create balance, while for another, that same amount of isolation may cause disharmony. However, one thing is for sure, if you are feeling isolated and lonely, it’s likely to bring down your immune system.

A study found that lack of social support can result in depression. It’s no easy task to find a true friend or social group and experience intimacy; however, it’s always worth trying. Stay true to your desires and seek genuine social interactions that involve your passions.

7. Detoxify Your Life

I tell my clients when I first consult with them that health is more about what you take out, and less about what you put in. A green juice detox will never make up for a weekend of binge eating. The real secret to a high-quality level of health is to locate and remove what is diminishing it.

Pareto’s Law says that 20 percent (or less) of our input determines 80 percent (or more) of our output. What 20 percent of what you do is causing 80 percent of your health concerns? While coaching clients and myself, I’ve learned that there’s one main vice that supports all of the other symptoms.

I suggest taking an honest look at your own actions and finding out what that vice may be for you. From there, find out what your quality of your health would be like if you removed that one thing. It’s likely different for everyone, but the results will be the same – improved health.

Once you locate and remove the main imbalance – could be a physical, mental, or emotional stress, a certain food craving, etc. – in your life, the rest will wash away. This is the key to detoxifying: removing the bad so we can welcome in only the best of the best.

8. Create Balance

Life is a balancing act. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, practitioners look at the body as a whole and seek to balance the different qualities of the body in terms of heat, air, earth, and water. What we learn from these ancient practitioners and even modern science is that some stress can be good – this is called eustress.

Eustress actually improves our resistance to stress. Take exercise, for example. When we exercise, we create a stress. To a certain point, this is eustress, or good stress.

However, if we don’t look at the big picture – our sleep, diet, etc. – we can easily overdo things and over-exercise. Then, what started out as a good form of stress turns sour.

To create balance in your life, you can replace distress (bad stress) with more eustress. A few ways to do this are to exercise daily, practice deep breathing, think positively, meditate, laugh, and express yourself verbally or artistically.

Want to strengthen your immune system and avoid falling sick? Watch this video – Make Your Immune System Bulletproof Now

Written by Nick Kowalski

Author Bio:

Nick Kowalski is a Transformational Coach, fitness model and unconditional lover. You can find more of his writing on his blog NicksFit. His mission is to inspire the transformation toward love consciousness. Follow him on Instagram for more living in love inspiration and transformational mindset motivation!

A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.

Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.

To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook