I needed to disable self sign-ups because I’ve been getting too many spam-type accounts. Thanks.
Conventional beef vs grassfed beef
I don't get what you want to support with this whole ordeal and being the bearer of "bad news", but here are my two cents:
- Not all cattle is subject to these "supplements". Luckily, I live in Austria, and this is probably one of the only places that hasn't bastardized its farming practices at all just yet. If you live in the US, my condolences.
- Many people have made progress on this protocol using beef of all sorts as a staple. If these studies are a true reflection of the average vA content of beef, then it would just work against Grant's theory that vA is a toxin, since it would have been virtually impossible for anyone to avoid it to any significant degree. So, is that what you're trying to point out?
- There's a significant number of users who complain about nutrient deficiencies (or symptoms of them) as is, and you're suggesting to opt for the grain fed beef, which definitely won't help. There's a point at which trying to reduce the vA in the diet won't make things better, especially in the long term. I cannot see how eating grain fed over grass fed is a good trade-off, especially when you have eyes to see and brain cells to choose the cuts that are leaner and whiter in fat.
And I haven't even gotten into how sick cows can get if they're fed grain exclusively, and all the horrendous farming practices that are associated with that. This doesn't get brought up often since most cows are grass fed and grain finished, but in the light of this discussion, I may as well bump it up.
I just found a very interesting document. It is the Ph. <d. thsis in Veterinary Science of Marie YERVANT in 2009
Carence en vitamine A chez les bovins. This is in French.
https://oatao.univ-toulouse.fr/4179/1
if your browser adds a slash at the end of the link it does not work
Thanks Ourania. I am remotely attending a conference in Toulouse in three weeks but I do not read French. I don't think Google Translate works on long PDFs. Could you summarize what you learn, if you read French? For others, the corrected link is
Not all cattle is subject to these "supplements". Luckily, I live in Austria, and this is probably one of the only places that hasn't bastardized its farming practices at all just yet. If you live in the US, my condolences.
Are you sure Austria doesn't use vitamin A supplements? I would look into it rather than assuming.
Many people have made progress on this protocol using beef of all sorts as a staple. If these studies are a true reflection of the average vA content of beef, then it would just work against Grant's theory that vA is a toxin, since it would have been virtually impossible for anyone to avoid it to any significant degree. So, is that what you're trying to point out?
I am new around here but both Grant and the healthy experimenter Dino took their vitamin A to near zero while consuming beef. A lot of people are reporting slower progress while also consuming beef. Maybe Grant and Dino just lucked out in avoiding cows that have been supplemented with vitamin A? Maybe there are many forms of heterogeneity across individuals in detox ability once other offending materials have been removed from the diet?
Maybe this is nothing more than all vitamin A related measurements in food are off by a constant factor and we just need to multiply everything, including the RDA, by that factor and we are done.
There are many possibilities and more questions than answers.
There's a significant number of users who complain about nutrient deficiencies (or symptoms of them) as is, and you're suggesting to opt for the grain fed beef, which definitely won't help. There's a point at which trying to reduce the vA in the diet won't make things better, especially in the long term. I cannot see how eating grain fed over grass fed is a good trade-off, especially when you have eyes to see and brain cells to choose the cuts that are leaner and whiter in fat.
I'm not the one recommending grain feed beef. I wouldn't be surprised if the total carotenoid content of grain finished and grass finished beef is about the same, once you account for the yellow carotenoids in the corn fed to grain-finished beef. Those don't get converted into retinol specifically but they might have some other role in the body that has not been studied.
And I haven't even gotten into how sick cows can get if they're fed grain exclusively, and all the horrendous farming practices that are associated with that. This doesn't get brought up often since most cows are grass fed and grain finished, but in the light of this discussion, I may as well bump it up.
Are you thinking of Kobe beef in Japan, or something similar? I don't know about the health of such animals but measuring their vitamin A levels would be an interesting exercise.
On my threads in the past I've posted about how both egg-layer feeds at my farm store (including organic) have VA supplement. You'd have to mix your own grains to not get it. And yellow corn is the basis of both so it would already be high in carotene.
Most people are not going to go to that trouble to mix their own grain, especially big farms. They have huge hoppers that are filled by the feed company. I'd say it's a lost skill to know what to feed animals starting from grains and legumes, and thats a major reason neither small nor large farmers attempt it any more. However, it pays the grain companies to make people feel like there is something special about pre-mixed feeds that they couldn't accomplish on their own.
There is such a thing as bottom up pressure. We maybe need to start logging requests to grain companies.
Unfortunately this thread doesn't surprise me at all. I've been mulling over this for a long while because I dabble in farming. I can see that we are poisoning our farm animals, and that probably each generation gets more poisoned because the load comes down from mom. I really think I could see the yolks from my chickens getting oranger and oranger with each generation.
I also have posted about the collapse of farming in New England and whether that was about trying to base animal farming on corn rather than on lower-carotene grains. (we grow GREAT corn, (and pumpkins too for that matter) but conditions are not right for grain). According to Price, Both people and farm animals weren't turning out "right". It takes a lot for farmers to uproot themselves. But our area is filled with empty cellar holes and even whole small towns vanished. Farming moved to "the bread basket" and things were probably better for a while. Then the "bread basket" became the "corn basket" and it was around that time Price started seeing the crooked and carious teeth. And now a generation or two later, most Americans are overweight.
I think you're both making valid points.
I agree with @andrei that if people are becoming healthier on a high beef diet, then either the research is misleading or the values in the research are somehow irrelevant to real-life scenarios. Real life results always trump reductionist research. The caveat is that we don't always know we're headed down the wrong path until years later, so you need to be damn sure your health is truly improving rather than just hiding toxins effectively. And because this is often hard to be sure of, it is worth looking into the details like @jeremy to gain some awareness of how you might be harming yourself if you're not careful.
This is why it is so important to understand what humans and animals were physiologically designed to eat pre-agriculture, because everything post-agriculture is a confusing mess of human interventions into complex systems that are not well understood. You might think that changing the bovine diet from its natural forage to grain is going to make the meat better for treating VA toxicity, but you really don't know all the other things about that meat that have been changed along with the VA content and how that influences your body. If you can put your body back into an environment in which is was made to thrive, it's likely to be a self-correcting situation without having to piece apart the science behind it.
Quote from lil chick on May 27, 2021, 11:00 amI also have posted about the collapse of farming in New England and whether that was about trying to base animal farming on corn rather than on lower-carotene grains. (we grow GREAT corn, (and pumpkins too for that matter) but conditions are not right for grain). According to Price, Both people and farm animals weren't turning out "right".
I have forgotten that part of Price's book but it sounds scary! Your comments are very interesting.
Quote from BeefWizard on May 27, 2021, 6:04 amIt is when reading threads like these that I start to question the sanity of people on this forum.
I'd rather eat grass fed any day of the week, regardless of its supposed vA content. Just use some common sense when you buy your meat: if the fat's got too much of a yellow tint, go for a whiter one or, ideally, a leaner one. I find it funny how you guys take the maximum recorded value and run away with it.
I don't think grain fed meat is that bad if it's organic, but to call grass fed meat the lesser of the two seems idiotic, especially when knowing it's what the cows thrive on.
Where is the evidence that grassfed beef is oh so much more nutritious? It has already been established that it has way more PUFA and VA than conventional beef, I don't see how some theoretical increase of vitamin b3 or whatever could make up for that.
I realize this is not a carnivore group but maybe some case studies would be useful. There is scarce evidence on the healthfulness of grass fed beef based on long term carnivore diet success stories. The following folks come to mind as having been somewhat public with long term (say more than ten years) carnivore diet adherence: Joe and Charlene Anderson, Charles Washington, Kelly Hogan, and Amber O'Hearn. I believe the first three (the Andersons, Washington) have mainly eaten fatty, grain-fed ribeyes. Hogan traditionally ate hamburger patties, some chicken and other stuff and now eats a more diverse, possibly high vitamin A, diet, according to some photos on Instagram. O'Hearn eats a variety of likely grain fed meats and, as a frequent author/speaker on health, is aware of vitamin A toxicity and doesn't eat tons of organ meats. So I don't think any of these folks ate mostly grass fed meats and they all seem healthy today. So it is pretty clear that eating grass fed is not required for some people to be healthy long term. I don't think we can say more as we don't know what would have happened if these folks had decided to eat grass fed from the beginning.
We also don't know whether the particular supermarket they shopped at was selling meat with vitamin A supplements or any other detail we might care about.