Not all beef, poultry, pork, and more, are produced equally. And if you haven’t come to this realization yet, the food industry is extremely deceptive and disingenuous: to wit the meat sector especially.
While there are other factors to look at, there are four good ones to be mindful of when purchasing meat and animal byproducts, as laid out in an Epoch Times article.
Wesley Shank for the Epoch times writes: ‘Misleading label claims are everywhere. They bombard you while walking down the grocery store aisles. They creep up on you while scanning a slick marketer’s website. They shock you when even your best friend recommends an industrial organic brand… “Hey, it’s a lot cheaper and they say it’s just as good!” -“Well… how do I know?”’
‘I admit this is the hard part because the big guys don’t want you to know! They spend tens of thousands of dollars to design the label and marketing claims to subtly deceive you without you knowing. And they’ve done a good job… many people are fooled. It’s time to pull back the shroud to expose the industrial reality that lies behind,’ Shank adds.
False Claims On The Label
The following is from Shank’s article:
1. Cage-Free, Free-Range, and even Pastured
The big guys describe their chickens flawlessly. Their websites show lovely pictures of birds walking in lush grass with sunshine streaming around them.
Yes, they do look… almost pastured… until you notice the sprawling industrial “CAFO barn” at the edge of one picture (in the video link).
That barn could be holding 10,000+ birds. Maybe 5% of them will venture outside during their short lives—but probably not.
Truly no comparison…
There is so much more to share and explain… I’ll devote an entire email to this as soon as possible.
And I didn’t even start on the same problem with CAFO Industrial Organic Dairy farms. More on that next week…
2. “Grass-fed,” Beef
Some “grass-fed” beef is actually fed a corn and soy based diet for the last 3-5 months of its life in a feedlot.
Sure doesn’t sound like grass-fed to me!
But like so many of these label claims, they have a kernel of truth mixed in to make a very tricky logic.
Most cattle are raised on grass for the first half of their lives before being grain-finished in a CAFO feedlot. So the industrial guys say…
“Of course I can label my beef as ‘grass-fed’!”
These cattle eat grass for part of their lives and the regulations don’t say how much grass they need to eat before I sell this as ‘grass-fed beef.’
Too bad for the customers if they don’t know what my ‘grass-fed’ means!”
I’m not making this up.
This is the logic that gets cheap “grass-fed” beef into supermarkets.
If you want truly grass-fed beef, you must ask for 100% grass-fed & grass-finished. And make sure it’s chemical-free too! Even grasses are commonly sprayed in the industrial world.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: A keyword to look for is “PASTURE-raised.” There are some ranchers that are feeding their cattle with grass pellets in a conventional feedlot style, which is no better than before. Moreover, if you can locate beef or meat that is labeled “REGENERATIVE,” look for that too.
3. Product of the USA Meat
Beef and Pork can be raised and slaughtered in Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay, Brazil, etc…
It’s then shipped over here to be cut into your supermarket steaks, roasts and burgers…
And legally labeled as “Product of the USA!”
Sad, but true.
Those cattle and pigs didn’t breath a single breath of United States air to merit this status. But shoppers will never know the difference.
A Stone Barns Center report says 75-80% of all “USA” grass-fed beef sold online or in grocery stores is imported from overseas.
It is shocking that United States label regulations allow this.
But in some ways, the next one is even crazier!
4. “Fresh,” and “Never-been-frozen,” Poultry
According to the USDA, poultry can be sold as “fresh” if it has never been below 26° F.
Excuse me, but isn’t 32° usually considered the freezing point?
And there’s another misleading claim. This one is especially important with turkey season here.
Poultry can be sold as “never been frozen” as long as it hasn’t been stored below 0° F. Read it in the USDA’s own words.
This. is. crazy.
“Never been frozen” says quite clearly that it, well… has never been frozen. I know from experience that chickens and turkeys at 10° are quite solidly frozen!
But not to the industrial guys. As long as last year’s turkey didn’t go below 0° they can thaw it out and sell it to unsuspecting families as a beautiful “never-been-frozen” Thanksgiving Turkey.
That’s the level of integrity you get with the Industrial Organic food system.
Industrial Organics are not all bad. They help cut down on our nation’s chemical and antibiotic use.
BUT.
The deceptive marketing claims are wrong. We need to pull back the Industrial Curtain layer by layer so everyone in this country can see what lies behind.
Please help spread the word.
It’s time more people wake up and start supporting small farms across the country again. Those farms are where the real, truly pastured organics all began.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
[1] When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: [2] And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. [3] Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.Proverbs 23:1-3
In America, it is much more difficult to get great meats at the store. It’s certainly not impossible, as I have farmer’s market chain called Fresh Thyme near my house, which does sell regenerative beef and bison, wild boar, and high-quality venison and elk from New Zealand; along with some steak cuts imported from Australia. Australia and New Zealand have very high standards for raising their livestock, so the quality is usually very good.
It is also gets ridiculous when you have local farmers and butchers trying to sell you grain-finished beef, though they boast it is grass-fed. “Finished” is another word for “fattened.” Grain-finished fattens up the cow significantly, but it is not healthy for them, makes them fart up a storm, and ruins the necessary nutrient and fatty acid content. And yet these same people will say it tastes better. These are also same overweight, drugged-up Americans who eat nothing but processed food with fake flavors, so of course they would hate real food.
I was at that store about a month ago buying some of this regenerative beef, and an older married couple inquired about it to me. I explained the basic differences to them; and the man, who had a thousand-yard stare behind his face mask and looked quite unhealthy, along with his wife too who did the same, removed their masks to smirk at me, and gush about how delicious grain-finished was. Rather than waste my time, I just tried to end the conversation and tell them this kind is exponentially healthier, tastier, and helps restore the environment.
The old saying goes: You are what you eat.
Here is a list of some of the places you can get pasture-raised meats, though this list is far from definitive, as these are just some of the ones I am familiar with:
But be warned: the globalist and elites are tirelessly working to get us off of the meats. Conventional will be the first to go and be inflated to the point of insanity.
[1] Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; [2] Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; [3] Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. [4] For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: [5] For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. [6] If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained.1 Timothy 4:1-6
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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Very good info presented here brother Jacob. Thank you for this!
You’re welcome. As someone who royally messed up his health, am I quite fascinated about how to get healthier.
Hey same here brother. The biggest thing that led me to pursue natural health was how much the Scriptures talk about it.
Ephesians 5:29 (KJV) For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
I was wondering if you noticed any difference in how you felt when switching to higher quality meat. Is there a huge difference? I’m curious about it. Thanks~
Big differences. Before even eating it, there is the eye test, when in doubt of the quality. I am not as sure about other meats like bison, venison, and so forth; but it terms of beef: the fat will have a yellowish/tan/creamy hue, and it will not be as chunky; and the flesh itself should be a deeper red, sometimes like a mahogany color. Grain-fed will look a quite bright-red that almost seems a bit unnatural, and the fat will be white, very thick, and clumped together, and usually looks like it is trying to separate itself from the flesh.
As for how I felt, using the Force of Nature regenerative meat as a gauge, I felt fantastic. It is quite satiating, and gives me great energy after I eat. And the taste is very strong. A lot of times I do not season it, and it tastes amazing just on its own.
Thank you for the explanation. I found that higher quality meat has many more fine white lines through the flesh, like Wagyu (Japanese beef) does. I don’t know if I’m expressing myself well. It’s much more delicious than the ones that don’t. And indeed deep red ones means better~~~
That’s called marbling. But yes, that’s very true, and Wagyu is the greatest example of that.
Brother, I’m not arguing with you, but Dad always finished beef w/ a month of grain, & then liked to have it hang a few days in the cooler. It caused the meat to have some marbling & hanging tenderized it some. Remember the ‘fatted calf’?? I believe the issues are increased medication/vaccination, & the fertilizers & gmos that are making the problems on one hand, with the digestion of the people eating it altered as well by vaccination & antibiotics, compounded by the antibiotics in the meat. Same thing that causes people to have issues with dairy, which is easier to digest, complete with its fat&cream, & all of its enzymes which high temp pasteurization kills or denatures.
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Many of the people involved in the modern alternative & natural health field hate God & his word, so they promote the ‘cave man’, all meat diet etc….subtly insinuating that men didn’t always eat grains (grasses & their seeds), as well as the herb yielding seed after his kind & the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind.
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Genesis 1:12 KJB And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
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Ge 1:29 ¶ And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
Ge 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
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Our beef was raised on grass, timothy & clover hay in the winter months w/ a ration of grain which was raised on our land, non-gmo & freshly ground onsite. They were only inside when the weather was truly bad.
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There are the dialectic extremes in the antichrist alternative health crowd. On one hand you have the vegetarians, who tend to worship animals, like the Hindu & the calf/bull/cow. By Ezekiel 1-2 compared with Ezekiel 10, we know that the main face of the cherub in that of the calf; &, of course we have the Golden Calf account in Exodus. They slander God on behalf of the earth & beasts they worship; and are all on about ‘love’, & hate biblical judgment: denying the Flood of Noah & why God brought that Flood on all the earth….let alone taking note of the sons of God/ angels which did not keep their first estate, both pre- and post-Flood; and the fact that there are clean & unclean beasts. Not for dietary reasons, since Acts 10&11: the unclean animals typify the Gentile. The unclean came in two by two, the clean by seven’s…..and these things all have meaning. Then, of course, there is coming the Beast which all the world will wonder at & worship.
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The other extreme pushes meat almost exclusively, and slander God’s word saying we’re not designed for eating grains. There is a tendency amongst these to male chauvinism of the Greek, Roman, Islamic etc type…woman haters & despisers, and suffering male dominant sodomy though despising the effeminate they use. Again, like the Islamic cultures. The trad cat types are amongst these & are pushing hard for forms of the old Jesuit reducciones to be re-established; & are actually doing this in Mexico already. It’s a subtle thing.
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Both extremes boast about being ‘scientific’ and are religious &/or extremely self-righteous about their gnosis & works; while justifying riding roughshod over the free will conscientious choice of others not in agreement with them, or questioning their ‘science’ and interpretive spin on both it & history.
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Ge 9:2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
Ge 9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
Ge 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
Ge 9:5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.
Ge 9:6 Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
Ge 9:7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
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There’s an odd thing being promoted by the Mercola crowd teaching that we have an over-abundance of iron which is out of balance with other minerals, especially copper, that hinders our immunity & health. They’re pushing regular blood donation every 54 days of so, which strikes me as odd: the old blood-letting making its comeback. I’m not sure the source of that, but thinking perhaps it came of the old pagan medicine rooted in Galen, the alchemical & humoral thinking. Referring to the verses above from Genesis 9, & then knowing that ‘the life is in the blood’, the importance of the blood of Christ shed for us & applied to the mercy seat in our account, received by faith….and how that’s an attacked doctrine; as well as the so-called ‘germ theory’ which is an attack on the old testament teaching of leprosy, the spot, the type of corrupting sin being bacterial & viral infection….a denial of sin pushed to promote the assumption of evolution & of gnostic perfection, works & climbing the ladder etc, to slander & counter God’s word.
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It’s getting more & more prevalent in those circles as they’ve censored everything truly Christian & biblical; & promote solely their antichrist desires & druthers, their sorcery & idolatries.
Distributed, small family farms were so much healthier, & were run on old knowledge & husbandry, rotating crops, allowing fallow years. The ‘factory’ farm concept began in the late eighteenth century in Great Britain & Europe, as the aristocracy shifted people from working their land, to working their factories, an outgrowth of the old European Romish order & the Enlightenment/so-called Renaissance. There was some pushback by freelander farmers, but not so much as there was here in the colonies where biblical literacy was a major reality, even with the Augustinian errors hanging on.
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And, of course, many free farmers & many seeking conscientious religious liberty came here.
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The factory farms are unhealthy in so many ways: over-crowding, poor diet, spreading disease & countering it with chemical meds rather than wise & righteous animal management. Proverbs 12:10 KJB A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.
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When it was pointed out that we didn’t need to pasteurize so much anymore with improved sanitation, improved transport to bring the foods into the cities, & that it would be healthier not to…..the pushback by those centralizing power & controlling those industries, selling the drugs etc was swift & hard. Also, farmers picked up lazy & unclean practices in the dairy farms which was promoted by the knowledge that high temp pasteurization would compensate, so more care wasn’t necessary anymore.
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Things got worse with Roosevelt & the elites ‘scientific’ handling of things & increased control over farming in the ‘rescue’ from the purposeful crash, ‘crisis’ of the Depression. Food was destroyed. The government began its ‘oversight’ & management, paying farmers not to produce, mandating drugs, overseeing all of the ag education & replacing all of the older, more knowledge & literacy farming practices with the new ‘faster’ and ‘better’ chemical & mechanized practices. And there were many interconnecting problems, like the destruction of the prairie cover, the buffalo herds by plowing, part of which was to starve out & weaken the native Americans in the Manifest Destiny/elite/nicolaitan tactic & strategy of annihilation. A few began pushing for the reservations to counter that…..and the Dust Bowl was a result of the unthinking practice & increasing mechanized & mono-cropping, etc ‘wearing out the land’.
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It’s not as cut and dry as the propagandists & historical revisionists make it sound, with sin all over the place & on every side. Men neglecting the word & the attack upon it also figuring into all of that.
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Ge 18:2-8 KJB And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground,
Ge 18:3 And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant:
Ge 18:4 Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree:
Ge 18:5 And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said.
Ge 18:6 And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.
Ge 18:7 And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it.
Ge 18:8 And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.
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Lu 15:17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
Lu 15:18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
Lu 15:19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
Lu 15:20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
Lu 15:21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
Lu 15:22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
Lu 15:23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
Lu 15:24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
I understand where you are coming from, but the Hegelian Dialectic is irrelevant here. It does not change the fact that a cow is meant to graze in the open pasture and eat the grass (and hay in the winter if the snow is too deep – which is why it is not preferred to slaughter the cow after the winter months if the snowfall was really bad) that is there. Even scripture says this:
Deuteronomy 11:14 That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil.
[15] And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full.
Psalm 104:14 He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;
You can look this up yourself, but the digestion chamber of a cow has been scientifically proven to digest and breakdown the grasses. I do not know when the push for grain was introduced, but it became cheaper to feed them grain as it reduced the amount of acreage needed, and allowed for companies to reduce the time it took to fatten a cow, and increase their size to sell more.
1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
A Grass-finished cow has a higher nutrient content, namely more B vitamins like B12 and fat-solubles, increased amino acids, enzymes, and especially fatty acid ratios.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70SUKkUaMo4&t=10s
I learned a longtime ago, and no pun intended, but to “eat the meat and spit out the bones.” Yes, it is true that a lot of these alterative doctors and nutritionists have their own agendas, sponsorships, and are “ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth;” but if you really take the time to sift through the nonsense like I have, then you’ll understand why I am adamant about grass-finished on the pasture. I think carnivore dieting is silly, and it’s why I disregard their diets and when they rip on [organic and clean] fruits, veggies, and grains. Same for Ketogenic. I have incorporated ketogenic practices into my life, but I do not recommend that longterm either because the idea that we are to essentially shun all of grains and flour in its entirety is silly as well. And so on and so forth. You and I are on the same page when it comes to the agri-chemicals and processing: that is the biggest problem today. Or in the case intermittent fasting: I recommend that one very much because its been done for thousands of years, and it requires no money at all, and it works. I have lost a ton of weight, healthily, and kept it off because of it; I feel better, less hungry, energized, better sleep, so forth.
I don’t even pay attention to Mercola. As you would agree, he clearly hates Christians and is another black-mailed shill. However, I will say that, carnivore dieters years down the road (some of them) are getting “iron overload” in their liver, which is causing all kinds of problems for them, because they are not replenishing their bodies with other helpful things to clean out the liver. A blood donation will remove some of that iron, as iron is fairly weighty. But to do it as much as he is recommending seems odd to me.
I am not trying to argue either, but I hope you see where I am coming from.