Meat and Dairy in the Diet

Learning the Hard Way

In the late 1970’s, I spent a full three years on a very strict macrobiotic diet. Primarily brown rice, other grains such as barley and buckwheat, various kinds of beans, especially adzuki, and condiments such as tamari, miso, sesame seeds, tahini, and sea salt. Small amounts of vegetables and a little bit of fish completed this regimen. While it was a welcome break from the ‘average American diet,’ macrobiotics had its eventual downside. Too few liquids, almost no live enzymes since virtually all the food was cooked, and a drastic lack of protein, minerals, and essential fatty acids among other nutrients, finally had their effect. My body became stiff, I was depressed most of the time, and the excess salt buildup resulted in a low-level headache. My skin became sallow and lifeless looking. I definitely did not radiate the vibrant health I aspired to.

My body finally got the message through to me that it wanted a change. One morning, as I went downstairs to do some stretching in the living room, a huge wave of fatigue overtook me. I turned right around, went back upstairs, and lay down again in bed. Within one hour, my temperature had gone up to 104 degrees. I lay in a stupor all day, barely able to move.

Then, as quickly as it had come, the fever vanished. I felt ravenously hungry, but none of my usual macrobiotic fare held any appeal whatsoever. I drank some tea, then got in my car and drove to the nearest supermarket. On a macrobiotic diet, very little fresh fruit was allowed, though I think nowadays, the diet is a little more varied. Fruit was considered too ‘yin’ (too sweet and liquid).

However, when I walked into that supermarket, the vibrant reds and yellows of tangerines, apples, and other fruit called to me. That was the beginning of three years on a totally raw, enzyme-rich sproutarian diet which included lots of fresh carrot, beet, and green juice, sprouts of all kinds (of course), salads, fruit, and fermented nuts and seeds.

My body had flip-flopped right to the other extreme. By the time I had been on the sproutarian diet for a few years, though I had a very ‘clean’ body and nice complexion, certain body functions were deteriorating. Though I was active, stretching, doing long-distance running most days, and swimming at the local YMCA, my endurance began to diminish.

My digestive functions were losing efficiency. I always had diarrhea. I had to be careful not to run too far from home, for I needed breaks every mile or so. I also had cravings for animal protein, but if I took a bite of chicken or other meat, it would proceed to sit in my stomach like a lump of lead.

A New Life

I was trapped; I thought I was on the best diet, yet not healthy. Ready for a change, yet my body could not deal with animal protein. A friend finally convinced me to join him as a guest at a college class in nutrition taught by Dr. Carleton Fredericks, longtime nutritional educator with his own radio show. Dr. Fredericks worked as an advisor to some of the alternative medical doctors of the time, among them, Dr. Warren Levin and Dr. Michael Schachter.

In Dr. Fredericks class, I learned that rare steak and other animal products were not only beneficial, but contained nutrients that just could not be gotten from a plant-based diet. Vitamins A and D, B12, and some beneficial forms of essential fatty acids are among the nutrients I was missing. Plus the body’s ability to metabolize and absorb calcium and magnesium requires adequate vitamin A (not beta-carotene, which many people can’t convert into vitaminA), and vitamin D, which especially in winter, needs to be obtained from fish, cod liver oil, and can be gotten from high-vitamin butter and other dairy products from grass-fed cows.

Once I added some minerals, digestive enzymes, and high-quality animal protein and fats to my diet, my natural vitality returned, and I looked and felt much healthier.

You Can Do It The Easy Way

No need to be a die-hard plant-based food fanatic for a half dozen years to test the theory. Though individuals vary in their nutritional requirements, and an occasional brief stint on a sproutarian or other limited diet can be a good thing, most of us need high-quality animal protein and fat to be optimally healthy.

Most People Don’t Think of This...

A lot of attention is given to the idea that various kinds of pollutants can accumulate in animal tissues. However, this varies greatly depending on how the animals are fed, and the environment in which they are raised. Free-range livestock that feed on clover, wild grasses, (and the raspberry and blackberry brambles, etc. that are always trying to gain a foothold in pastureland) are as free of toxins as any organically grown produce.

But one of the most important benefits of healthy pasture raised meat is generally overlooked completely.....

Pasture-fed livestock are great concentrators of the rich array of beneficial compounds in what is essentially wild plant material - tough grasses that are hell to get out of a garden, wildflowers, berry plants, and herbs that are always trying to get a foothold in the grasslands, plus the bark, leaves and twigs they strip off trees. These plants are far more full of beneficial compounds than anything humans have domesticated! And we humans can’t digest that stuff! All those powerful phytonutrients are transformed by the cows, sheep, goats, and even chickens, ducks, and turkeys - into a form that is very easy for the human body to absorb!

Plus pasture raised livestock including fowl have enhanced levels of omega 3 essential fatty acids. For example, did you know that chickens and ducks will gobble up lots of insects and grubs when raised in a natural environment? Those bugs contain a tremendous amount of omega 3’s which then get concentrated in their meat and eggs. Australian Aborigines and various African tribes living on their native diet consume insects and grubs. But do you want to do that? Uh-uh!!

One thing a lot of folks don't think about is that cows, sheep and goats are ruminants. They have three stomachs, and chew their cud - chewing and redigesting all those plant foods in 3 progressive stages. They can eat and efficiently absorb plant material that we humans could only consume at our peril - blackberry canes, tree leaves, rough-edged grasses, acorns, etc. A woman from a farming family told me that when cows and beef cattle eat red clover, for example, beneficial phytoestrogens are passed on to humans who consume their meat or milk. How many nutrients do you think you could absorb from chewing up freshly-picked red clover? Plant compounds of all kinds, not just phytoestrogens, contribute to the vitality that is passed on to us through consuming meat and milk from pasture-raised animals.

Yes, we can dry bark and herbs, soak them in alcohol and make tinctures and the like, or cook certain things we can’t eat raw, but we sure can't go out there and eat tree leaves, berry bushes, and wild grasses when they are fresh and full of life energy. That would even wear down our teeth in no time! So grass fed cows, sheep, and goats do the work of chewing and digesting plant materials that are more rich in nutrients than plant foods that we can consume. They efficiently absorb many valuable nutrients from these foods. Over time, these nutrients become concentrated in their meat and milk, and are very easy for us to absorb.

A Double-Edged Sword

The ability of ruminants to absorb stuff that we can't is a double-edged sword. It allows factory farms to feed garbage to livestock; rotten citrus peels from the juice manufacturers, moldy spoiled chips from corn chip makers, and of course, the old standby, cardboard, complete with glue. This results in meat that not only does not taste as good as it could, but is loaded with toxins from the animals’ diet of garbage. Many years ago, I read a fascinating book, 'Modern Meat,' by Orville Schell. It is a shocking (even for the knowledgeable) expose' of the commercial meat industry. Once I tasted pasture-grown beef and free-range chicken and duck eggs, the taste of commercial factory-farmed animal products of any kind repulsed me.

If I were limited to commercially-raised meat, eggs, and dairy, I would tend to eat more plant foods. However, it must be remembered that conventional plant foods aren’t much better because of the massive amount of pesticides and chemical fertilizers that are used. To say nothing of genetic engineering. The fact that conventional fruits and vegetables are selected more for appearance and keeping quality rather than taste and nutritive value, adds to the problem.

Your Best Bet...

Even in some regular supermarkets, meat, dairy, and eggs naturally raised without hormones or antibiotics, and even some organic products, are becoming more available. For example, my Mom, who lives in western New York State, is able to get Bell & Evans chickens, naturally raised lamb from Australia, and some organic vegetables at her local Topps supermarket.

However, your best bet is to obtain organic grass-fed beef, dairy, and chicken. If you don’t live in an area where that’s possible, you might want to check out the excellent company featured on my affiliate page.

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