Eat This-Grass Fed Meats

As a physician, I do my best to heal my patients. I address symptoms and perform procedures when necessary. As an Interventional Cardiologist that at times involves treating heart attacks and placing stents or other devices to open up blocked heart arteries, restore blood flow and reverse years of damage. I try to help restore their health so they may enjoy the rest of their life. Yet after the procedures are done and the prescriptions written, after a time, all I can give is advice and guidance. It is ultimately up to the patient. Counseling often involves trying to establish a balance about what to eat, a realization that your food is your best medicine-or your worst poison. As their physician I want them to consume more things like fresh vegetables, fruit and items rich in fiber. I want them to prepare things in a healthier manner and lower their consumption of foods high in cholesterol, salt, fat and sugar. The latter three being the common evil found in everyday over processed and fast food.

Over processed food and altered animal products are not what I recommend. It’s not what I eat. To me, these are not healthy choices. A great example is found in natural (hormone and antibiotic free) beef that is allowed to roam free and consume natural grasses. These animals are herbivores; feeding them high protein pellets made from ground up bits of other animals just is not their natural diet. Cramming them in feedlots and pens where they cannot move, let alone get any exercise may increase yields, but decreases healthy benefits. These are the animals whose conditions are so poor they need prophylactic antibiotics. The average store bought beef you find in the super chains is often chock full of antibiotics, hormones and God knows what else. The result of these stressed out adulterated animals is a product full of fat and cholesterol. We have taken something natural and beneficial and made it unhealthy. When the animals are allowed to thrive naturally we find things like beneficial omega fatty acids-3s in the red meat. Omega-3 fatty acids are beneficial and essential fatty acids with a plethora of healthy benefits. Animals with natural diets produce a product lower in overall saturated fatty acids (bad) and higher in polyunsaturated fatty acids (good). Products from grass-fed animals have increased conjugated linoleic acid by 50% and Omega 3 fatty acids (both good) by 40%. The animals allowed to move about naturally are also lower in overall fat and higher in vitamin E, a natural antioxidant.

None of these health benefits means anything if people won’t eat it. As a Chef, I know people won’t eat any of the food if it doesn’t taste good. It has to taste good. If it doesn’t taste good it’s not food-it’s just medicine. The beauty of consuming these natural grass fed products is that they simply taste better. They have a delicious flavor you want to savor, not like tasteless gobs from feedlots and super chains. Fresh product like this is what I use when I do my Grassroots cooking. It is what I use to cook with and serve, because it is what I want to eat. It is a pleasure. As a Chef, for me, it is all about taste.
Translation: It’s great tasting food that’s great for you. And that’s what Doc’s all about.
-Michael S. Fenster, MD, F.A.C.C., FSCA&I; Interventional Cardiologist, Chef and host of What’s Cooking with Doc (www.whatscookingwithdoc.com)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 8:16 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.