Grass-fed or Grain-fed, Free-ranging or Caged-living

What's the Beef?

To understand this post you should be familiar with the importance of Ω3 fatty acids (FA) in the human diet. You might also want to review Dr Weston A Price's Disease & Physical Degeneration, since his elusive X-factor,  the essence of traditional sacred foods that imparted sound health to people consuming ancestral foods, is now identified with fat soluble vitamins D3, E & K2.  But as W Stillwell points out in An Introduction to Biological Membranes (2nd), "[i]n human cells, there are more than 1000 major lipid species and countless minor lipids." 

            I will put aside the expensive tissue hypothesis or paleoanthropological theories on the encephalization of human brains. Elimination diets, such as vegetarianism, will only get Dr R Mackarness's quip in Eat FAT and Grow SLIM(1958, that "Hitler was a vegetarian and Davy Crockett was a meat eater." The issue of nutrition and mental illness I'll cover separately, but here's my take on dealing with my brother's schizophrenia from the 2020 Low Carb Denver Conference.

    So, if you're not a #TofuDeBeast devourer you might find the two articles I'll briefly describe of particular interest since they highlight the importance of fatty acids (FA) and phytochemicals, — the nutrients you won't find on a food label.

1. Tordiffe AS, Wachter B, Heinrich SK, Reyers F, Mienie LJ., (19.12.2016) Comparative Serum Fatty Acid Profiles of Captive and Free-Ranging Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) in Namibia. PLoS One, 11(12):e0167608. [Tordiffe]

2.  Stephan van Vliet, F D Provenza, S L Kronberg, (1.2.2021), Health-Promoting

Phytonutrients Are Higher in Grass-Fed Meat and Milk, Front. Sustain. Food Syst. [van Vliet]

            Captive cheetahs, just like caged humans, are prone to chronic non-infectious diseases. Although fatty acids are usually thought of as an energy source, they are important building and signaling for cellular membranes. The Tordiffe study compared the FA concentrations between 35 captive and 43 free-ranging cheetahs in Namibia. The results:

The unsaturated FA concentrations differed most remarkably between the groups, with most of the PUFAs (polyunsaturated FA) and MUFAs (monounsaturated FA) having lower serum concentrations in free-ranging cheetahs and only arachidonic acid and hypogeic acid having lower serum concentration in captive cheetahs. As predicted, both the SFA:PUFA and SFA:MUFA ratios were significantly higher in the free-ranging animals. 

     Serum insulin and glucose concentrations have not been adequately evaluated in non-anaesthetised captive or free-ranging cheetahs, but the higher desaturase index in captive cheetahs is consistent with our hypothesis that these animals potentially have higher circulating glucose and insulin levels due to more regular feeding and a higher dietary protein intake.

       The differences in serum PUFA concentrations between free-ranging and captive cheetahs are also consistent with our hypothesis, because these unsaturated FAs occur at lower serum concentrations in the free-ranging than in captive cheetahs, primarily due to lower dietary intake. We suggest that the preferential oxidation of PUFAs in periods of increased exercise or fasting in the free-ranging individuals could also potentially contribute towards these differences. 

            Tordiffe is careful to note that "exercise or fasting" are important health factors that influence the etiology of chronic non-infectious diseases. But notice the comment that "higher circulating glucose and insulin levels due to more regular feeding" are also a factor. Then the Tordiffe study points out that:

Arachidonic acid [AA] was the only PUFA for which concentrations were higher in the free-ranging cheetahs. This again may reflect differences in dietary intake, as AA makes up a larger proportion (7.63% to 9.3%) of the intramuscular FAs in wild game species such as the springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) [49] than in donkey muscle meat (1.65% to 2.09%) [36]. A greater consumption of organ meat by free-ranging compared to captive cheetahs may also result in a higher proportional intake of AA [50].

Heptadecanoic acid, also known as margaric acid, is a SFA with an uneven number of carbon atoms and is normally found at low concentrations in the adipose tissue and milk fat of ruminants. The mean serum concentration of this SFA was higher in free-ranging compared to captive cheetahs. Recently, the importance of this FA was demonstrated in another captive hypercarnivore, the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncates) [56]. Low serum heptadecanoic acid concentrations were associated with elevated serum concentrations of known markers of metabolic syndrome, including serum ferritin, glucose, insulin and triglycerides in the dolphins. A change in the fish species provided in the dolphin diet, with higher heptadecanoic acid content, resulted in a normalization of these markers.

            This is an important point, since FAs like ketone bodies, are not merely metabolic substrates, but they are also signaling molecules (e.g., Newman, J. C., & Verdin, E. (2017). β-Hydroxybutyrate: A Signaling Metabolite. Annual Review of Nutrition, 37, 51-76.)

            The van Vliet article is an important adjunct to the Tordiffe study because it shows that nutrition is embedded in a complex matrix that cannot simply be labeled or manufactured:

            Emerging data indicate that when livestock are eating a diverse array of plants on pasture, additional health-promoting phytonutrients—terpenoids, phenols, carotenoids, and anti-oxidants—become concentrated in their meat and milk. Several phytochemicals found in grass-fed meat and milk are in quantities comparable to those found in plant foods known to have anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic, and cardioprotective effects.

            Therefore, an ecological perspective, not the Concentrated Animal Feed Operations (CAFO) that cage cows, pigs, chickens ... and remove them from the natural environment matters.

           Edward Hicks, The Cornell Farm (1848) —"We stand at the foot of a large yard framed between a substantial house and an even larger red–and–white farm. Orchards stand in the distance. Ten people look and gesture, including a hired hand pushing a plow behind a horse and a man in white, perhaps the proprietor. But never mind all that— the purpose lies in the foreground. More than forty animals strut and pose in individual portraiture, winners at the annual cattle show sponsored by the county agricultural society. Cattle in four or five breeds, built like strongboxes, udders full; horses of the same number, muscular and vigorous in gray and white; black pigs; and sheep like walking cotton balls. The entire farm exists in this light."—Steven Stoll, “Larding the Lean Earth—Soil and Society in Nineteenth-Century America,” p. 83.

            This is not the CAFO factory production of meat, or the mono-cropping with petrochemicals and insecticides, rather an entire bio-system that renewed the earth & the nutrients it provides.

• Can you tell which is the grain-fed and the grass-fed?