Omega-3 Fatty Acids

Is grain good for cattle?  Have you ever wondered?  Or do cattlemen feed grain because others feed grain and the cattle seem to grow quite well?  Of course, there's that mantra everyone hears that grain-fed cattle make better-tasting beef. And another mantra Agricultural Extension beats the drum over is that cattle with high quantities of intramuscular fat are going to be more tender, better tasting, and more profitable.  Of course, that's not always the case, but that's not the first time Extension didn't let the facts get in the way of being correct.

So let's ask the question again.  Is grain good for cattle?  In her book, The Omega Diet, Artemis P. Simopoulos, M.D., delivers a compelling message about why Americans need to rethink their diet.  In making her points she quotes data derived from numerous scientific studies.  In many of these studies the subjects being fed were mice.  I know mice aren't humans and they certainly aren't cattle.  But as I review the scientific experiments and see the association scientists make between mice and men, why can't I make an association between mice and cattle?

In virtually every experiment where the mice were fed high levels of Omega-6 fatty acids, their tumors grew faster and were more aggressive.  When mice were fed diets high in Omega-3 fatty acids, tumor growth slowed and the tumors were less likely to spread.

Are claims for curing various chronic diseases with Omega-3 supplementation a health food industry marketing scam?

I have reviewed scores of scientific reports dealing with the effectiveness of Omega-3 supplements for curing or suppressing various chronic diseases.  By and large the peer-reviewed studies have not been very supportive of the health nuts who promote Omega-3 supplementation.  Is that why those who seek scientific confirmation for the benefits of Omega-3 supplementation get turned off when they read the literature?

You can find the same scientific reports I reviewed by using the “Google Scholar” search engine.  There you will find thousands of scientific studies involving Omega-3 fatty acids and their impact on literally hundreds of different chronic diseases.  Not all, but most of the reports conclude as follows:  A) Taking Omega-3 supplements may moderately improve one’s health.  B) Taking Omega-3 supplements will not have any impact on one’s health.

Commencing in the late 1970s a few medical journals started reporting on Omega-3 fatty acids.  Thus launched the beginning of what has now resulted in literally tens of thousands of peer-reviewed research reports that show, indicate, and prove the positive role Omega-3 fatty acids play in body function.  Yet in spite of the many thousands of research reports that detail how critical the balance of essential fatty acids (EFAs) is for health, the very important aspect of actually understanding what has been learned about fats is lost on the modern medical profession, most nutritionists, the media, and nearly all of the nutritional commentary everyone reads in books and on Web sites.  Sadly, medical doctors are notorious for knowing no more about nutrition than what you'd read about in the Sunday Supplement.  That's why they never really cure chronic diseases, but only allow people to live with them using drugs and operations as crutches.

In response to this mega-misunderstanding this first article in our series of Omega-3 Essays will lay the ground work for helping you break loose of the conventional wisdom and be one of the few people in our country that actually ends up understanding what all the hoopla is about Omega-3 fatty acids.

In the publication American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Dr. Artemis P. Simopoulos said in 1991 that modern “western diets are deficient in Omega-3 fatty acids compared with the diet on which humans developed and their genetic patterns were established.”

Corn is a seed produced by an annual grass plant.  It is similar to the seeds produced by these other popular annual grasses:  wheat, oats, barley, rye, rice, etc.  The harvested seeds from these annual grass plants are called grain.  Basically all of them have the same negative nutritional values as corn in only slightly varying degrees.  Therefore none of them are fit for human consumption!  Here is why.

The Omega-3 deficiency in America's food is primarily due to grains, oils from grains and nuts, and some other foods made plentiful by inventive agricultural pursuits.  But that is only one of the many nutritional imbalances found in grain.

This article about corn's nutritional value (first version written in 1999) only introduces the story about what is wrong with America's food.  It is a big story involving all grains, whole grains or milled grains, organic or not.  It is not common knowledge.  Yet nutritional scientists have been pounding the table with this story since the late 1970s.  On this Website there are many additional articles and sources of peer-reviewed scientific reports that clearly illustrate how the chemical composition of grain is foreign to all animal bodies.  The initial research dates back to the 1970s!