Basic Nutrition Info

Vegetarian Recommends BEEF!   By Bonnie Beardsley, MPH, LDN, RD

The fat content of beef is the primary reason it has lost ground as a respectable entrée on America's dinner table.  Not only do most beef cuts have a high fat content, ranging from 33-74%, but the majority of it is saturated.  Interestingly, beef does have a moderate amount of monounsaturated fats, but it is offset by the equal or larger amount of the saturated fat content.

A quick review of fats:  All food fats are a blend of the different types, saturated and unsaturated.  Unsaturated fats include poly- and monounsaturated fats.  Omega-3s and 6s are types of polyunsaturated fats, called essential because we have to get them from food, our bodies can't manufacture them from other fats.  To simplify things, we label the specific food fat by the one present in the greatest quantity.  Olive oil, for example, we classify as monounsaturated fat because it contains 77% monounsaturated fats.  The rest of it is 14% saturated fat, 8% polyunsaturated fat, and 1% omega-3 fatty acids.  Butter is primarily saturated, 66%, with 30% mono, 3% poly, and 1% omega-3.  Fish, while generally a leaner food choice than beef, is heavily promoted as a good source of the omega-3 fatty acids.  So, even though salmon is a fattier fish choice, than say cod, it's still relatively low in fat, and a portion of its fats are the healthy omega-3 fatty acids.

For millions of years man ate mostly meat.  Okay, okay, you've heard differently.   But I beg to differ, and most anthropologists agree, it was meat that played the largest dietary role in making humans the rulers of the planet!  But it was not just meat nor was it just any kind of meat.  The meat had to be sourced to the green leaf!

For all of time the green leaf was the foundation food for all animal life.  I have two Web pages that explain why in greater depth.  They are It All Began in the Sea . . . and  Man Is an Extension of the Leafy, Green Plant .  Those essays explain in some detail why it is that all animals must source their nutrient needs to a green leaf.  Basically, the green leaf was the first sustainable life form.  And the animals that followed ate only two things:  The green leaf and/or another animal.  Consequently, every animal on Earth to this very day must source its nutrient profile to a green leaf.  They either do it directly or through another animal or both.

Our modern foods, and I have another essay titled Big Nutritional Changes in Recent History, are no longer based on the green leaf.  The alterations of our foods over the past 10,000 years is so drastic it exceeds the imaginations of most folks.  Yet in spite of this incredibly huge nutrient change and the resulting epidemic of chronic diseases (body failures) the masses contend with, few recognize the source of the problem.  The problem is what I call The Atomic Bomb of the American Food System.  Right, I am not talking about a firecracker, I am talking about a cataclysmic thing, and "the thing" is considered food by all -- yet it is literally killing everyone who eats it!

Naturally I eat grass-fed meats.  That's because when it comes to feeding my body my primary goal is to eat for optimal body function.  Yet even though grass-fed meats are very important they are not THE answer to optimizing one's health.  That's why I'm very strict regarding ALL the foods I eat.  I wasn't always that way.  It was only in the late 1990s I started learning about what is and is not healthy food for the body.  That's when I first started learning about what the world's most sophisticated nutritional scientists had been reporting on in peer-reviewed studies for years (commencing in the mid 1970s).  The message was relatively simple.  Basically, what they were saying was that one must eat like a caveman to eat a perfectly balanced diet.  And, the most significant part of that message highlighted the importance of Omega-3 Fatty Acids in body function and we've been hearing about Omega-3 Fatty Acids ever since.  Yet still unbeknownst to the masses today, the Omega-3 message was really just the tip of the iceberg.  Therefore I wrote this essay to introduce you to the "rest of the story."

It's pretty logical if you think about it.  The caveman (prehistoric man) ate the same way for about four million years.  Since the “composition” of our modern-day bodies is virtually identical in every respect with that of the early caveman our bodies are optimally geared for exactly his same nutrient intake.  Prior to man's invention of grain farming (a mere 10,000 years ago) his foundation food had always been riveted to the green leaf just like all other members of the animal kingdom.  (That's why grass-fed meats are so important today.)  Also, most other entrees on the caveman menu were vegetables, mostly salad type stuff that he plucked from the surface.  (More green leaves.)  And, contrary to the popular beliefs of most modern nutritionists, fruits and nuts were not staple foods because they were always seasonal treats.

The Concocting of Food

If you asked Joe Sixpack to list off the most nutritionally damaging aspects of our nation’s food system he’d probably name off fast food, too much fat, drinking beer, overeating, and not exercising enough.  If you asked the average Upscale Shopper Betty, she would blame agricultural chemicals, hydrogenated oils, hormones, antibiotics, fast food, red meats, too much fat, eating too much, not enough fruits and veggies in the diet, and not exercising enough.

For the most part both consumer groups miss the mark in their beliefs about what is good food and bad food and the reasons why contracting chronic disease these days is “normal.”  That’s why both consumer groups are incurring the same long list of chronic diseases at the same rate.  [Yes, hydrogenated oils (trans fats) are destructive preservatives that are added to many processed foods and they have been recognized as such even by the main stream.]

For starters, let’s give the fast food companies a slight break.  Fast food is not always bad food.  For instance there are salads?  Salads are fast and nutritious and many fast food joints sell salads.  How about a grass-fed ground beef patti, a simple salad, and a veggie for a hearty lunch?  This simple meal can be prepared quickly and served in mass.  Of course it would be a rare offering in America – even in homes.  So, by and large, the bulk of our nation’s Fast Food is about the same as the everyday fare most Americans indulge in at home.  So fast food in and of itself is not the culprit it’s simply the basic type of concocted foods people eat that is the problem.