Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: A study recently revealed that beef, grass fed beef.
Well, we'll get to that. Welcome to the Duster Mud Podcast. I'm Shelley.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: I'm Rich.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Here at the Duster Mud Podcast, we talk about food freedom and farming. And four years ago in 2021, we left Washington D.C. and started a regenerative farm after better food. We wanted to grow food for us that was better than what we could buy in the grocery store. And somewhere in our mind we were convinced that it would be not only just taste better, but it would be more nutritious. And that's what we want to talk about today.
[00:00:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Study actually proves it. Science.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Science. Oh, okay. Well, somebody just turned it off.
[00:00:46] Speaker C: What?
[00:00:47] Speaker A: Because you talked about science.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: It's true.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Okay, it is true. And we were really interested to see the evidence that nutritionists, I guess, have taken apart the beef and really looked at it to see what is the difference between, if there is any. Between grass fed beef and commodity grained beef.
[00:01:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: I'll leave a link to this study that we're referencing throughout the entire podcast. I'll leave a link to it in the description and have a look at it. It's actually a very interesting.
And we're just going to go through some of the key findings that stood out to us.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it was good and we were very encouraged by it.
[00:01:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: So what'd you find?
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Well, first they found that the soil, the makeup of the soil in a regenerative type grass fed operation, the soil itself is healthier than the soil that you would find in like a corn field or something like that.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Okay.
So we were talking about beef. You just started talking about dirt.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Well, that's where it starts.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Right. And that was a really key or interesting point for us because as regenerative farmers, we do work on our pastures and we want them to be diverse. We don't want one type of grass out there. We want it to be healthy. We want to feed it. Actual biology from real live, you know, cow manure out there so that it has proper bugs in it so that it can be healthy. But when I originally, when we originally learned about regenerative farming and regenerating the soil, we were really focused on like the grass, you know, and having more, having plenty, not having to spray chemicals on it, not having to mechanically fertilize.
And we were really looking at it from. It kind of stopped at the grass.
Yeah, I mean, yes, we know it's just good for the cows, but we. Were you thinking about downstream, not the soil.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: And do you mean that Direction like yeah, under the grass.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Right?
[00:03:13] Speaker B: No, right. We, we had heard of worms obviously and, and knew that you wanted to. We watched Greg Judy lifting up the cow patties and showing everybody the worms. So we knew that worms were beneficial and we knew that like the dewormers that you would put on your cattle or that often conventional cattle farmers will use on their cattle all the time to keep them from dewormed, that those would reduce the amount of earthworms and stuff. So like that was about as far down into the soil that we were thinking when we started this.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: So this study is now saying that for my grass fed beef I'm going to start with the soil, good healthy soil that is alive with lots of plant bacteria. Life is actually going to be better for me on my plate. So if we start with the soil and it grows a divert, they showed that in a diverse forage. So a pasture that's got lots of different types of things for those cows to eat, what then happens next? So it's going to eat a diverse diet and then what.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: The.
That diet diversity leads to a. And the health of the soil. So that the health of the soil leads to healthier plants, more diverse and healthier. So the plants themselves have more nutrients in them. Was really the thing that is happening here is because the soil is healthy and nutrient rich. Starting there in the soil then you have a more diverse plant system that also has more nutrients in the plant.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: I think I was talking about the phytonutrients.
[00:05:12] Speaker C: Yep, yep.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: And so then those, those more nutritious plants, the healthier plants with the more nutrients in them.
The, the, the aha moment is it makes sense to homesteaders and regenerative farmers. We think well, our grass fed beef is better. It just is. It has to be right.
This is, it actually is more nutritious.
So what they did is they took a steak from the beef that is fed on a regenerative pasture with lots of different types of forages and healthy soil, then compared the nutrients, the nutrient density, the nutrient variety in that steak from a grass fed beef from a regenerative type pasture and compared that to a grain fed steak that came from a feedlot.
And now that's the sort of the science. The aha moment is they're actually are more nutrients and it is more nutrient dense.
The grass fed steak is better than the grain fed.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: So an analogy, I like analogies.
A relay race.
If I used to swim and I would swim relays and if the person who came off the blocks first came off Slow.
From that point on, the entire team's trying to make up time.
So in a running race, when you're passing the baton, if the person stumbled, that's first and is behind, then forever down the way until the end of the race.
The other three people in the race are now running to try to catch up.
So if you start with poor nutrients in your fields, then down the way, there's no way to make that up. Where do you get that back? Where do you add more nutrients down the line in your beef?
[00:07:38] Speaker B: In a daily multivitamin.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. But does it do the right thing?
[00:07:45] Speaker B: It doesn't. That's what you end up with, though, is you end up with food that is so nutrient poor that you end up having to take a daily multivitamin.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: Like the human has to take your vitamins.
[00:07:57] Speaker C: Why?
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Because there's not enough nutrients in the food now.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Because the food is lacking in nutrients.
[00:08:03] Speaker C: Right.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: So your starting block or your starting racer there is the soil.
And I mean, you obviously, you can go all the way down to the microbes and stuff like, okay, well, it's not actually the dirt. It's actually. Right, sure. I mean, without taking it, without taking it down that far.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: You could just say that, that, that starting racer is the soil.
So you start with soil that is strong and healthy and has lots of nutrients in it. And then that next step is the plant.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: One of the things that they found talking about soil nutrients was the regenerative pastures that they studied in that, in this particular study, I believe I saw that it was in the. Somewhere in the southeastern United States.
Their pastures had three times more minerals such as calcium and potassium than cornfields do. And the reason that we're using cornfields is because that is a typical thing that would be growing food. Growing food.
[00:09:04] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: And the difference is even in a monoculture, so a single type of grass pasture, and a lot of cattle farmers love to look out.
Everything is exactly the same color, everything is exactly the same height. It's green. It's this high. It just looks like.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: And it is pretty.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: It's like a, it's like a golf course for your cows.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: And, and that is like, man, that looks beautiful.
The way you get there is by spraying all kinds of chemicals to kill the unwanteds.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: I'm not even going to call them weeds. We'll just call them what that particular rancher or farmer doesn't want.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: That's right.
You, you, you don't want any funguses.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: So we're gonna, we're gonna Use every side known to man.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: We're going to use every herbicide, fungicide.
[00:09:59] Speaker B: Pesticide, pesticide, because you don't want any.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Because you only think bugs, anything eating what you do want.
[00:10:06] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: So everything is taken out.
[00:10:11] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: Except for the one thing that you want. You plant the seed, you fertilize it, you get all of the, the chemicals that that particular crop needs, and then.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: You put your cows on it with a chemical fertilizer.
[00:10:24] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: But what that, what that whole thing does is it ends up with dead soil, you end up with dirt.
And then the nutrients that are in the dirt are the new, whatever nutrients you poured on top of it.
[00:10:38] Speaker C: Got it.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: So now what you have is a plant base that is not diverse.
It is not like natural type nutrients. It's whatever chemicals that you put down on there.
And it just is nutrient poor. And you compare that to a regenerative farm where you see a weed here and there and you walk around and there's probably bugs in the pasture. And there may be a spot over there that doesn't look too good because it's got some fungus on it. But underneath that you've got soil that is healthy. And then the nutrients that that soil is giving to the plants are far greater and more natural than your, your chemically treated soils.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: Hmm.
Another thing that they said was plants in the pasture had 118 times more protective plant compounds or phytonutrients that we just mentioned than feedlot, which is what the cows eat. That's what commodity beef eats once they get to the feedlot. So if you have a piece of beef or a cow who has been out in a pasture its whole life, especially off of a regenerative farm, it has taken in all of those phytonutrients and it is then I guess, metabolized into their system and, and then uptaken into the muscle and then passed along.
[00:12:12] Speaker C: Right.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: And the phytonutrients, those are things that the plants generate to help protect themselves, and it passes on those same properties once it makes it into the meat. It's a protection type thing, a protective nutrient.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: And we need that too. Yeah, human beings.
[00:12:32] Speaker C: Right.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: Hmm. So we're just getting healthier and healthier.
So we're talking about the nutrients and it's in the beef. What did they find that are specific that people like, you know, the moms and the grocery buyers are going to be really interested in? This beef has more in it.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: Vitamins, specifically one specific vitamin A and, and E. There's up to four times more of each of those in grass fed beef than grain fed beef.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: That's significant.
And what do A and E do?
[00:13:11] Speaker B: What help A we know of as your, your eyesight.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Like everybody talks about. Carrots are high in vitamin A. They're good for your eyesight.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: So eyesight and immune health. And then vitamin E is an antioxidant.
[00:13:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Protects, you know, it protects ourselves from being damaged. You know, it's the keeps you from resting.
Well, it's oxidation. Right. It's just the breakdown of something.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: And it keeps anti rust.
[00:13:40] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Get your vitamin A. Yep.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: And we talk, we talk about omega threes and omega sixes and the ratio of your omega six to threes.
And that's one that is often talked about with the difference between grass fed and grain fed. And what this study showed is that there's up to five times more omega 3 fats in your grass fed beef than your grain fed beef. So what that does then is it takes that ratio and makes it more like what you want.
So your omega 6 to 3s in your grass fed beef is more like a 2 to 1 instead of more like a 6, 7, 8 to 1 in your grain fed.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: And the reason that we want them is the Omega 3s are they reduce inflammation, they're anti inflammatory.
What else did they do? Oh yeah, the heart and brain health. Like we know Omega 3s are really good for our thinker.
[00:14:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: And this study. So there's been quite a bit of, I don't know, it's not controversial like conflicting maybe evidence on your omega 6 and to 3 ratio and what you get out of grass fed versus grain fed. And one of the first podcasts we did like I don't know, 112 episodes ago or so, we talked about grass fed beef and what the decision we made to do grass only.
And in that I mentioned, I'm just not totally jazzed about.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: You weren't convinced.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: I wasn't convinced. It was like I'm just not sure about the nutrients and is this Omega 3 versus Omega 6 as much as what everybody is sort of acting like it is. And I came, I talked about, I'm not sure, I don't think that it is.
[00:15:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember that conversation and us kind of being like, yeah, okay, it is a little better. They're saying it's a little better in that area. But I don't know if it's significant enough to make some grand decision. I'm never going to eat that again.
[00:16:01] Speaker C: Right.
[00:16:01] Speaker B: What I would say based on this study is they found that it is the. If you're concerned with your omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acid ratios, grass fed is better.
[00:16:17] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: And we all should be concerned about that because it is our heart and our brain.
[00:16:26] Speaker C: Yeah, we should be.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
Antioxidants. Other ones, it was much higher with glutathione.
[00:16:35] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: And the homocysteine or. I'm sorry, let me, I skipped ahead just there.
So the glutathione and the urate were higher.
And the glutathione is often referred to as the master antioxidant. And it helps our bodies detox from the other inadvertent chemicals that we put in it or even on purpose, you know, some of the other things that we ingest, breathe, whatever, we have to detox. And our body does that really well. And this is a substance that helps us. And if it's higher in that, that's great.
[00:17:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: And you mentioned already homocysteine, which is an inflammation marker.
Sometimes if you go, if there's something wrong with your blood work, they'll often go to, let's check your homocysteine. And that lets the doctor know, do you have inflammation somewhere?
And what they found was that the grain fed beef was higher, the homocysteine was higher, meaning that those animals had inflammation.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: So you're like eating an inflamed, sick or not healthy animal.
These animals are not. That are coming out of like commodity beef coming out of a feedlot has been standing there eating Twinkies for the last four months.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: Well, maybe 100 podcast episodes ago, we.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: Talked about the Skittles and the Kool.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: Aid that cows, the feedlot cows are literally eating candy. Like, literally Skittles and Kool Aid and leftover candy. They grind it up, wrappers and all and feed it to them. So what the homocysteine is really saying is you have a metabolically sick animal.
So it is like an obese human.
It is metabolically sick, it is inflamed.
[00:18:51] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: So the grass fed is living in its natural environment, eating its natural diet, you know, without Skittles and such.
And therefore they are just a healthier being altogether. And their inflammatory markers, if we were to do an inflammatory marker testing on them, they would pop high.
Is it a crp?
[00:19:23] Speaker B: Oh, C reactive protein.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: Yeah. If you, if you did a C reactive protein test on, on these cows, on the grain fed, on the grain fed cows, you're going to get a high marker. And on the grass fed cows, it.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: Would be low, right?
[00:19:37] Speaker A: Like theoretically.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: Theoretically.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: Wow.
Yeah, that's, that's, that's.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: They're, they're eating what their guts were designed to digest.
So your cows, it's a four chambered stomach that is designed as a fermentation vat and it's designed to ferment grass.
[00:19:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: It can magically take cellulose and turn it into protein. Protein. It's so cool. Because I can't do anything with grass. I mean, just can't.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Our bodies aren't designed to.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: No. So, all right, so the grain fed is higher with the stress markers. What else did they discover? Any other things specific to like vitamins or nutrients? Well, one of the things was really talked about the, the caloric density versus the nutrient density.
So they showed that the caloric density. Yes.
[00:20:37] Speaker C: Oh yeah.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: No, you're going the, the caloric density of the grain fed commodity beef is high.
[00:20:46] Speaker C: High. Er, er, right.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: But the nutrients of it was lower.
And the grass fed, the caloric density was a little lower but the nutrient content was higher.
So calorie, for calorie, you're getting more nutrients.
[00:21:07] Speaker C: Oh yeah.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: From a grass fed beef than you are a grain fed beef.
[00:21:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: And that if you, I mean like.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: If you, you can see it.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Yeah. If you start thinking about that, it makes sense. So there is more calories in an ounce of fat than there is in an ounce of protein.
So the grain fed beef has more fat, it is marbled more. There is more fat in that steak than there is in a grass fed beef.
So the calories are higher.
The nutrients we've already talked about are higher in the grass fed steak.
So when you're comparing from a caloric perspective, you have more calories in the grain fed, more nutrients in the grass fed.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: Now for the record, I don't care how many calories it has.
[00:22:00] Speaker C: No.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: And for the record, I like fat.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: Well that, that's also like we talked, we've done videos on how to cook a grass fed steak and we talk about it's different guys, it really is different and you have to cook it differently. Well, that's one of the, one of the ways that grain fed is different. Grain fed has that fat moving all through it and you can just throw it over the fire and the protein fibers aren't close enough that they bind together and you still end up with a, with a tender steak.
The grass fed isn't, it does not have as much fat running through there. The protein fibers are closer together that it's A more dense, from a protein perspective, a more dense steak. So if you throw it over the fire, those protein fibers bind together and, and it just binds it right up.
You end up with tough grass fed steak.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: How you cook it matters.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Yeah, but that, that, that calorie density in the grain fed is why. Right, like that, that's all tying it together. The, the, the fat being there in the steak itself.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: Gotcha. So what? So what? For the consumer.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: Yeah, so what? Who cares?
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Yeah, the big so what? You know, why, why, why do I care?
How does this affect me? The study in my decision making going forward?
[00:23:30] Speaker B: Grass fed gives you more nutrients per bite of meat that you put in your mouth. You get more nutrients into your body every bite.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: And we know beef hadn't gotten any cheaper.
We know beef is, the prices are off the charts and they're not, they're not going to get any better. So to me, as a consumer, I want to get the most that I can for the dollars that I spend. If I'm going to spend the money on a beef roast, I want to get all of the nutrients that I'm expecting that I'm going to get out of a piece of beef.
[00:24:11] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:13] Speaker A: Another analogy, like, so a flip phone is a phone and a smartphone is a phone and they will both make a phone call. Right. But do I want it to do a little more than just make a phone call? Because it's 2025 and I could have a smartphone that will make a phone call, but it does a lot more than just make a phone call. In fact, we don't even hardly talk on them anymore. We do so much more with them. But with your beef, if I'm going to buy a steak, yes, it's a steak and yes, it's beef.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: It has calorie and it has protein.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: Right. But what if I could get so much more nutrients out of that same size piece of meat if I went with a grass fed? Yeah, I'm going for the smartphone.
Well, most of us do.
I know there's a few of you out there that have flip phones, but for the most part the world has gone to a smartphone.
[00:25:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: Because it does a lot the other.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: So what is for folks like us, the, the regenerative farmer, the, the person who is saying, I want to raise the best that I can and we're going to take it from, you know, brand new calf all the way to a consumer's table.
This is like, this is a solid talking point for what makes yours better.
Why is your beef better?
[00:25:44] Speaker A: Well, because for years it's like. Well, you're pretty sure that it is, right?
Like you just said, the farmers and the homesteaders have known this for a long time, but it was almost a deductive knowing, you know, like, I can look at that beef standing in that feedlot and I can look at that beef standing in that pasture, I'm pretty sure the one sitting in the pasture is better.
But until you really get scientific nutritional data, it's really hard to prove. And so what this information gives to us and other direct to consumer farmers and ranchers is the confidence to say because it's better for you, genuinely. It has more vitamins, it has more phytonutrients, it has more antioxidants. It is genuinely better for you than that is.
And that's huge.
[00:26:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: Because whenever you're selling a premium product, whenever you're selling something that isn't it, it might say grass fed at the grocery store, y', all, but with the greenwashing going on, it's. It's hard to prove.
And so when you know your farmer, if you know where your beef is coming from and you know that that beef came from a pasture near you and that farmer says, because it's. It's better for you, this is helping us.
[00:27:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: And really, for, for any cattle rancher or cattle farmer out there, the. This really is proof that if you use regenerative practices and your soil is better than that better makes it all the way into your cattle. So it's, it's not just.
Well, I mean, whatever, the grass is growing a little better. Like it, all the, the nutrients that you're providing through that good soil is making it all the way into the cow. And then that in turn makes it all the way into the human that's consuming it.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: So Will Harris down at White Oak Pastures, just to touch on the soil again. Down at White Oak past years ago, a traditional, conventional, whichever you use.
Cattle operation and monocropper. He said he poured every side. He was every. He wake up in the morning looking for something to kill, and he would pour every side he could on insecticide, insecticide, pesticide, fungicide. Yes, absolutely. And so he, he was into growing grass and one particular kind. But whenever he woke up one day and he said, I don't want to raise my cows like that anymore. I'm going to start doing this more natural and regenerative.
He had soil tests done, and if I remember right, it was less than 1% soil biology. So when we're just talking about better Soil, it isn't like the, it is the consistency and is the color, but it's the biology that causes that to happen.
Whenever you're talking about dirt, dirt is dead. Dirt doesn't have any microbial life in it. And when we're talking about better soil, we're talking about a higher percentage of soil biology. The microbes, the microbes matter.
And he, over the course of the years through rotating his cows and not pouring all of those chemicals onto his land, his soil biology is up.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't remember how.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: I remember 5%, which is huge.
And for somewhere I want to. Yeah, he's gone. Over the years, he has increased his soil biology marketably and now his dirt is black.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: They measure it, they talk about it. Organic matter, right?
[00:29:48] Speaker A: Organic matter.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: There you go. That's the way that you tell what, how, how that biological life is happening in your soil is the amount of organic matter that's down in there.
[00:29:58] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: And so, I mean, and you can smell it, right? You know, fresh, lovely garden soil versus, you know, the side of a hill clay dirt that's growing nothing. Yeah, well, we have those around here and you can, you can just spot, tell the difference. So it's the, it's the, it's the soil biology.
That's what better we're really talking about.
[00:30:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:26] Speaker B: All right, so takeaways for the consumer.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Ask where your beef comes from. Where did you get it? Who's your farmer? How did they grow it? What did they add to it at the end?
Or how was it finished?
Did they dump a bunch of grain into it the last six months?
Did they leave it out in the pasture to finish its life eating nutrient dense diet that it was meant to eat?
[00:30:57] Speaker C: Yep. Yeah.
[00:30:58] Speaker B: What else for the farmer, I would reiterate, for those like us, this data in this study is a great foundation for talking points as to why your regeneratively raised farm to table beef is definitively science says better than grain fed.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: And for everyone else, it's real food.
And real food that's raised right makes healthier people. Yeah, it just does.
[00:31:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:31:38] Speaker B: And like the bottom line of the whole thing is science is catching up to what homesteaders and regenerative ranchers and farmers have been saying all along. Yeah, it's, it's just been intuitive. It's got to be better. Like it just has to be. That animal out there where it's supposed to be has got to be better than that animal eating candy. Like it just, it just has to be me. Well, this is a study that says it is. It is.
[00:32:05] Speaker A: Which is awesome.
[00:32:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: Great find.
Thanks for sharing with us.
[00:32:11] Speaker B: Right?
[00:32:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:12] Speaker A: Thank you for hanging out with us on the Duster Mud podcast. And until next time, bye, y'.
[00:32:16] Speaker C: All. Bye.
