OXFORD – A small crowd gathered at the Capitol Theatre in Oxford Friday night to learn a little more about the nutritional value to eating grass-fed beef. Three guest speakers; Nancy McLean, Allison Chisholm and Paolo Brenciaglia, gave presentation about just how much more nutritious is it to eat beef that isn’t grain fed.
“I did fatty acid analysis on (different) beef and what I found was drastic differences,” said McLean during her presentation. “The Nova Scotia beef that I collected, those animals had never been fed grain, never eaten any cereal grains. So what that did to the beef was change the fatty acid composition.”
McLean said the fatty acids humans need to eat are omega-3’s and omega-6’s. Omega-3’s are the fatty acids that we lack in our diet and through her study, she found that grass-fed beef in Nova Scotia had four times more omega-3 fatty acid than the grain-fed purchased in the grocery stores.
“The other fatty acid that gets a lot of attention is the CLAs (conjugated linoleic acids),” she said. “Those were two times higher in the grass-fed N.S. beef than the super markets’. CLAs are one of the few cancer fighting chemicals.”
CLAs, McLean said, are also anti-obesity agents. Omega-3’s help form their neurons in your brain and make them more fluid. They help reduce depression and increase cardiovascular health.
For more information about grass-fed beef, visit lindenleas.ca.
jturner@amherstdaily.com
