Supply Constraints
Every grass-fed meat cut is not always in constant supply like Americans are accustomed to seeing with other products offered by their local markets. According to the Food Marketing Institute the average number of items carried in a supermarket in 2013 was 43,844. Even most of the highly seasonal fruit and vegetable selections are always available. The modern food delivery system is absolutely a modern miracle. Food is being grown all around the world and is rapidly transported everywhere it is needed. In most cases, grocery stores enjoy next day delivery for every product it has in stock. This is unprecedented service that a small Mom-and-Pop grass-fed meat purveyor cannot possibly match -- at least not yet. But we do make every attempt to have as many products available at all times as possible.
Grass-Fed Meats Can Be Seasonal
Meat is not a seasonal food. For all of time it has been the vegetables, fruit, and nuts that are really seasonal in their supply. Animals were always around which is why meat was the primary food of early man.
Modern production agriculture has seen to it that all types of food are available at all times. Therefore the American food consumer has grown accustomed to having what they want, when they want it. The shipping of perishable foods from one hemisphere to the other has created a picture of abundance, luxury, and power in what are actually very seasonal crops. This is a good thing. But sadly, production agriculture accomplished most of its goal for abundant, cheap, and convenient food with mostly grain-fed and grain-based production methods. Consequently the American diet, although seemingly diverse, is so based on grain that it is mostly nutritionally deficient in the essential Omega-3 Fatty Acids and other important nutrients our bodies require while being overdosed with Omega-6 fatty acids.
Grain-fed beef is a good example (one that is replicated in the production of nearly all American meat, dairy, and poultry products) of a cheap, convenient, and nutritionally deficient food product. Young cattle are taken off pastures and put in huge feedlots where they are fed a diet that is up to as much as 80% corn. With that diet they will double in size in about 200 days. Too bad the grain is a feed that is not only unnatural for livestock but it differs nutritionally from grass. Therefore, the beef from the grain-fed cattle differs nutritionally from what man requires.
200 Health/Nutrition Essays
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There you will find short essays with substantiating links to scientific sources and additional commentary. Subscribers to the SGFM newsletter are notified about additional postings to the "Columns" section as they occur.
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