I want...
October 1, 2024 By
Leanne Vogel
February 4, 2025
Autumn Smith
Phytonutrients in beef. Right? So we always think about, oh well, beef has B vitamins and minerals, but beef has 40,000 different compounds. And a lot of it is phytonutrients that like literally it becomes kind of like an imprint or a photograph of the landscape from which it’s raised. Right. That’s why the flavor is so different when you have regenerative beef. And that’s why it’s actually far more satiating because you have these anti diabetic, anti inflammatory, antidepressant fiber phytonutrients that can sometimes be in such large amounts that they rival vegetables.
Leanne Vogel
Hello, my friend. It is time for another episode. I can’t even fathom how it is October already. My parents weren’t lying. As you get older, the years just flow by so quickly. Today we have a really fun conversation about meat and your diet. We have had lots of conversations on the podcast in the past about this. There was actually an episode, episode 442 that takes a very different direction than where we’re going today with our guest Autumn Smith.
Leanne Vogel
So if you want the opposite view of this and a whole different conversation, I encourage you to listen to episode 442. It was labeled balanced conversation on feeding your family well. So the conversation around choosing higher quality foods just has you stressed out and you’re not sure what to prioritize. It’s a really good one to listen to. I think a big part of this is just understanding what are the lowest hanging fruit pieces that are going to make a massive difference in my health. And I think in the terms of meat and Autumn and I chat about this kind of at the end of the interview is like in my mind, I think if the only clean thing I can eat is chicken, I’m in a better place with my meat because chicken by far is probably the more problematic of all of the meat sources, I would say. So if you’re not familiar with Autumn, she struggled with debilitating digestive issues and anxiety for most of her life until she transformed her health by embracing Whole Foods. In 2013, she co founded Paleo Valley with her husband Chaz to help others access nutrient dense foods free from harmful ingredients.
Leanne Vogel
Inspired by the healing powers of grass fed meat, they launched wild pastures in 2018, a regenerative meat delivery service. Now a mother, Autumn is dedicated to making healthy foods accessible and promoting sustainable practices for health of the planet and future generations. I’ve known Autumn since the beginning of her business way back in 2013. I’ve seen all those iterations. It has just been so fun to stand alongside her and watch her businesses bloom and her passion for people’s health. Just go alongside that. In today’s episode, we’re chatting about regenerative agriculture and food sovereignty, what that means, how you can get involved just with the purchasing power of your family and the choices that you meet. We’re talking about the nutritional value of meat and the misconceptions that we may have.
Leanne Vogel
We’re talking about the nutrients and cla and omega balance. We’re chatting about the challenges of the food system and issues with hidden hunger and just oh, it’s a good one. So if you want to learn more about Autumn or just support what they have going on, the best place place to interact with them is to go to paleovalley.com leanne I support Paleo Valley 100. I use their products personally all the time. My husband is obsessed with their bars. He has probably two a day and we love their bone broth protein. So again, that’s paleovalley.com leanne for 15 off your order, you can use the code Leanne okay, let’s get to our time with Autumn. Hey, my name is Leanne and I’m fascinated with helping women navigate how to eat, move and care for their bodies.
Leanne Vogel
This has taken me on a journey from vegan keto, high protein to everything in between. I’m a small town holistic nutritionist turned three time international bestselling author turned functional medicine practitioner offering telemedicine services around the globe to women looking to better their health and stop second guessing themselves. I’m here to teach you how to wade through the wellness noise to get to the good stuff that’ll help you achieve your goals. Whether you’re seeking relief from chronic ailments, striving for peak performance, or simply eager to live a more vibrant life, this podcast is your go to resource for actionable advice and inspiration. Together we’ll uncover the interconnectedness of nutrition, movement, sleep, stress management and mindset, empowering you to make informed choices that support your unique health journey. Think of it as quality time with your bestie mixed with a little med school school so you’re empowered. At your next doctor visit, get ready to be challenged and encouraged while you learn about your body and how to care for it healthfully. Join me as we embrace vitality, reclaim our innate potential and discover what it truly means to pursue healthfulness.
Leanne Vogel
Hey Autumn, how’s it going?
Autumn Smith
Leanne, it’s so good to see your face and hear your voice. Thanks for Having me on it has.
Leanne Vogel
Been a long time. I don’t even know the last time I got to see you. Like eons years, five, something like that, maybe. Let’s choose five. Let’s just choose five. That’s a good guess. You’ve been up to a whole bunch of things in like a very. Because there’s a lot of them.
Leanne Vogel
You could probably tell us for an hour what are like the key highlights that are going on in your life right now that’s really lighting up the work that you’re doing.
Autumn Smith
Ooh, so many things. A. My son, our son, Maverick, and just his development and him, he becoming. Becoming this little person who’s interested in the world around him. So it’s, it’s, you know, I’ve become interested in this topic because we found out that, you know, if we don’t change the way we’re doing agriculture, then his generation won’t be able to grow their own food. That’s terrifying. So being able to see him step into that and kind of become interested in that, that’s really lighting up my work. Also, I just finished my doctorate.
Autumn Smith
That’s, of course, been very humbling, inspiring, gratifying, all the things right. Took me four years to go from a master’s to a doctorate. And I got to be part of this exceptional project that I could not be more grateful for. That we can talk about. Also, rethink meat. I’m doing a whole docu series. There will be eight videos and we will just explore the history of meat demonization, whether the quality matters, you know, saturated fat, veganism, all the things. We’re just kind of exploring all of the things around meat because there’s this mainstream narrative that I think is harmful in some respects.
Autumn Smith
And of course, so many new products. We have a burger restaurant now, local, with no seed oils and sugar and all regenerative, egg based, if you’re in the Denver area. But we’ve got a lot going on. But yeah, all good things.
Leanne Vogel
That’s incredible. So what do you get now that you finished your dissertation? What do you get to call yourself now? Like, what’s your thing? What’s the title?
Autumn Smith
Dr. Adam Smith.
Leanne Vogel
Crazy.
Autumn Smith
I know, it’s wild. It’s so wild. It’s something I always wanted to do. And when I got out of college the first time for my bachelor’s, I almost went and got a play therapy, a doctorate in play therapy. And then life intervened and I did fitness training and got found nutrition instead. But a doctorate has always been a goal, so it feels good. At 41, to finally be able to check that box.
Leanne Vogel
That’s so cool. That is so cool. Okay, so why agriculture? You mentioned about Maverick getting older and wanting to set up that generation, but is it a sexy topic right now or like, what. Why agriculture?
Autumn Smith
Well, I got. So we have a lot of relationships with ranchers. I’m from Montana. Ranchers, producers, they’re my people. And we kind of started to see the nuance with the way people were raising meat and hearing that, you know, this. They say that this is not necessarily accurate. It’s an estimation. But people have said we have about 60 years of topsoil left, meaning we’ll be able to grow our food for a limited amount of time if we continue on the trajectory that we’re on.
Autumn Smith
And my husband and I thought, whoa, that’s scary. Having a son, thinking we’re going to leave him a planet where he might not be able to sustain himself. And so we decided to talk to those producers about. Okay, okay. Is there a type of agriculture that is regenerative? Rehabilitative. Rehabilitative. And there is. It’s called regenerative agriculture.
Autumn Smith
And at the addict’s crux is restoring the health of the soil. Because our current agricultural practices deplete the life in the soil. And if there’s no life in the soil, we can’t be sequestering carbon. The water structure is broken down. We’re not going to be able to grow things. And so grow food. 97% of our calories come from the soil. It’s the basis of our economy.
Autumn Smith
Everything happens because of soil. You know, antibiotics, I mean, all of these different antimicrobials. So we just realized if you can produce food in a way that builds soil rather than degrades it, we definitely want to be a part of that. Because I think if we don’t, we’re in for a very rude awakening. And I think it has become a sexy topic. I mean, I don’t think it was when I got interested in a few years ago, but I think people are really waking up to the reality that we are losing topsoil at a rate far faster than we are building it. But also that if we just pay a little more attention to the way our food is produced, we can absolutely change that. We can.
Autumn Smith
Absolutely. Course. Correct.
Leanne Vogel
So is this about the health of the planet or our health or both? Or what are the impacts of the woman listening who’s 45 years old and trying to feed her family?
Autumn Smith
Yes, it’s both. It’s both. I think they’re one and indivisible. I don’t think we can separate ourselves from the health of the planet. Right. If we don’t have healthy water, if we don’t have healthy food, if we don’t have healthy air to breathe, if we don’t have healthy animals, can we really then be healthy ourselves? I don’t really think so. And if it at a more direct and kind of like, like macro or micro scale, the changes in meat in plants, they’re there. There’s a huge variation in one carrot to the other carrot in one chicken breast to the other chicken breast, depending on how the production system is, is set up.
Autumn Smith
So Dan Kittredge at the Bionutrient Institute has studied this in excruciating depth. And just, he’s actually creating a handheld meter where consumers will be able to go to the store and scan a piece of produce or scan a piece of meat and see which one is actually the most nutrient dense. That was kind of the. One of the impetuses for the project I was a part of in my dissertation. Because right now producers are incentivized to grow as much as they can. Just big produce, right? Not necessarily nutrient dense food. And the nutrient density of our food is lower than at any other point in history. And part of that is again, that life in the soil is broken.
Autumn Smith
So there’s nutrients in the soil, but if the life in the soil isn’t able to take those nutrients and give them access to the plants and who then give them access to the animals and then the humans, we’re not going to be able to benefit from those nutrients, those nutrients that we absolutely require. And so, yes, if we are able to help people understand that we need to change the way we do agriculture. We need to be thinking about nutrient density. It needs to be the foundation of the way that we choose our food. And it’s really not that hard because it’s just a little education. Because there are affordable options these days, right? We’re talking farmers markets. We created one ourselves. And it just takes a few changes, like a little horizontal shift.
Autumn Smith
It doesn’t need to be a complete life overhaul. It doesn’t need to be far more expensive. There’s a lot of people waking up to this concept and a lot of great producers, probably in your area for most people too.
Leanne Vogel
Okay. So for that individual that I know that we, because we have a background in nutrition, understand the benefit of nutrients. Like if you don’t have enough selenium, your thyroid’s not going to be functioning. If you don’t have enough zinc, you’re not going to have enough stomach acid. If you don’t have enough magnesium, you’re not going to be sleeping well. And so would you say that? I know what I notice, at least in my practice is people are looking for that like one ticket item of like, let’s just find the thing that’s making me unwell. And time and time and time again, nutrients are taking more and more and more of a front and center stage in my practice. Because if we’re deficient in these specific minerals or vitamins, we are not going to be able to function.
Leanne Vogel
Like in the case of magnesium, there are 600 different enzymatic processes which require magnesium or folate. If you don’t have enough folate, you’re not creating energy. And so is that kind of how we take this conversation around agriculture and bring it into the individual? And why this topic is important is just kind of connecting symptoms with nutrient impact?
Autumn Smith
Yeah. There’s been research done to suggest, you know, almost every American is deficient in at least one nutrient. And there’s this really cool paper from Dr. Thai Beal and he looked at low and middle income countries, but even in developed countries like America. And one out of two women were deficient in just, you know, from iron to zinc to calcium, folate, B12, like you’re saying. So this is at least half of us, probably all of us. And you’re right, these nutrient deficiencies aren’t necessarily going to kill us tomorrow, but they’re significantly reducing the quality of our lives. Fatigue, we all struggle with fatigue.
Autumn Smith
We’re not being able to produce the energy. We need those minerals, we need the vitamins. That is what helps our body produce the energy we need. There’s actually a very strange relationship between excess weight and nutrient deficiency. Right. It’s called hidden hunger. Right. We have enough weight on our body, but we’re not able to produce energy or use that energy in the most efficient way.
Autumn Smith
So, you know, whether it’s weight gain, fatigue, brittle hair and nails. Right. Getting sick all the time. Right. Vitamin C, zinc, vitamin D. And then there’s very, very interesting things around omega 3 fatty acids. And 90, I think it’s 92,000Americans die every single year due to omega 3 fatty acid deficiency. And so yes, it’s a wide, widespread problem.
Autumn Smith
And if it’s not in the soil, we’re not going to have it in our body. And if it’s not in our body, we’re not going to live to our fullest potential. And we’re probably not going to last as long. And even if you’re of childbearing age or you have kids, their development is going to be stunted. So this is a huge, enormous problem that I think we do need to address within this generation. I think the way we do agriculture is the one of the major issues of our time.
Leanne Vogel
When we’re talking about agriculture, is it a matter too, of how we’re treating the plants that were that we’re growing? Like in the case of glyphosate and everyone who’s talking about glyphosate right now, is that something that you studied through this as well, or is it more in just the raising of animals as opposed to the treatment of products?
Autumn Smith
Well, yeah, you know, I looked into specifically beef’s nutrient profile, but what I did, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Dwayne Lee Johnson.
Leanne Vogel
That name rings a bell, but go ahead.
Autumn Smith
Yeah, so. So glyphosate as it pertains to, like, animal products, I think it was like a quarter of a billion pounds of pesticides was used just on the food raised to feed our animals. And so Dr. Zach Bush has done a lot of interesting research on glyphosate and its negative effects on our microbiome, killing off key species. Right. So if we don’t have microbial health and, you know, it affects every single thing in our body because that’s the basis of our health. So there’s that and the microbiome effects. But then.
Autumn Smith
Doctor. Not. Doctor, Actually, Dwayne Lee Johnson, he was a guy. He was a groundskeeper in California, and he was basically taught when he worked with glyphosate that it was safe enough to drink. And so even though he wore his protective gear and he was spraying it every day, and one day a hose broke and he actually got it all over his body. But because he thought it was safe enough to drink, he didn’t go home and shower immediately. He just showered when he got home. And then he started developing lesions and eventually non Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Autumn Smith
And he became the first guy to sue Monsanto because of this link with cancer. And he won. He won millions and millions of dollars. And he kind of became. Now there’s, you know, thousands of lawsuits. And so I don’t think there’s a question about whether or not glyphosate is dangerous to humans. I think that there’s definitely many, many people winning lawsuits about its link with non Hodgkin’s lymphoma at least in an occupational sense. Right.
Autumn Smith
When people are working with it. But we also know that it’s everywhere. It’s in our food, it’s in our water, it’s in our air. And there’s a lot of people in agriculture. If we, if we get out of this mindset of competition, competition, competition where we need to grow these large monocultures and we need to kill everything off. Right? That’s why we need a lot of these chemicals, is because we’re working actively against nature. Whereas if we go into a more cooperative, a more diverse ecosystem and like a more regenerative type of agriculture, those problems tend to take care of themselves. Right.
Autumn Smith
Because we have healthy plants, we have a diversity of plants, things kind of work together. And so, yeah, I just, I think that glyphosate is a very large issue and I think we’re only beginning to understand its negative effects. We know kids, right, with higher levels of pesticides in their system. They seem to suffer or maybe some brain changes or ADA types or ADHD type symptomology. There’s been a little bit of research there. But, yeah, I think we will find out more. And if you want to learn more about that, I think Dr. Zach Bush is the guy when it comes to glyphosate.
Autumn Smith
They even call it Cancer Alley. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this, where it’s where the Mississippi river drains into this area. So a lot of our agriculture happens in the east and it drains into this massive river. And then there’s an area between. I think it’s New Orleans, around New Orleans, where they call it Cancer Alley because the cancer rates are through the roof because of all the production and probably all the environmental chemicals. And the really scary thing is, you know, people might argue, oh, glyphosate is safe when used as directed. But what we never test is the concomitant effects. How many different chemicals are we using in agriculture today? Is anyone testing them all together at the same time? No.
Autumn Smith
And so I think it’s a giant experiment and it definitely ruins our water quality. But what it does to the life in the soil, I think is one of the bigger problems too.
Leanne Vogel
So what’s your vision? You talked about being cooperative with nature. You discussed a little bit about regenerative. Can we get an understanding of, like, if we’re doing all these wrong things now, what are the right things? You mentioned farmer’s markets. Like, what’s the alternative and what does that look like?
Autumn Smith
Yeah, that’s a Great question. Well, there is this, and here’s the thing. I think there’s different alternatives for different people. And I think I really like the idea of food sovereignty. Where we look at this system, we look at the region, the bioregion, and we take all these factors into consideration. Because the first principle of regenerative ag is context. What your community needs will be different than what another community needs. Right? And so you just.
Autumn Smith
You have to take that into context. And there’s no perfect system, Right. You can do regenerative principles in many, many different ways. Right. And even if you have a transition period where you have to use chemicals for a while, Right? Because I think that’s all noble and valiant efforts, but I think the ideal is so, you know, you’re using soil armor, right? You’re planting crops. Usually we plant things for about a third of the year. We want to maximize the amount of time that you’re having plants on the pasture. I think animal integration, we have living roots, like I said, as long as we can create living roots, we get life in the soil.
Autumn Smith
We get a system where the nutrients get into the plants. And like I said, animal integration, I think is really important because it was like at the time of the green revolution, we started to separate and diversify. We just. This is a monoculture where we grow a plant and this is a factory farm where we have animals. But animals actually enhance and expedite agriculture in many ways. They’re actually fertilizing the land when they’re not in factory farms. And it’s not overwhelming like millions of pounds of manure, they’re stimulating grass growth. Right.
Autumn Smith
That grass, when stimulated by a ruminant, can actually take carbon out of the air and store it underground. So we’re addressing the atmospheric levels of carbon and then also so least disturbance, as few chemicals as you can possibly use. Right. Tillage, that still happens in, like an organic system. Tillage is actually really dangerous. It leads to carbon sequestration into the air. And so, yeah, regenerative systems are different than the conventional system because they take a plot of land and look at where it’s at and then they make it actively better. Right.
Autumn Smith
We always hear about sustainable, and that just means not making something worse. But regenerative is very different because it doesn’t only not make it worse, it actively makes it better through those principles. You know, using plants, using animals, using as little disturbance as you possibly can, taking the context into consideration. And so I think the future is regenerative agriculture. But what regenerative agriculture looks like is different in all the different bioregions. But I do think animal integration is a really, really important element of that and an often demonized one in a lot of mainstream narratives. And so that’s kind of where my research was focused is animals and meat and can that production of it be sustainable and even beneficial for human and planetary health?
Leanne Vogel
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Leanne Vogel
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Autumn Smith
Okay, I love that question. Okay, so I’m going to take you on two journeys because I think there’s two pieces. The first one is we started to in eight. Before 1850, all cows were grass fed, right? And they lived till about four to five years. And we became more efficient, right? We more people. We had a grain surplus because we had like mechanical reapers and all this different Machinery that were able to process grain more quickly. We had advent of antibiotics. Right.
Autumn Smith
So animals could live in close quarters. They didn’t necessarily need to have a lot of space. We had supplements come into the. So we were able to move animals out of the pasture and really put them into factory farms because we were prioritizing efficiency over ecology. Right. We thought, okay, we just, we need to grow as much food as possible. And so we’re going to do that. I think the intentions were ultimately really good.
Autumn Smith
We just kind of lost sight of the bigger picture. So that was one. And yes, there was a number of influences in the 19th or in the 20th century that led to the demonization of meat. I don’t know if you’re talking about that or you just wanted to talk about how factory farms came to be.
Leanne Vogel
That was my next question. Is the whole demonization over meat. So you can get into it now or later?
Autumn Smith
Okay, no, I will get into it now because I think it’s fascinating. And have you heard of Belinda Fetke?
Leanne Vogel
I haven’t.
Autumn Smith
Okay. So Belinda Fettke and Dr. Gary Fettke, they live in Australia, Tasmania. And he was a diabetic surgeon. So he was doing amputations on his diabetic patients. And he himself was experimenting with low carb, funny enough back in the day. And he found that it was helpful for him at that time. So he told his patients, his diabetic patients, hey, well, maybe we could try eliminating sugar, like refined sugar.
Autumn Smith
And the dietitian on staff didn’t like that, turned him in to the medical board. And he suffered four years of litigation. And his wife sat there, Belinda for the proceedings, until he was. Saw him presenting this very valid science, defending himself, but it didn’t seem to be making any impact. So she looked at like into why. Why is there this narrative around me? And she found a lot of it has to do with religion, actually, the Seven Day Adventists, specifically, where they believe that a pure diet does not include meat. Okay. So they also.
Autumn Smith
Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was a student of Ellen G. White and she was kind of the prophetess of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. And he created Frosted Flakes and Corn Wheat or, you know, Frosted Flakes, sorry. Because he thought that it would help prevent masturbation because they thought that meat led to masturbation. And so they. They did Kellogg’s. And it is an effort to prevent that in children.
Autumn Smith
And the Seventh Day Adventist Church, you know, does a lot of great things, but they’re very influential in hospitals. They’re Very influential in our dietary government’s policy, our dietary recommendations. And then Lena Cooper is one of their. She’s a Seventh Day Adventist and she also founded the American Dietetics Association. And so just kind of baked into a lot of the things that we hear in a lot of the organization, our authorities on this topic. We have that view, that vantage point, right? That lens we’re coming at. Then we had William Proctor and James Gamble, and they figured out how to make Crisco, which was really made from cottonseed oil, contained trans fat. And they just were good marketers, right? They convinced the American public that this was a wonderful alternative, a cleaner, a more healthful alternative to animal fats because it made them a lot of money.
Autumn Smith
But we now know that in its original formulation it was 50% trans fat, and that that’s definitely not a good thing to be eating and it definitely has an association with heart disease. And then we have Ancel Keys, like you said, who came along and fascinating guy, right? Really smart guy, did a lot of great research. But what he did was demonized fat and saturated fat, specifically. In the end, and because meat contains saturated fat and because we have this paradigm where we are looking at components of food rather than an entire food, we kind of jumped on this bandwagon, demonized meat for that reason. Then we also had the sugar industry executives, right? Because in the 60s, a man, John Hickson, paid Dr. Hegstad at Harvard to create a review demonizing saturated fat and kind of exonerating sugar and its link to heart disease. Because that was, again, a good move for the sugar industry. And then we have, you know, books like the Jungle, we have environmental activists who don’t understand the nuance between factory farms and other ways that you can raise meat, because that’s definitely not what most of these estimates are based on.
Autumn Smith
There’s just a lot of different reasons. And also we have to remember processed food companies, beyond Burger, Impossible Burger, these companies, you can make plant based foods all day long, right? It is such a profitable industry, but that doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily more healthful for you. But you’ll see, there’s just, it is like a cacophony, a symphony of many different influences that have all converged to kind of create this mainstream narrative. Even though meat’s something we’ve been consuming for over 2 million years, right? And as we might get into, there’s a lot of important reasons that we probably want to continue.
Leanne Vogel
And so when you’re, when you’re talking about meat is it all meat like pork, pork rather beef, chicken. Or would you say that most of the issues and most of the problems people have with meat is more red meat or what are you seeing as being like the, the, the thing people hate most?
Autumn Smith
Yeah, good question. I’d say red meat is the most demonized. Absolutely. But I would say there’s a bigger push than ever for, you know, vegan lifestyles, vegetarian lifestyles in general. But definitely, yeah, I think red meat is, has been the bad guy for quite some time.
Leanne Vogel
And why, why is red meat a great thing? Like why? Because earlier you were talking about how this individual is making this cool monitor where you can go around and I definitely want one of those and just be a total geek in the grocery store and pick out the most nutrient dense foods. But like, why, why red meat for our health?
Autumn Smith
Such a good question. Well, I love red meat because a, because iron, its contents of iron, like iron deficiency anemia, is one of the worldwide largest nutrient deficiencies that people experience. And there’s like this meat factor. Right. Especially in red meat, we’ve gotten high levels of iron and it’s very bioavailable. Right. So the thing about meat is whenever there’s a nutrient in plants and also in meat, our body prefers the type. It’s more bioavailable from meat.
Autumn Smith
And so zinc and iron are two nutrients that many are deficient in worldwide and beef has them both. And that’s wonderful. The other cool thing about beef, whether it’s conventional or, you know, grass fed, is that the omega 6 to 3 ratio, I don’t know if you’ve talked a lot about it on your show.
Leanne Vogel
A little bit. A little bit, yeah.
Autumn Smith
It’s something I’ve had to look a lot into because of the research, but it is more consistent in beef, generally lower. So evolutionarily, there’s a woman named Dr. Simon Polis and she was formerly of the NIH and she’s kind of the one who’s pioneered this message where our genes evolved with these balanced levels of these two nutrients and about a 1 to 1 for omega 6 to 3. And now today we have about a 20 to 1. Right. And so mostly because of vegetable oils and grains that we’re eating, Whereas, you know, omega 3s come from greens and fish anyway, ruminants, cows, you know, they actually take the food and their microbiome changes it in to more saturated fats. Right. Which sounds like a bad thing, but there’s some nuance there too.
Autumn Smith
But anyway, they’re going to have a better, more balanced ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acids in beef generally pork and chicken are going to be way, way higher. So grass fed beef is even almost a great ratio like two to one and below, you know, and we found in our study at least grain Fed is about 7 to 1 and below. So we have the fatty acid profile too. There’s also some interesting research around beneficial saturated fats that you’ll find in grass fed beef. Stearic acid is a kind that’s cholesterol neutral. There’s also called something pentadecanoic acid which is another saturated fatty acids that’s been studying for its or its longevity properties. And then there’s bahenic acid and arachidic acid that have been shown to potentially lower the risk, risk of cardiovascular disease at least in associated trails. And then we have conjugated linoleic acid which is another fatty acid that’s been linked to potentially a reduced risk of cancer, maybe better body composition and immune health.
Autumn Smith
And then so yeah, there’s a lot of different reasons that I think red meat is really, really important, but the bioavailability of its nutrients. And then also let’s not forget that just the really high quality protein I think is something that many, many people could benefit from. When we demonized fat in this country, you know, animal products kind of went by the wayside. But I think that if many of us increase the amount of protein that we were consuming, we might be able to better, you know, eat fewer calories. Not that eating fewer calories is the goal, but just feeling fuller, feeling more satisfied. Also building better body composition like you’re doing, going and trying to build as much lean muscle mass as you possibly can. I think that is such a worthy aim and I think high quality animal products make that a lot easier.
Leanne Vogel
They make it absolutely essential. I, I go through a pack, like two, two packs of wild pasture meat a day, regardless of what it is.
Autumn Smith
Like, do you really?
Leanne Vogel
Oh yes, most definitely. Whether it’s the chicken or. I’m obsessed with the beef tenderloin. Like I, I, the fat on it’s just incredible. I’m actually thinking I’m gonna make a steak sandwich for lunch. But it’s. Oh yes, go.
Autumn Smith
I forgot one thing I was going to say about that delicious flavor profile. One really important area of research, phytonutrients in beef, right? So we always think about, oh well, beef has B vitamins and minerals, but beef has 40,000 different compounds. And a lot of it is phytonutrients that like literally it becomes kind of like an imprint or a photograph of the landscape from which it’s raised. Right. That’s why the flavor is so different when you have regenerative beef. And that’s why it’s actually far more satiating because you have these anti diabetic, anti inflammatory, antidepressant phytonutrients that can sometimes be in such large amounts that they rival vegetables like eggplants and turnips. And so this is again why pasture raised animals are really important because they’ve been, you know, historically we think about them as, oh, just secondary compounds. What do they really matter? But, but scientists are learning they have more prominent roles than we ever were really considering before.
Leanne Vogel
I mean it’s. Even if you take this onto a personal level and you. I know for myself when I know that I need to be really satiated, I know that going out to a restaurant and having a burger is not going to do it. But if I make a burger at home with high quality ingredients, like same type of burger, like same size of patty and all the things, it just lands differently and I’m satiated more. And when I know I really need to get satiated, it’s always beef or eggs. Those are the two where I know, like those egg yolks and that beef fat is just going to do it every single time. And so you can see that even in your day to day, at least for me. Do you find the same thing like on a personal level?
Autumn Smith
Absolutely. And it’s so funny that our two foods line up exactly. Because if I. It’s eggs in the morning for me and, and something. A steak at night or a burger at night, a hundred percent is something. It’s very, very different.
Leanne Vogel
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Leanne Vogel
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Leanne Vogel
And so when we’re. We’ve had individuals on the show before that kind of talked about the difference between the conventionally raised and grass fed. You touched on it a little bit before. Can we go into the depth depths here? Because I definitely notice a difference. Growing up in Canada, all of our beef that we had access to was from a local rancher. And because our cows can’t graze all year round because there’s snow, they would ferment the grasses and feed the fermented grasses to the cows. And it made for the most amazing meat. And I really missed it when we moved.
Leanne Vogel
Like, I can taste the difference. And so regardless of taste, even though that is a big key piece, are there other things that are different when it comes the conventionally raised versus the grass fed when it comes to just health overall and all that?
Autumn Smith
Yeah, we actually, this is what our research was. So the beef nutrient density project, I’ll just describe it because it’s the largest trial of its kind that’s ever been done. And so their goal is to source, you know, over 700 different rib eyes from over 200 different producers throughout the world. Right. And so when I ended the project, there’s about 300 different samples and through all different types of production systems, right? Feedlots. And then we’d have what we call feedlot light, you know, where they might be still getting grain, but they might also be on pasture. And then we’d have a grass fed system where it’s like, okay, there’s the cow, but they’re on one type of grass, right. A more monoculture type pasture.
Autumn Smith
And then we have the more extensive type systems where there’s like 30, 50 different plants on these pastures. And then these animals are being rotated. Right. They’re considering. Oh, how healthy is this forage? Okay, where do we put them next? It’s a very highly, highly managed system, something like holistic management or amp style grazing. And so there’s very predictable changes between grass fed and grass finished beef. And our paper looks specifically at the fatty acid profile. And so what we found was very a far lower omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acid ratio.
Autumn Smith
And that just means less, you know, linoleic acid, which is the omega 6 fatty acid and higher levels of the omega 3 fatty acids, Ala, which is the plant based version, EPA, DPA and DHA. Now the interesting thing is, and I think this is very important for consumers to know, the levels of omega 3s in grass fed beef are meaningful. And in the UK, anything over 40 milligrams per 100 grams of food is considered a good source of omega 3s. And so in the UK, by the UK standards, grass fed beef can be labeled as such. Right? In our trial is about 50 milligrams per 100 grams. For grain fed it’s down below 20. And so I did this for my project actually. If you calculate that over a year you’re going to get about 13 grams of omega 3s if you eat grass fed beef and only about 5 if you’re eating grain fed beef.
Autumn Smith
Now these are of course averages, but that is meaningful. And for people who don’t eat fish, we know that, you know, 84,000Americans die every year from omega 3 fatty acid deficiency and beef can be a great source if it is grass fed. So I think that was the largest difference that I noticed. But then also if you do worry about saturated fats, and we know that saturated fats are not the same, right. They’re a very diverse group. Right? So lauric, myristic acid, palmitic acid, these are the ones that raise your cholesterol to a higher level. Stearic acid is neutral, right. So when we have grass fed beef, stearic acid is present in higher amounts, which may be meaningful if you’re someone who likes to is worried about your cholesterol intake.
Autumn Smith
We also know levels of conjugated linoleic acid, the CLA that I was talking about before, that’s potentially anti, diabetic, anti carcinogenic, might help with body composition. Those are, you know, two to three times higher in grass fed beef. And then again those saturated fatty acids that are present in smaller amounts, the very long chain saturated fatty acids, specifically ricciatic acid, biinic acid, they are also present in higher amounts in grass fed beef. As are the odd chain saturated fatty acids. This is such nerdy stuff. But pentadecanoic and heptidecanoic acid might also have benefits there too. And so I think for a lot of reasons, that’s just, and that is just looking at the fatty acid profile. Dr.
Autumn Smith
Van Vliet’s research is also going and using metabolomics where he’s looking at those tens of thousands of other compounds and also finding very, very dramatic changes. He, for instance, did a trial where they looked at grass fed beef, but then also plant based burgers and you know, their nutrition labels were identical. Did you hear about this research?
Leanne Vogel
I didn’t, but let’s go there because it’s so fascinating.
Autumn Smith
So it’s, it’s, and it’s this thing where they match, you know, protein was the same, B12 was the same. You know. No, it wasn’t the same in the analysis. But on the Nutrition label. Right. 90% of the metabolites were different. Right. It’s as different as you’d expect, like a plant and an animal to be.
Autumn Smith
Right. Even though when consumers see the label, they’re thinking, oh well, these are very nutritionally equivalent foods. Well, they’re not. And then the last piece I want to say is we have preliminary research that the changes in grass fed versus grain fed beef do meaningfully impact human health. There’s two I want to talk about. The first was done in Australia and it looked at kangaroo and it was a crossover trial, meaning they ate kangaroo first, then later they ate beef from a feedlot and then they measured the levels of inflammation after a meal. Levels of inflammation were dramatically higher after the feedlot raised beef. Right.
Autumn Smith
And they stayed up for a lot longer. And most people, I don’t know if you understand, every, after every meal you have an inflammatory response and if that goes, you know, is out of control for every single meal, you know, that can lead to that kind of like low level chronic inflammatory response that I think a lot of people are dealing with. And Dr. Van Vliet will be doing a beef to beef comparison. He did plant based burger, grain fed and grass fed meat, and he’s testing in human trials. And then also the second one that I thought was really cool, in 2011, they just had someone switch to grass fed lamb and beef or grain fed lamb and beef. And then they looked at the level of omega 3s in their blood and they found significant increases only in the grass fed version. And actually if you looked at the levels of omega 6 to omega 3s in their platelets, which is a long term kind of marker for omega 3 status.
Autumn Smith
The people who ate grass fed beef reduce their omega 6 to 3 ratio, which is good. And the 1 to 8 grain raised, the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio. And of course, you know, there’s a lot of conflict around, you know, seed oils and Omega 6, but I don’t think anyone can argue that more omega 3 fatty acids is a good thing and that far too many people consume too few of them. Right. I think it’s a major public issue. And so I think just that alone is a reason. Even though also higher levels of minerals to calcium and iron in our particular trial were present. So phytonutrients, minerals, the fatty acid profile changes in very dramatic ways.
Autumn Smith
And look, I think eating grain fed beef is better than eating a donut 100% of the time. Always. I think meat is a very important food. And I don’t think we need to get perfectionistic like if you can’t eat grass fed, don’t eat meat, you know, but I think whenever we can, you know, pay attention to the type of production system that raised those animals, because I do think there are differences, it’s being studied, there’s evidence for it. And I think that there will be more evidence soon when, when Dr. Van Vlietz trials are done. But hey, I don’t want to get lost in, you know, the fact that I think meat’s a very important food too. Just.
Leanne Vogel
Yes, completely. And I think too, from a blood work perspective, kind of understanding your functional blood work, what I see a lot of times in many of the panels that I review is that hscrp, which is a common marker that will be ran for inflammation, it’s basically a marker that is quick to respond. So when you’re talking about after you eat that inflammatory response that increases, that is triggered by something called IL6. And IL6 is influenced by the Omega 6 to 3 ratio. And so what I see time and time and time again is there’s no other markers of inflammation on an individual’s blood work. But I see the CRP being elevated and the metabolic inflammation with CRP is like between 3 to 10. And so oftentimes their CRP will be 3 or 4 or 5. And this is a metabolic inflammation level.
Leanne Vogel
And so you can see this too on your blood work. And a lot of these individuals are paleo or keto and they’re avoiding all the things, but they’re still eating lower quality meats. And it’s showing up in these inflammatory patterns. And so I always Find that really interesting too. And can we can use that CRP marker as a way to indicate that inflammatory response that you’re talking about?
Autumn Smith
Yeah, I think it’s fascinating and I think we all have heard about inflammation, but many of us don’t realize that that at that ratio there’s a lot of good evidence for the fact that that is a huge contributor to how your body responds. Because when we eat more omega 6s, they get into our cell membranes, they create compounds that are more inflammatory, that the inflammation lasts longer than when we have more of the Omega 3s, they create a different set of compounds and right now our body can’t really differentiate. Right. And so if we eat more omega 6s, they just get put in there and they also can interfere with our ability to create those long chain omega 3s. The animal forms EPA. DHA. We require DHA for our brain, for the development of our baby’s brain, for our eye health. And so, yeah, it’s really, really important that people understand.
Autumn Smith
And I think there’s this guy named Dr. Bill Lance and he actually discovered these enzymes that didn’t discriminate and how they get put into our cells. Anyway, he’s been talking about this for like 30 plus years. That diet can do. What drugs do. We have all these NSAIDs, we have all these, these drugs like billion dollar industries that reduce inflammation, but we also have the potential to reduce that inflammation every time we eat. And specifically minding our omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acid profile, and my last thing on that is chicken and pork can be way worse in terms of 21:30 to 1 ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acids, it gets way higher. Especially when they’re raised in factory farms and fed grain like they are today.
Autumn Smith
And so I also think if you have to choose a food, if you’re going to eat something conventional, beef might be the one. Right. Because it’s going to at least have that more stable profile there.
Leanne Vogel
Yes, completely. I feel somewhat attacked because I eat a ton of chicken, but I always make sure it’s really, really safe.
Autumn Smith
Sorry, Leanne. And that’s what I was saying, like, chicken is chicken. Chicken’s better than a donut. Right? I just believe that.
Leanne Vogel
Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, it’s good, it’s good. You know, it’s funny, like every guest that I have on, they always say something where I’m like, right, yeah, I know better, like I need to do better. And you know, that’s so true. It’s so true. Okay, so the last little Bit with you. I want to, I don’t feel like a conversation has been a lot of doom and gloom, but I want to give practical steps for individuals that are listening of just when I go to Publix, which is the local grocery store here and I look at some of the grass fed grass fin and past, well there’s no pasture raised, literally anything. Sometimes I can find eggs that are somewhat safe.
Leanne Vogel
But what are we looking for in terms of labeling and how do we not spend an arm and a leg and sell a kidney in order to afford these options?
Autumn Smith
I love that question. Well, my two favorite ones are basically, you know, get to know your local producers. If you’re somewhere where this food is being raised, please incentivize those producers, get to know those producers, ask them about their practices, visit their to farmers markets. A lot of people are doing these things right in your backyard. So that’s my first thing. Then we also have, you know, our company Paleo Valley and we only source from regenerative farms and then also wild pastures and our cool. The cool thing about wild pastures is it’s 40% less than other meat delivery services and it’s all regenerative and it’s all American. Right.
Autumn Smith
But then past that, if you’re just walking around in sprouts, you know, sprouts has actually got some good deals on grass fed beef. You know, you, you’re not going to know for sure that it’s grass fed and grass finished. But it’s going to be a better option than a lot of the other options that you might have. So looking for grass fed 100 grass fed, I mean it’s getting really popular. And so you’re able to find that at a lot of chains. Knowing again, grass fed is not a highly regulated term. But something like the AGA American Grass Fed association, they’ll come in and they’ll third party certify. So grass fed and looking for AGA certification is going to be a great step when you’re out at the store.
Autumn Smith
And then also when it comes to eggs and chicken and pork is almost impossible to find pasture raised. I mean you just can almost never do it. But there are some good things like vital farms with their eggs. They have regenerative eggs these days. I see them everywhere. I think that’s really wonderful. Chicken same. You could find pasture raised chickens sometimes.
Autumn Smith
But again if you can’t, farmers markets or wild pastures and then pastured pork. Yeah, the only source of truly passion pork that I know of besides our company would be singing prairie Farms John Arbuckle. And I know this guy is so serious about what he’s doing because he even ran his own little experiment to figure out how to optimize the nutritional profile of his pork. And we also have pork sticks too. So in Paleo Valley ones, that’s actually like a maple bacon pork. It’s one of my favorites. So things to be mindful of. Cage free and free range, they’re not the same as pasture raised.
Autumn Smith
A lot of times, you know, cage free or free range animals are still on top of each other in a warehouse, right. They might just have access or there might just be a door that they don’t ever actually access. Another one is hormone free on pork and chicken. They can’t even use it anyway. They haven’t been able to. So it’s kind of just distracting you from bigger questions like what do they eat? Are there antibiotics? Knowing antibiotics is a big issue, right? So thinking about that antibiotic free or is not using medically important antibiotics. There’s a lot of like, kind of trickery in terms of labeling. You obviously want producers that just don’t use antibiotics at all.
Autumn Smith
And then what’s another? Made in America. This one’s really sad to me because I think 75% of the grass fed beef in America is imported. And you can still label something made in America and have it grown somewhere else and then processed here. And, and there is an effort to change that. But if it matters to you that something’s from America, you, you really have to kind of do your due diligence.
Leanne Vogel
Because even butcher box. Sorry I said it, not you.
Autumn Smith
No comment. I make no comment.
Leanne Vogel
I will include something in the intro on that because I got duped big time. And, and that’s the thing is like, like there’s so like you said, the labeling is a huge problem. I know what I see often, at least at Publix is organic, USDA certified organic, raised with no antibiotics or added hormones. 100% vegetarian diet on the chicken. And I’m like, yeah, chickens aren’t vegetarians.
Autumn Smith
That is useless. Organic is like, okay, organic. There’s a lot of good things about organic, right? But organic can still mean, you know, fed organic grains in a kind of a feedlot scenario where they only have to be on pasture for about a third of their life. And again, when it looking at that omega 6 to 3 ratio, eating those grains, that’s going to be a problem. So yes, all of these labels are kind of limiting and none of them capture the true nuance in, you know, factory Farm setting versus these more regenerative settings yet. But I think if you just take an interest in where your food’s coming from, you can find it. It’s out there. But the labels are hard.
Autumn Smith
So far.
Leanne Vogel
You know, the Vital farms eggs, is there a big difference between the regenerative and the, like, the black box, the one that I buy, because the regenerative is the like sort of like a taupe color, like a beigey color, and then there’s the free range ones. Like, what’s the difference between eggs that are regenerative and not? Like, is there a big difference?
Autumn Smith
Well, I mean, here’s. In my mind, and this is something, because I haven’t looked into how they interpret these labels and regenerative. Right. It’s not a highly regulated term at the moment. Right. You know, so in my mind, it’s like animals are on diversified farms. Right. So, you know, that’s how we used to do it.
Autumn Smith
Cows come along, the chickens follow them. In my mind, that’s what’s happening. Like some sort of Joel Salatin situation where they are coming in and being the ones that peck at the cow. Poison. All of those disgusting things we don’t need to talk about. But yeah, so that’s what I see. And then grass fed would probably be something more just like they’re. They’re out on pasture.
Autumn Smith
But there might not be that focus necessarily on rehabilitating the ecosystem. That’s in my mind, that’s what’s happening. But I have not verified that. So it’s something I will definitely be calling them and asking them about.
Leanne Vogel
Okay, I gotta do that because I’ve been seeing the box and it’s a little bit more expensive. I’m like, I kind of want to buy one and just see like, like, what’s the difference in color and how does it feel? And, you know, just using my body as a walking lab. That’s what my husband calls me all the time. You’re like the walking lab. Just give it to Leanne. She’ll know if there’s something in there. She’ll just try it and she’ll tell you. She’ll feel it.
Autumn Smith
I love that, Leanne. I’m the same way. I get it.
Leanne Vogel
It’s great. It’s a blessing, sometimes a curse. Okay. Where can people find more from you? What? How are the ways?
Autumn Smith
Okay, the ways are, you know, always reach out to me@autumnaleovalley.com Paleo Valley is our company. Leanne’s got a special coupon code there for the Beef sticks, all the meat sticks, all the things. And then also Wild Pastures. If you’re interested in the meat Delivery service, that’s 40% less, you know, it just shows up at your door. All from American regenerative farms. That’s Wild Pastures. Then if you’re in the Denver Boulder area, Wild Pastures Burger Co. Is also a place that I would love to see you.
Autumn Smith
No seed oils, no refined sugar, all regenerative meat. It’s delicious.
Leanne Vogel
I love burgers. I didn’t know this was a thing that you were doing. So now I’m like, how do I get, how do I do this? How do I go?
Autumn Smith
Well, you gotta come. And the reason is like we’re always thinking about whole animal utilization, right? And we’re always long on the ground beef, right? Because people always want the steaks when it comes to Wild Pastures. But I have a. I mean, burgers are my favorite food. So we’re like, what if we use the tallow, right, the beef fat to cook our fries, which is what we do, right? And the bones, we make bone broth. And the beef, we make burgers. And so just again, we don’t like to waste. And it just made sense because this area, you know, Boulder didn’t have the grass fed burger I was looking for when I moved here from California.
Autumn Smith
I was shocked by that.
Leanne Vogel
Florida has nothing like that.
Autumn Smith
I know. Well, I mean, at least the Florida areas that I go to. I’ve noticed a burger drought, a grass fed burger trap there myself.
Leanne Vogel
Out of all good food.
Autumn Smith
Let me tell you. Let me tell you.
Leanne Vogel
Oh man, Autumn, this was so great to have you on. Thank you so much. I will include coupon codes and links and things in the show notes. And thanks again for coming on.
Autumn Smith
It’s always so good to see you. Thank you. It’s too much fun.
Leanne Vogel
I hope you enjoyed our time with Autumn. It’s always so great to have her on the show. I hope you learned something. And if you want another conversation around meat quality from a different perspective, head on over to episode 442 labeled Balanced Conversations on feeding your family well. Okay, we will see you back here next Tuesday. Another episode. Have a good one. Bye.
Leanne Vogel
Thanks for listening to the helpful Pursuit podcast. Join us next Tuesday for another episode of the show. If you’re looking for free resources, there are a couple of places you can go. The first to my blog, healthfulpersuit.com where you’re going to find loads of recipes. The second is a free parasite protocol that I’ve put together for you that outlines symptoms, testing and resources to determine whether or not you have a parasite plus a full protocol to follow to eradicate them from your life if you need to. That’s available at healthfulpursuit.com parasites and last but still certainly not least, a full list of blood work markers to ask your doctor for so that you can get a full picture of your health. You can grab that free resource by going to healthful pursuit.com labs. The helpful pursuit Podcast, including show notes and links, provides information in respect to healthy living recipes, nutrition and diet and is intended for informational purposes only.
Leanne Vogel
The information provided is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment nor is it to be construed as such. We cannot guarantee that the information provided on the Healthful Pursuit Podcast reflects the most up to date medical research. Information is provided without any representation or warranties of any kind. Please consult a qualified health practitioner with any questions you may have regarding your health and nutrition program.
Hi! I'm Leanne (RHN FBCS)
a Functional Medicine Practitioner, host of the Healthful Pursuit Podcast, and best-selling author of The Keto Diet & Keto for Women. I want to live in a world where every woman has access to knowledge to better her health.