Health Benefits

Animals raised on pasture enjoy a much higher quality of life than those confined within factory farms.  When raised on open pasture, animals are able to move around freely and carry out their natural behaviors. This lifestyle is impossible to achieve on industrial farms, where thousands of animals are crowded into confined facilities, often without access to fresh air or sunlight. These stressful conditions are a breeding ground for bacteria and the animals frequently become ill, so factory farms must routinely treat them with antibiotics to prevent outbreaks of disease.

Grazing on pasture is especially beneficial for sheep and other ruminants, whose bodies are developed to eat grass. The roughage provided by grasses and other plants allows ruminants to produce saliva, which helps neutralize acids that exist naturally in their digestive systems. When taken off pasture and put on a diet of grain, a ruminant will produce less saliva, causing an increase in acidity within its digestive tract. As a result, grain-fed ruminants often suffer from a number of health problems including intestinal damage, dehydration, liver abscesses and even death.  Despite the fact that grain diets can sicken lamb and other ruminants, factory farms feed these animals grain (usually corn or soybeans) because it's a cheap way to fatten animals and force them to grow to market weight as quickly as possible.

Human Health Benefits
A growing body of research indicates that pasture-raised meat, eggs, and dairy products are better for consumers' health than conventionally-raised, grain-fed foods. In addition to being lower in calories and total fat, pasture-raised foods have higher levels of vitamins, and a healthier balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fats than conventional meat and dairy products.

Pasture-Raised Poultry: The health benefits of Pastured Poultry begin with the birds. They have reduced fat and cholesterol because they are adhering to a regimen that physicians usually recommend to their patients, i.e., to eat more greens and fiber, exercise daily and reduce stress levels. Meats, eggs and poultry from grass fed animals have a better balance of health-promoting essential fatty acids, such as omega-3 and omega-6, and have more vitamin E and beta carotene. Recent studies indicate that “grass-grown” meats are the richest source of good fats called CLA (conjugated linoleic acids), which may be linked to reducing the growth of tumors.

Eggs from pasture-raised chicken were also found to be nutritionally superior to their factory farmed counterparts; compared to eggs from caged birds, pastured eggs had 10% less fat, 40% more vitamin A, 400% more omega-3s, and 34% less cholesterol.

Pastured Pork:  In addition to tasting better than the flavorless pork produced on factory farms, pork from pasture-raised pigs is more nutritious. Studies indicate that pastured pork has more vitamin E and more omega-3 fatty acids than factory-farmed pork.

For more information about the benefits of pastured raised meats visit www.eatwild.com.