He said what?

Do you ever get door-to-door salesmen in your area?  Well, my dearies, have I got a story for you.  Yesterday we had such a person come to our abode selling steaks.  

If you know me, you know that I just had to ask him if the steaks were from grass-fed cows.  He said he didn't know, but he did know that he could give me a deal.  Now you know I appreciate a deal, but not at the cost of health.  I told him that usually grass-fed beef was usually marked as such because it is something sought after.  

I then explained that usually cows that weren't grass fed were fed stuff like corn, and of course, cows aren't supposed to eat corn, they're supposed to eat grass.  

Do you have any idea what he said next?  Do you?  My sweet people, this man said, "Corn is grass."  

Um, what?  I couldn't let this be shugged off.  (Perhaps I should have?)  I replied, "Actually...corn is a grain (seed).  Grass is...uh...grass is that stuff right there (pointing to the lawn)."  

"No, corn is grass." He retorts, still quite certain of himself.  

"Okay, so...", I begin, trying to think of a nice way to go on this, "You know how corn has like stalks, you know, out in the country, and it grows really tall and on a cob...that's actually different from grass..." and I trail off, raising my eyebrows hopefully.  

Pause.  

He looks at my college flag that I proudly sport out in front of my house (which is known for being an agricultural university) and says, "Hey, wait a minute.  Did you go to that college right there?  You must know a lot about this kind of stuff!  Wow!  Okay, then.  I guess you're right!"  

Okay, well, whatever it takes to convince you.  (Especially since I took exactly zero ag classes.)  "Yes.  Hey, you just come right back here if you get in a load of grass-fed steaks, okay?"  

Yes, I understand that the stalk may be considered a grass, but the cows aren't eating the stalks.  They're eating the seed - the little yellow bits.  That is not the same as pasture.  That's also why McDonald's pretends in the background of their commercials that their hometown farmers that they use are out wearing overalls while the cows mull around munching on lush green pastures.  It's because that's the way it's supposed to be.  

If they were advertising commercial agricultural feedlots where cows are standing in puddles of yuck, penned in, eating corn out of a bucket (or trough, etc.), with their faces in the hindquarters of the cow next to them since they've been packed in so tightly...well, it just doesn't give off the same kind of quaint flavor (or selling umph).

Perhaps it doesn't bother you very much about what the cows are eating, and I am not in crazy town suggesting that cows ought to be nestling up to fluffy pillows while their massage therapist works on their top round, but I do think we ought to realize that we are what we eat.  If we promote low-quality filthy cow quarters by putting our money into that basket, we are getting the results of that - animals who must have antibiotics (since they are sludging around in poo), animals who have gut issues (since we're feeding them a sugary grain instead of a lean grass), and likely a lesser quality of life than those allowed to act like the cows they were made to be out on pasture.

That meat makes it into your body and comprises what you become.  It is not for the sake of making cows sacred that they ought to be out on pasture eating grass, it is because it is just plain the right thing to do.  It is for the sake of profit that things are done another way - it is easier, it is cheaper, it brings in big money.  But is it giving you the best of health?  If the cows are eating genetically modified corn (and they are, unless the beef is marked "organic"), they are becoming altered - and that is passing on to you.  And we know how that translates within society - just look at all of the robust health everywhere.

Not.

Eyes open, peeps.  Let's do it right.

Peace, love, and pass the ketchup,
Ms. Daisy

Something quick for you to "chew" on - ha...

 Hello, my above average, well educated peeps!  I just read this and thought you'd get a kick out of it.

Ready?

Comes from the PPNF (Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation) Health Journal.

"Scientist at the Agriculture Department's U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center in Madison, Wisconsin, have been studying a substance called conjugated linoleic acid or CLA that occurs in butterfat.  Many studies over the past 12 years have established that, at least in laboratory animals, CLA offers some protection against breast cancer and other malignancies, apparently through its role as a potent antioxidant.  In addition to anticancer benefits, CLA also seems to dramatically reduce the deposition of fat.  Livestock eating feed supplemented with CLA tend to lay down more lean tissue and dairy cattle ingesting CLA-enriched diets have greater milk productivity.  'Much to their big surprise,' scientist found that the highest level of CLA in milk was obtained with cows just eating pasture - nothing else, according to Larry D. Satter, director of the forage center.  Satter finds the notion of pasture feeding 'a far-out idea'.  Those familiar with the work of Weston Price know that pasture feeding is the only way to provide healthful, nonallergenic, nutrient-dense dairy products to the populace.  Could it be that CLA in America's pasture-fed cows at the turn of the century not only protected against cancer but overweight as well and allowed mothers to nurse successfully because they had plenty of milk?  Meanwhile, University of Wisconsin scientists are trying to figure out ways to mass produce CLA as a food additive."

So much slapping my head going on.  What a miracle!  Cows that eat what they are intended to are healthier and make you healthier!  We can only hope that someone spent about a billion dollars to figure this out.  

And mass producing CLA - this makes me die.  Please, let's not just eat grass-fed products, no, of course not.  Let's try to make a food additive instead.  

We do want to go for the least amount of making sense possible, OBVIOUSLY.

Just another reason for you to encourage and support farmers who have a brain.

And a great reason to eat your Kerrygold butter straight up off the knife!  (Right, D?  Stop gagging!  It's DELICIOUS!)

Buy grass-fed milk, meat and dairy, lovies!  

Peace, love and head slapping,
Ms. Daisy