Pastured Meats:
Your Health, Your Politics, and your Wallet.
By Dr Jason Deyo

Why is pasture-raised meat better for us? Ounce for ounce, pastured meats have 2X the anti-inflammatory omega 3 as grain fed beef and ½ the pro-inflammatory omega 6. Pastured meats have 3X the fat burning and muscle building CLA (conjugated linoleic acid,) more beta-carotene, more Vit. E, and more Vit. B. It’s naturally leaner than grain-fed so total fat intake is lower and let’s not forget the reduction in E. coli and salmonella exposure that grain fed-chicken and beef are known for. Moreover, the data suggesting links between meat consumption and heart disease, cancer, and obesity is all done on grain-fed meat and the people who eat it.

Worried about cholesterol? Don’t be. Remember, it’s insulin that triggers cholesterol synthesis. 85% of our serum cholesterol level is dictated by the excess starches and sugars we eat, not our pasture-raised meats.

The water pollution, greenhouse gasses, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, nitrates, and dioxins that are making us sick are all coming from conventionally raised feed-lot animal waste and from the fertilizer used to make their corn and soy meal. Buying locally pastured meats solves these problems and also reduces pollution produced from transport (fuel), processing, packaging, and freezing.

What about the cost? Answer: subsidies. 45 billion dollars in taxes over the last ten years went to corn and soy meal. Grain-fed meat is not cheaper; we are paying for it with our tax dollars and our medical bills. Getting Uncle Sam out of big-agra would make pastured meats less expensive than grain-fed.

Did anyone see the article on Mitt Romney in Time last month? He faces losing the nomination in several states based on his position to reduce corn subsidies. Public political punishment for trying to improve our health, clean up our environment, and put more money in our wallets. If we want anything to change we have to vote with our fork. Buy pasture raised meats!

“Exposure to antibiotics, growth hormones, and toxic run-off from livestock feed lots can be minimized by eating free-range meat raised without these medications if it is available.”
President’s Cancer Panel, Annual Report 2008-09.

Contact:
www.NutritionByDrDeyo.com
(310) 968-3396

After 20 years of watching excited people leave my office with a bulletproof, customized program for health, longevity and weight loss; it’s become very clear what separates those who succeed from those who struggle. It’s not motivation. It’s not appetite or cravings or self control. Every single time it boils down to skills in the kitchen. If we can’t make a variety of healthy foods taste great, we don’t stick with the program. So, to help my clients save time and stay on track I teach them to create Modular Meals.

It’s simple, modular meals consist of three building blocks; fiber, proteins and vegetables. All you need is an hour and a game plan. We batch cook and store enough servings of fiber like quinoa, brown rice and black beans; protein such as chicken, salmon and ground buffalo; add any variety of seasonal veggies and the work is over. Now we have all the building blocks to make modular meals in minutes for the rest of the week.

Monday lunch: Buffalo meatloaf over BBQ beans and rice. Monday dinner: warm squash and salmon salad. Tuesday lunch- a colorful shrimp and rice chilled salad with lemon and herbs. Tuesday Dinner: spicy buffalo and black bean chili. Its like Legos, we’re going to use the same blocks we made a truck with yesterday to make a castle today. Once we know what our healthy portions look like, that’s it. Now we mix, match and accessorize with our favorite flavors!

The first building block is fiber- for good reasons. Consistent evidence shows that fiber rich whole foods can significantly reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, type II diabetes and colorectal cancer. Whole grains are higher in nutrients like folate, magnesium and potassium, which are associated with reduced cardiovascular risk. The greater your bodies demand for insulin, the greater the risk for type II diabetes. This is why we choose high-fiber, whole grains over processed grains. So instead of the tuna salad sandwich, let’s try the tuna over a brown rice and garbanzo bean medley. Leftover Tip: Try tossing a few diced scallions and red peppers into yesterdays rice and turn it into a new building block you can serve cold for lunch.

Timing is everything. To keep this show under an hour, we get our fiber choices on the stove first and move right onto our protein building block. I like to have three or four choices ready to go here. Try salmon for its DHA content, which helps fight the battle against heart disease, a seasonal marinated chicken and a buffalo meatloaf. In about 45 minutes, your first two building blocks are ready at the same time. Quick Tip: Keep Frozen shrimp on hand to thaw for a last second addition.

While your oven and stove-top are being put to good use we seal the deal with a cutting board and a knife. Our third building block consists of chopping up some veggies for snacks, salads, steaming and stir-fry. The National Cancer Institute recommends a minimum of five servings of fruits and veggies a day to reduce cancer risk. (I don’t know about you but considering that cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, I’ll be eating a few more servings of broccoli and Brussels sprouts this season than the minimum.) My favorite advice here is to send my clients to whatever farmers market they live closest to and talk to the vendors themselves. Some of the best seasonal veggie cooking tips I’ve ever learned came from the people who grew them.

I’m not a trained chef but teaching this modular meal system has been working for my clients for years. The hour in your kitchen on Sunday night will make dozens of different meals that will allow you to be versatile while staying on track. Plus, this is a program you’ll never grow tired of, my modular meal class changes with the seasons. You can learn more about it at www.NutritionByDrDeyo.com.

Once you have the modular system down and you want to keep jazzing up the basics like rice or quinoa, get the inside scoop on where I go for new flavor inspiration. Stop by one of the many M CAFÉ locations and try Chef Lee Gross’s delicious sprouted quinoa tabbouleh. In fact, learn to make it yourself! They offer a macrobiotic seasonal cooking class every month. www.mcafedechaya.com