10

MEAT, FOWL, AND EGGS

Knowledge of primal foods used by our ancient ancestors, primitive cultures surviving into the twentieth century, and contemporary hunter-gatherers known to be free of chronic disease shows that meat, fowl, eggs, milk, and milk products should form a substantial part of an optimal diet, if of the proper quality. But differences between traditional and modern versions of these foods warrant close examination. In this chapter, the methods of the modern meat industry will be examined: the living conditions of animals; antibiotics, hormones, and feeds routinely used throughout the industry; and the inspection and regulatory systems for meat. Controversy about the meat industry centers on the use of antibiotics and carcinogenic hormones in particular, but perhaps even more significant is the effect of an animal’s diet and exercise upon the composition of the meat produced. The products themselves will also be examined as we learn how the meat we consume has changed in the years since the end of World War II.

Naturally raised animals warrant an equally thorough examination. Increasing numbers of livestock producers raise animals out at pasture without using drugs, chemicals, pesticides, or hormones. Fats derived from wild ungulates have been shown by laboratory analysis to be significantly different from those of conventionally raised, grain-fed domestic cattle. Analysis has also shown similarities between fats from grass-fed domestic cattle and those from wild grazing animals. Fats of grain-fed animals are much higher in monounsaturated fats. Saturated fats, omega-3, and omega-6 fats are about the same.

The quality of eggs, milk, and milk products is based on these same influences—animals must be well exercised, and range- and pasture-fed, if they are to produce top-quality food. The processes of pasteurization and homogenization also have profound effects on milk and milk products. Here again, comparing and contrasting information about conventional products and naturally produced counterparts provides a basis for making informed choices.

In recent years, many people have decided to eat less meat. Reports commonly appear in the media about antibiotics, chemical residues, and female hormones in animals, the dangers of cholesterol and fats, shoddy inspection procedures, and a host of other confirmed or possible problems with meat. Thus, meat consumption is down. But many people eating less meat would leap at the chance to have venison or other wild game, without thinking twice about the cholesterol content (which happens to be about the same in wild meat as in domestic). And though many others may not have a taste for it, most people intuitively know that wild game is healthy food as long as it is eaten with fat.

Several influences affect an animal’s life and the composition and quality of its meat. Among them are its food, the use of drugs and toxic chemicals in its care and feeding, and its access to fresh air and exercise. An awareness of the connection between food and health takes us to the next step, to the realization that the composition of the meat we eat profoundly affects us.

THE CONVENTIONAL PRODUCTION OF MEAT

Commercial calves nurse from cows that have been fed hay grown with chemical fertilizers derived from petrochemicals and heavily sprayed with pesticides. Cows are usually fed a synthetic protein supplement.

When two months old, males are castrated and all calves are implanted with a growth-stimulating hormone (typically a female hormone). Because diarrhea is common at this age, many ranchers mass-treat calves with antibiotics; when calves are weaned at seven months of age, more antibiotics are used to control possible respiratory ailments. At that time, animals are again implanted with a hormonal growth promoter, wormed, and dipped in a toxic insecticide bath to kill lice that produce scabies. Farmers, by law, must dispose of residual liquids at licensed toxic-waste-disposal sites.

From this point on, low levels of antibiotics are constantly added to feed rations. For some undiscovered reason, this stimulates growth, as do hormonal implants.

Beef cattle typically weigh about six hundred pounds when fifteen months old, when another hormonal implant is made. Fly-control procedures are employed in grazing areas; insecticides are spread by tractor-driven sprayers or by aerial spraying of animals with crop-dusting aircraft. Ear tags impregnated with insecticide are often used. (The ears are the place of choice for hormone and insecticide implants because humans do not customarily eat an animal’s ears.)

Animals go to feedlots for ninety days of fattening when about eighteen months old; again they are wormed, dipped, and implanted with a hormone. Fly-control insecticide procedures are intensified because of crowded quarters, and a larger dose of antibiotics is used in feed because of the great danger of infectious disease. Respiratory disease is especially difficult to control; dust kicked up by thousands of cattle is hard on the animals’ lungs.

Because pregnancy in heifers in feedlots is highly undesirable development of a drug causing pregnant heifers to miscarry has been welcomed by feedlot operators; many routinely inject all incoming heifers. The drug, called Lutalyse, is a synthetic analogue of a naturally occurring prostaglandin that helps regulate the reproductive cycle. Specifically, Lutalyse brings on ovulation, which in a pregnant heifer induces miscarriage.

The active ingredient has the same effect on the human female reproductive tract. The label states: “Women of childbearing age . . . should exercise extreme caution when handling this product.” A veterinarian wrote in a column in Beef magazine: “Pregnant women should not even handle the bottles as they could cause abortion and changes in the menstrual cycle . . . just from absorption through the skin.” The manufacturer states that no residues of Lutalyse are ever found in beef. Can we be sure?

The Use of Antibiotics

Many millions of years ago certain microorganisms developed the ability to make compounds that can inhibit the growth of, or kill, competing organisms; we call these compounds antibiotics. Other organisms in response developed the capacity to resist the effects of the antibiotics; many resistance strategies were developed over the course of evolution.

With the development and increased use of antibiotics in the 1940s, resistant strains of microorganisms greatly increased, and doctors began finding that bacteria resistant to one or more antibiotics were causing disease in susceptible individuals. By the late 1960s, epidemics of such diseases, including typhoid and dysentery, had occurred in several places around the world.

This has been attributed in part to the overuse of antibiotics in humans. However, a large and growing number of scientists believe the use of very large quantities of antibiotics in domestic-animal production is a major cause of this worldwide increase in the number of disease-causing pathogens resistant to antibiotics. These scientists believe antibiotics added to animal feed are creating drug resistance in livestock bacteria that is transferable to human bacteria. As quoted by Orville Schell in Modern Meat, the Japanese microbiologist who discovered the mechanisms by which these “resistance factors” operate (and his work has been confirmed by a host of other researchers) wrote many years ago in Scientific American that the overuse of antibiotics might well make them useless. By all accounts, the problem has since become much worse.

In the late 1940s, researchers at Lederle Laboratories in Pearl River, New York, accidentally discovered that animals grew more rapidly when their feed contained low levels of antibiotics. Publication of experimental results and marketing efforts followed shortly, and by 1954 nearly five hundred thousand pounds of antibiotics were added to livestock feed yearly; about nine million pounds a year were added by 1980. In 1980, American Cyanamid alone (the parent company of Lederle) sold drugs worth $120 million for animal use in this country, and drugs worth $265 million abroad. About half were tetracycline-based feed additives.

Money makes powerful lobbies; the drug and cattle industries have successfully blocked efforts of hundreds of scientists and physicians to prevail upon the government to stem the use of penicillin and tetracycline as feed additives. These efforts have been backed by an array of published documentation about the seriousness of the problem. The United States does not regulate the use of antibiotics on animals or in their feed.

The issue of residues of antibiotics and other drugs in meat is more difficult to track and measure than the resistance problem, for residues may only be discovered when tests are run, and by then the carcass has usually gone to market. Violative levels of antibiotics and sulfur drugs are often found in inspected animals. The continuous use of small amounts of antibiotics in feed, and the periodic use of large doses to control disease, assures that even if levels in excess of allowable amounts are not present, trace amounts of the drugs, their conjugates, and their metabolites will be present in the meat. (These conjugates and metabolites are compounds the drugs are converted to within the animal; they are little understood and are not measured.)

The Use of Hormones

A number of natural and synthetic sex hormones cause livestock and poultry to gain weight more rapidly and with greater feed efficiency. Used in increasing amounts since the early 1950s, these hormones have drastically changed the way animals are raised.

The endocrine system consists of tiny hormone-producing glands that, together with the nervous system, regulate metabolism. Active in minute amounts, hormones change delicate balances within the endocrine system by exciting cells in tissues sensitive to them. This excitation can be a trigger inducing the growth of cancer. Though we have evidence that the effects can be devastating, some of these substances have not been in use long enough to demonstrate the long-term effects of increased body loads.

Diethylstilbestrol (DES) was for many years the most widely used of these hormones in both livestock and humans. An inexpensive synthetic estrogen, it was extremely popular in the cattle industry. In tests with steers, DES increased weight gain 15 to 19 percent and feed efficiency 7 to 10 percent.

But in the late 1960s, physicians for the first time found clear-cell adenocarcinoma (cancer) of the vagina in girls and women under the age of twenty-five. Ensuing studies revealed that in the majority of cases, their mothers had been prescribed DES during pregnancy for the purpose of preventing miscarriage, a common treatment given an estimated three to six million women from 1941 to 1971.

Incredibly, DES therapy for pregnant women continued until 1971 even after DES had been shown to cause cancer in tests with laboratory animals, at levels close to those periodically detected in the inspection of meat from animals raised on DES. Detection methods do not reveal levels of various conjugates and metabolites of DES, which may be the substances doing the actual damage. This is a severe limitation of testing for residues of toxic substances used in raising animals; the problem of residues is likely much more severe than tests indicate.

Despite limitations, by the early 1960s testing procedures established that DES was present in meat, and it was to be banned under the Delaney Clause. This legislation, a 1958 amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, states that “no food additive shall be deemed safe if it is found to induce cancer when ingested by man or animal.” However, in 1962 Congress passed another amendment specifically allowing continued use of DES in livestock. And it continued to be used to treat pregnant women at risk of miscarrying. Only upon publication of reports of cancer in young women as described above did pressure leading to the eventual banning of DES begin to mount, and it was finally banned in the 1970s.

Other incidents had occurred. For a time in the 1950s, DES implants were used in caponizing (castrating) male chickens. Dogs eating waste from the processing of these chickens, and some men and boys eating chicken necks, began showing signs of feminization (the implants were in the chickens’ necks). The FDA then banned the use of implants for caponization (castration), and the USDA bought some ten million dollars’ worth of contaminated chicken and destroyed it. Other reports in medical journals describe young children developing breast enlargement after exposure to DES in products accidentally contaminated with the substance.

In Puerto Rico, where DES continued to be used, a virtual epidemic of premature sexual development, with grossly enlarged breasts in young children of both sexes and ovarian cysts and precocious puberty in girls, occurred in the early 1980s. Hundreds of children were treated by physicians who eventually linked the problem to overuse of DES in locally produced chicken. The chicken producers in Puerto Rico had been selling over five hundred thousand pounds of chicken each year to the school lunch program. Then, while the plight of hundreds of sick children was being publicized, the weight of the chickens suddenly and mysteriously dropped from about four pounds each down to two to three pounds, presumably because the chicken producers stopped using DES. In Puerto Rico, drugs such as DES were also being sold over the counter for animal use with no veterinary prescription needed.

This story has a relatively happy ending, however. In the vast majority of children afflicted, symptoms largely disappeared once the ingestion of suspected products ceased. Those who drank a lot of milk were, to a degree, protected. Orville Schell’s fine investigative account of this story, related in his book Modern Meat (much of the information in this section on the meat industry comes from Schell’s research), paints a poignant picture of the pathos of the children and the callous unconcern of the industries and regulatory agencies involved. Whichever food producer was most to blame, the overuse of DES was almost certainly the cause of the problems.

In the United States, such problems have also been linked to soy formula; other evidence implicated meat and milk producers. The FDA and other regulatory agencies were uncooperative with attempts by physicians to convince the agency to investigate the suspect producers; nothing was ever proven. However, the FDA finally banned DES feed additives in 1972 and implants in 1973. But as a result of the livestock industry’s legal maneuvering and appeals, the ban did not go into effect until July 13, 1979, when further sale and shipment of DES became illegal. Stocks on hand were to be usable until November 1, 1979, after which further use was illegal.

In March 1980, the FDA discovered that more than 50,000 head of cattle in Texas had been illegally implanted with DES after the ban. Throughout the spring, the count rose; the final tally showed 427,275 head of cattle in 318 feedlots in twenty states had been illegally implanted after the November 1 deadline. Illegal sales of DES had been made by forty-nine drug-distributing companies after the sale deadline date. How many cattle were illegally implanted and not discovered is unknown.

The FDA never prosecuted anyone for any of these violations of the law. Concepts of law and order are often rather selectively applied.

Since DES was banned, cattlemen have chosen from a variety of somewhat more expensive, similar drugs, including chemicals similar in structure to estrogens, and combinations of estradiol and progesterone (two hormones normally produced in minute amounts in the mammalian female body). The market is lucrative; more than 99 percent of conventional feedlot cattle are implanted. Because the substances now used are naturally occurring hormones, attempts to regulate and monitor use have become less restrictive; the drug and cattle industries are being left to monitor themselves.

The danger of these hormones is somewhat subtle. Only tiny amounts of residual substances in meat are ingested, amounts that may only be a small percentage of the same substance normally found in the female body itself. This may seem harmless enough, but the endocrine system is very delicate; fractional amounts of hormones may have profound and long-lasting effects. We are dealing with the unknown—the effect of small doses of hormones over extended periods of time has simply not been investigated. Given the track record of the drug and cattle industries and the federal regulatory agencies involved, the possibility that these substances will be irresponsibly overused seems likely.

The Toxic Diet of Modern Animals

Antibiotic additives in livestock and poultry feed, and the spraying of feedlots with insecticides to control flies, is not the end of the chemical infestation of meat production. Products called oral larvicides have been used to control flies. These organophosphate insecticides are added to feed, and pass through the animal’s gastrointestinal tract, making the animal’s manure toxic to fly larvae. The manufacturers admit that “small amounts” are absorbed, but claim they are metabolized and leave no residue exceeding the allowable levels in meat. Organophosphates are related to nerve gases; while some are thought to be relatively innocuous to mammals, others are deadly.

A partial list of substances that are fed to animals raised for food includes waste scraps and dust from plants manufacturing cardboard containers; waste matter from Frito-Lay plants; shredded cardboard, including the petroleum-based wax coating; waste paper, including additives such as ink, glue, clay, and plastic used in its manufacture; orange-peel pulp (rich in insecticide residues); and cooked garbage. (The cooked garbage was fed to pigs in many hog-producing states, and contained nearly anything one can imagine. Well into the 1980s, many pigs in northern New Jersey received New York City’s garbage every morning.) A subindustry revolved around recycling these materials for animal feed. An array of synthetic flavoring and aroma agents were used to make many of these “foods” palatable to animals.

These products and a variety of mold inhibitors, flavoring agents, and bactericidal agents have been added to the list of nonfoods used to grow and fatten animals for human consumption.

The appearance in the media of these types of stories in addition to the red herring of the extended, extensive, and misleading cholesterol scare have been major causes of a decline in meat consumption in the United States. The real wonder is why consumption has remained as high as it has. While America may continue eating large amounts of meat in part because of a callous national indifference to our collective health, a greater influence may simply be that eating meat is very natural for most people. By and large we enjoy it; meat tastes good and feels satisfying. Humans have always been what some anthropologists call “opportunistic carnivores”—when meat is available, it is eaten. Modern-day hunter-gatherers go to great lengths to ensure a steady supply of meat, even when unlimited amounts of more easily obtained plant foods are available. The capture, sharing, and eating of meat is accorded almost mystical qualities.

Many people today may desire meat because they lack the nutrients provided by natural meat—not necessarily protein, but other fat-soluble nutrients, as discussed in previous chapters. Although modern commercial meat does not supply those nutrients, the desire for meat remains. When told meat is bad for health, we perhaps instinctively reason, “If meat is so bad, how did we make it this far as a species?”

The answer lies in the meat’s quality, which in turn is a direct reflection on the quality of life of the animal consumed. The meat of modern mass-produced animals is not of the high quality that is found in the traditional diet. No private individual, stable, zoo, kennel, or even research facility may legally treat animals in the same way that they are commonly treated on factory farms. Thus individuals producing the nation’s meat have complete control over the treatment and feeding of animals. Laws relating to the quality of meat as it affects the health of consumers are concerned only with preventing tainted meat from reaching consumers; they do not reflect any understanding of what constitutes natural meat with its attendant health benefits. Ironically, the interests of animals and consumers are coincident, for healthy, naturally fed, and humanely raised animals provide healthy food.

AN ALTERNATIVE EXISTS

Since early in the evolution of animal life, animals have utilized other animals in the struggle to survive. The earliest humans ate animals; as we evolved, the capture and consumption of animal life became increasingly important in the unfolding story of humanity. Ancient cave drawings and paintings, traditions surviving into the cultures of modern-day hunter-gatherers, and the rich folklore of a myriad of ethnic cultures all indicate that the killing of animals has always been done with the utmost respect and love for the animal to be eaten, be it wild or domestic. Native concepts of sacred foods and sacred meat discussed in chapter 1 underscore these traditions.

Most of modern production of meat, fowl, and dairy products is a travesty of this rich and uniquely human heritage. By eating these animals we unthinkingly participate in this travesty, perhaps because we believe that we have no choice. But an alternative does exist. Humanely raised healthy meat is available, for a growing number of people are raising food animals naturally. Healthy meat is good food for those who choose to eat meat. It is well worth the extra effort needed to secure it. Through its system of local chapters, the Weston A. Price Foundation (www.westonaprice.org) helps people locate local pasture-fed animal products.

Naturally raised meat, fowl, and eggs are what we will look at next.

PASTURED, NATURALLY RAISED MEAT, FOWL, AND EGGS

Growing numbers of farmers and ranchers throughout America are carrying on a traditional American industry—the raising of animals out at pasture for much or all of the year, without using chemicals, hormones, or drugs. Others attempt this to the extent feasible; finding feed grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers when adequate range is not available (winter in the north, summer in dry areas) can be difficult. Nevertheless, an increasing amount of meat, fowl, and eggs produced mostly or completely without chemicals, hormones, or drugs is becoming available.

Hormones and antibiotics aside, what distinguishes one animal from the next is exercise and what it eats. Meat, fowl, eggs, and dairy products are most beneficial when they derive from animals that have lived outdoors eating their natural diets. This means beef and lamb raised on grass, barnyard chickens and their eggs, and milk products from pasture-fed cows and goats. These foods (and seafoods) are rich in fat-soluble protective nutrients; their fat composition is in certain ways similar to that of wild game.

Grass-Fed Beef

Meat from 100 percent grass-fed cattle is becoming much more widely available, not only in specialty markets but also in many supermarkets. Cuts of such meat vary widely in tenderness and fattiness. Preferred are fatty cuts such as rib eye, and hamburger that is “75 percent lean,” rather than the 85 percent and 90 percent one usually sees. When it comes to grass-fed beef, more fat is both healthier and tastier.

Organ Meats

Organs, particularly liver, have rich concentrations of many nutrients. But because the liver purifies the blood, it concentrates substances not naturally present in an animal. While the liver is one of the best parts of a naturally raised animal, liver from conventionally raised animals should be avoided.

Brain is seldom eaten in America today. In other cultures, and in North America in earlier times, it was a delicacy. Some physicians have made use of brain in therapeutic diets. It is now known to be a rich source of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid, very similar to EPA and likely involved in many of the same key metabolic pathways). Francis Pottenger, Jr. recommended brain in an eggnog recipe so it could be eaten raw; liver too was used raw, blended with juice. These foods may be used with excellent results, sometimes in these raw recipes but also lightly broiled. A practical way for many people to obtain these foods is in food supplements. Capsules of freeze-dried organs and glands from grass-fed New Zealand cattle are available.

Heart is extremely lean and muscular, but very tender when lightly cooked. The flavor is similar to that of steak. These and other organs are often available in stores carrying naturally raised meat and fowl, sometimes fresh but often frozen. Organs may be priced rather reasonably because of little demand. I have seen them advertised as pet food and sold cheaply, which seems ironic given that, in times past, Native Americans of the far north ate the organs and left the muscle meat for their dogs.

Lamb

Francis Pottenger, Jr. found lamb of particular value. Among his many publications was an article appearing in the Journal of Applied Nutrition in 1957 entitled “Therapeutic Effect of Lamb Fat in the Dietary.” He notes that lamb fat, particularly lightly cooked or raw, is extremely beneficial for individuals suffering from dry skin or dry hair. Pottenger attributed lamb’s benefits to polyunsaturated fats of animal origin, structurally different from those of vegetable origin. EPA had not yet been discovered; Pottenger empirically found that foods we now know are rich in EPA had great therapeutic benefit.

He wrote that the nutritional value of animal fats depended on various influences: the species of animal, whether or not it had been castrated, the age at slaughter, and the feeding methods used to rear the animal, including the use of hormones and the chemicals used in feed. Precisely because lamb is quite fatty and was ideally raised according to all of the above-referenced counts, it was well suited for individuals with problems related to deficiencies of unsaturated fats of animal origin. Pottenger did not observe the same benefits when beef was substituted for lamb. Lamb was cooked rare, no more than two minutes on a side at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for a one-inch chop. Lamb is very fatty so this will provide substantial, very lightly cooked fat.

Pottenger also wrote that in using substantial portions of lamb and of brain—both very fatty—even in people with initially high cholesterol and triglycerides, he never encountered increases. Instead, levels invariably went down. Parallels with recent discoveries by physicians working with fish oils are striking, and further demonstrate why animals raised on their natural diets provide food for building strength, resistance to disease, and longevity.

Fowl and Eggs

While chickens sold as “organic” or “naturally raised” may indeed be free of chemicals and drugs, most are raised in henhouses. Conditions there are roomier than for conventionally raised chickens, and the diet may be organic grains, but the animals still have little or no exercise and are not eating their natural diet.

Free-range chickens, on the other hand, eat greens, insects, and worms. Free-range chickens have skins that are a golden yellow color due to the rich supply of carotenes in fresh greens. They are a bit tougher and have a gamier taste than conventionally raised chickens. Their eggs have far more omega-3 fats.

Some fertile and organic eggs are from confined chickens. While superior to conventional supermarket eggs, they do not compare with eggs from free-range chickens. The latter have a bright yellow-orange yolk, a noticeably thicker and stronger shell, and a distinctly enhanced flavor.

Now that we have discussed the consumption of meat, fowl, and eggs—what to incorporate and what to avoid, and why—let us now turn our attention to fish and shellfish and put it under the same microscope of critical examination.