Real Food Basics: Eggs

The Real Food Basics series covers the difference between industrial (grocery store)  food and traditional, real  foods.

Recently my husband visited an egg farm as part of his job. He met the farmer and was allowed to see inside the henhouse. The man had two henhouses, actually. One was tenement slums for chickens, all crowded in together, and the other gave them space to move. "Free range," he explained. These hens are all fed the same feed. They all live inside all day, though one set of hens has more space. 

The farmer explained to my husband that free range eggs cost more because the chickens eat more. They have room to move, so they are burning more calories and eating more feed. But, he said, "Might as well buy the cheap ones, the eggs are all the same."

There is another kind of egg that I go to some effort to get- a real egg from a happy pastured raised chicken. I call them happy chickens to distinguish from "free range" or other misleading labels. A happy chicken gets chicken feed, but also goes outside in the sunshine, pecks at grass and bugs and produces healthier eggs because of it. This is a better life for the chicken, and it also produces better eggs.

Real eggs from happy chickens are different than what you find in the store. The yolks are brightly colored orange, due to the greens and insects added to the diet while they are out pecking at the ground. A study done by Mother Earth News found that pastured eggs had:

• 1⁄3 less cholesterol

• 1⁄4 less saturated fat

• 2⁄3 more vitamin A

• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids

• 3 times more vitamin E

• 7 times more beta carotene

Nourishing Traditions explains more about the ratio of omega-6's to omega-3's. "Organic eggs from hens allowed to feed on insects and green plants can contain omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids in the beneficial ratio of approximately one to one, but commercial supermarket eggs from hens fed mostly grain can contain as much as nineteen times more omega-6 than omega-3!"  That is a huge difference.

Search out a farmer in your area who sells real, pastured chicken eggs. Or, raise chickens in your own backyard (a goal of mine for the future). The yolks are brighter, the flavor is richer, and they are more nutritious. 

Real Food Basics: Fats

The Real Food Basics series covers the difference between industrial (grocery store)  food and traditional, real  foods.

If ever my mom wanted to lose weight while I was growing up, she would count her fat grams. It was an "eat less fat, be less fat" kind of mentality. That was the wisdom of the day, and continues to pervade a lot of our thinking.

Even now, most people are scared of fat. Doesn't fat make you... fat? No! It doesn't. Fat is necessary and keeps our bodies alive and healthy. But fat must be fattening, right? No again! Eating fat doesn't make us fat.

Fats essential roles:

Source of energy

Slows down the absorbtion of food and helps us feel fuller longer

Builds cell walls

Needed to absorb fat soluble vitamins

But aren't some fats bad?

Yes, but maybe not the ones you think. We have been taught that animal fat is bad.  How many times have you heard to avoid red meat, avoid butter, avoid egg yolks? This is actually the kind of fat we need to be eating for our health. There is a lot of science out there to prove this, and there's no way I could include all of it in this one post. Instead, I'll explain why our family eat the fats we do, and why we're not afraid of fat. If you want more information, see my suggested reading list, or feel free to post any questions in the comments section.

New Fats and Old Fats

Think back a hundred and fifty years or so. Pioneer times. Ladies in long dresses and bonnets, men out working on the farm. What kind of fats would they have used? They would have used primarily animal fats: lard, butter, beef tallow, chicken (or other poultry) fat. In other parts of the world, they used olive or coconut oil. 

There was no grocery store to go buy vegetable (soybean) oil, of course. Margarine hadn't been invented yet. Canola oil, the newest of the oils in the market, surely wasn't available either.

So, what happened? Michael Pollan talks about having a food culture. Mothers are in charge of this food culture, because traditionally, they have been the ones feeding their families. In our country, the food culture changed. Instead of trusting in the wisdom handed down from earlier generations, we turned to science to figure out what to eat.

In the 1950s, a researcher named Ancel Keyes was instrumental in changing our food culture. He did studies that "proved" that saturated fat was dangerous and causing heart disease. Here's a short video clip from the movie Fat Head that is kind of funny and does a great job of explaining how we all came to believe that saturated fat is bad.

How I decide

Sometimes studying all this conflicting information about nutrition is enough to make you crazy! (For example, if you watched the clip, you notice that the authors didn't seem to think wheat was a good thing either. I disagree with that one, and we are wheat eaters at our house!) For me, I read and study what I can, but I ask myself two questions when deciding what my family should eat:

1. Is it traditional? (Have people been eating this food for a long time? Or is this a new product, something that a corporation came up with?)

2. Is this how God designed it to be eaten? (Is it in a whole form or has it been chemically altered?)

I used to be more mainstream in my thinking. I was always jumping on the next new science. But when I started reading some of the lierature out there, I realized that not only does science not have all the answers, much of what they've taught us has been wrong.

In the concluding paragraph of her section on fats in Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon says,

"In summary, our choice of fats and oils is one of extreme importance. Most people, especially infants and growing children, benefit from more fat in the diet rather than less. But the fats we eat must be chosen with care. Avoid all processed foods containing newfangled hydrogenated fats and polyunsaturated oils. Instead, use traditional vegetable oils like extra virgin olive oil and small amounts of unrefined flax seed oil. Aquaint yourself with the merits of coconut oil for baking and with animal fats for occasional frying. Eat egg yolks and other animal fats with the protein to which they are attached. And, finally, use as much good quality butter as you like, with the happy assurance that it is a wholesome-- indeed an essential-- food for you and your whole family."

Real Food Basics: Grass Fed Beef

The Real Food Basics series covers the difference between industrial (grocery store)  food and traditional, real  foods. 


Let's talk about cows. If you live anywhere rural, you've probably seen them grazing on grass. It doesn't seem so remarkable- until you realize all the work that is actually involved. Cows have 4 stomachs (okay, technically, one large stomach with 4 parts, but 4 stomachs sounds cooler). The first two stomachs start the process of digestion. The cow eats her grass, and it gets partially digested. But, not digested quite well enough, which is why they have to spit it back up and chew it again.  This cud gets swallowed, and is finally digested by the other stomachs.
It's amazing that a creature as big as a cow can survive on something as simple as grass. It takes a grass fed cow about 5 years to be fully grown and ready for slaughter.

Industrial Cows:


But industry has shortened the process: Feed a cow corn and it can be ready for slaughter in a short 18 months! Pretty much all the beef in the grocery store is grain fed (mostly corn).
Cows have long digestive processes adapted to eating grass, not grain. They are meant to graze in the open. When they are fed corn and live in feedlots, there are all sorts of consequences:
~The cows get fatter- usually they are about 30% fat.
~Grains make them sick, and grain fed beef increases the risk of E. coli in humans
~There are less omega 3's, vitamin E and beta-carotene in feedlot cattle
~Feedlot cows are treated with antibiotics and growth hormones to prevent illness and fatten them up quicker
(Source: Real Food, what to eat and why by Nina Planck)


Grass fed beef:
"~Grass-fed beef is naturally leaner than grain-fed beef.

 ~Omega 3s in beef that feed on grass is 7% of the total fat content, compared to 1% in grain-only fed beef.

 ~Grass-fed beef has the recommended ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 fats (3:1.)
~Grass-fed beef is loaded with other natural minerals and vitamins, plus it's a great source of CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) a fat that reduces the risk of cancer, obesity, diabetes, and a number of immune disorders.Beef, in its natural grass-fed state, is a health food of the highest order." (Source: Mercola) 


"You are what you eat":
You've heard the saying "You are what you eat." Cows too, are what they eat. There are healthy, natural, grass fed cows, and then there are the grain fed cows that are sold in the grocery store. Michael Pollan, the food writer takes it a step further when he says, you are what you eat eats, too.  Grass fed cows are natural cows. They have stomachs adapted to eating grass, and they are at their healthiest when they are allowed to graze. It makes sense that eating a healthy animal would positively impact our health.


Where to Buy:
Check out eatwild.com for grass fed beef in your area.
Trader Joe's does sell some grass fed beef, imported from Australia.


Note: 
When I talk about grass fed cows, I mean that they eat a diet of predominantly grass. Some cows are grass fed, but grain finished, which would be acceptable, if not ideal.


*I'll be posting recipes with grass fed beef later this week!