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Posts tagged ‘Outdoor reared meat’

May 9

5 Comments

Myth busting – Part 10

Wow, we made it to Myth busting – Part 10! Let’s quickly look back over this mini-series so far and recap what we have covered.

In the previous nine instalments of this mini-series, we have read that:

 

Phew! It’s been a lot of fun writing this series – and I hope you are enjoying reading it!

But…you might have one last question, and this is now going to open up a whole can of worms. If we are supposed to be eating meat and fish instead of grains, and all those big juicy sweet pieces of fruit and veg are actually a relatively new ‘man-bred’ novelty.
Then, well…

Myth: It’s animal agriculture that is destroying the environment isn’t it? Haven’t you seen that film ‘Cowspiracy’? It’s all those burping and farting cows that are causing global warming. If we encourage people to eat less grain and more meat and fish there will be an environmental catastrophe, and besides there is not enough land to keep all those abused and mistreated farm animals fed and watered.

 

Truth: With respect to the good intentions of the makers of the film, in my personal opinion, that movie Cowspiracy is totally biased and wildly inaccurate, made purposefully to appeal to one particular paradigm, or one specific set way of thinking, namely veganism. Far from ‘exposing the truth’ these kind of mock-umentaries (known as a ‘mock-doc’ or a ‘docu-drama’) often do more harm than good by spreading misinformation, and they are nothing short of  propaganda made to promote the vegan cause, not to present a balanced view of reality.

I respect anyone who makes the choice to be vegan because they abhor cruelty to animals, I do too. But that is not what this is about.

There is so much misunderstanding in this area. Since Cowspiracy came out, it’s now ‘the latest trendy thing’ to talk about how animal agriculture is ‘the biggest cause of environmental destruction and greenhouse gases’ on Earth and so ‘everyone should just stop eating meat’ but this is just fundamentally wrong. Cowspiracy has certainly taken this issue (agriculture’s contribution to global warming) to a broader audience, but the so-called science in the movie is completely flawed, it uses data points cherry picked to provide a one-sided view, and it ignores loads of facts that don’t fit with the main goals of the presentation.

Let’s actually look at some reality. Read more

May 4

5 Comments

Myth busting – Part 8

Myth: We must eat vegetables to be healthy, but we can live without meat.

 

Truth: Actually, it’s the opposite. We can live on animal foods alone, but it’s very hard to live on plant foods alone.

This myth-busting series is in danger of becoming a manifesto for meat eaters, and that is not my intention!! I feel the need to state – I love vegetables!!! I still recommend the MND target for vegetables and fruit intake is 17-a-day! And I am not trying to put a downer on the vegetarian choice!

But the truth is this, while half the human race are intolerant or sensitive to gluten in one way or another, I’ve never met a single person intolerant to chicken. I’ve never heard of anyone with a salmon intolerance. I’ve never heard of anyone allergic to mackerel.

Some people are intolerant to eggs, and many people are intolerant to dairy (food Mother Nature evolved for baby cows, not for adult humans) but very few healthy people have any kind of intolerance to meat, poultry or fish.

Following on from Myth busting – Part 7

You see, once we get through the claws, teeth and fur, that animal is all done with the whole ‘defending itself’ thing and Read more

Oct 26

2 Comments

Meat Consumption and Cancer (WHO report and media frenzy)

This week, the media here in the UK (and elsewhere I guess) is awash with this latest ‘processed meat and cancer’ story. WHO cancer agency IARC (The International Agency for Research on Cancer) just published a report (October 2015) identifying associations between meat consumption and cancer. The media has, predictably, gone nuts over this story.

In my opinion, this is not news at all. This supports everything I say and every word MotherNaturesDiet stands for.

‘Processed’ is the key word here

The report mostly points a finger at processed meat, then less so at red meat in general.

Living the MotherNaturesDiet way, we say ‘avoid processed foods’. That’s Core Principle 3. If it has a barcode and a list of ingredients, don’t eat it. That stands here, for processed meat, too.

Just to be clear, this new report won’t be forcing me to make any changes to the MotherNaturesDiet recommended healthy lifestyle. I’ve been warning against processed meat for a long time.

https://mothernaturesdiet.me/2013/03/07/new-research-linking-processed-meat-to-increased-risk-of-death/

In my opinion, any dietary advice generally around ‘red meat’ MUST be openly questioned.

As I often explain in my live seminars, before you eat an animal (or plant) you have to ask “What did that animal eat?”

If the animal was mistreated and eating grains, and worse (antibiotics, growth hormones, ash, cardboard, mashed up pig parts…etc.) then that animal will make meat that is not so good for you. But if the animal has lived a natural life, living outside (pasture raised, free range) eating grass (natural food for cows) and been treated properly, then the meat will be nutritious and good for you.

This is, of course, the logic behind Core Principle 8 – eat only organic, free range, pasture-raised, grass-fed meat.

So this WHO advisory makes ZERO different at all to MND.

For a long time, I have been asking the question: Read more

May 17

4 Comments

Back off those carbs!

One of the things I am most often asked about eating the MND way is why I suggest not eating starchy carbohydrates, particularly grains. I just want to cover that briefly today.

Summary:

  • Why we should avoid eating grains, processed carbs and starchy carbs in general
  • New research indicates that maintaining a fairly high-protein diet reduces signs of frailty in old age
  • Basically, those eating a diet higher in protein, maintained ‘strength’ longer, and those eating a diet lower in protein, reported more signs of frailty in older age
  • It doesn’t seem to matter if that protein comes from veggies or meat or fish, just so long as you are eating one or all of those things
  • Eat the MND way for a nutrient-packed diet with no need for nutrient-poor starchy carbs
  • Just eat plants and animals

MotherNaturesDiet (MND) is a fairly-low-carb diet. MND includes masses of vegetables, many of which provide carbs, so I do not promote MND as “low-carb” strictly, more I promote MND as “no-processed-carbs”. See MND Core Principle 1 - no processed grains, and MND Core Principle 2 - no refined sugar.

Why should we avoid carbs? Why no grains?

Living the MND way involves avoiding all those starchy carbs that other people eat - bread, cereals, pasta, white potatoes, rice, spaghetti, pastries, cakes and so on.

There are many reasons for this.

All grains are members of the ‘cereal crops’ family of plants. These are all a type of grass. Grasses are cellulose plants that humans cannot eat, and these foods are not digestible without processing.

I think Mother Nature designed animals to eat the grasses, then we eat the animals.

Ruminants (cows, sheep, goats, etc.) have a stomach (the rumen, hence their genus name) designed to act as a fermentation tank. Once fermented, they can then extract nutrients from these foods. Humans do not have a rumen and cannot digest grains, hence grains have to be processed in order for us to digest them.

Personally, I think it’s healthier and more natural to let the cow do the fermenting, and then I eat the cow.

The food chain

In Mother Nature’s grand design, it’s a form of ‘upregulation of energy’ - the sun falls on the huge flat surface of the earth, helping the grasses to grow, they absorb the suns vital energy. Cows eat the grass and upregulate the output of the sun’s energy into muscle, or beef, as we like to call it. We eat the cow. We die and our blood and bones and flesh put carbon, phosphorous, potassium, nitrogen and many other minerals back into the soil, to help feed the insects and bugs and help grow more plants, and so the whole cycle repeats.  Read more

Apr 5

4 Comments

Eating the most nutritious meat…but on the smallest budget

This is a fantastic lunch recipe, super nutritious and very tasty. Please see pictured lambs kidneys and lots of green veggies - yum yum! This meal contains 250 grams of lambs kidneys, lots of green veggies – organic broccoli, cabbage, green pepper, tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach, and an assortment of spices – coriander, cumin, paprika, black pepper and chilli flakes.

 

Lean white skinless boneless chicken breasts

For most of the last 40 or 50 years we’ve been told that fat is bad, especially saturated fat from animal sources, and we should all eat a lean low-fat diet. This has resulted (at least here in the UK) in an obsession with skinless lean filleted chicken breast. People have been educated to ‘obsession point’ that fat is bad and even the skin or the ‘brown’ thigh meat is considered too high in fat. This has led to a scenario you are probably familiar with, stories of ‘abused broiler chickens’ - chickens bred for the size of their breasts. I am sure you have heard about the speed of their growth, how they live in cramped smelly barns and their bodies grow so fast their legs can buckle beneath them.

While European countries generally maintain better standards of animal husbandry than in the US, these issues are still a huge concern. They certainly bother me. Read more

Mar 1

1 Comment

Getting the macronutrient balance right - the simple way, with MotherNaturesDiet

I was recently asked for my advice on macronutrients in a healthy diet:

  • How much protein should I eat?
  • You seem to advocate a very low-carb diet. Should I eat more carbs, where do you get your energy from?
  • Do you eat lots of good fats?
  • What about saturated fats? Omega-3’s? Oils?
  • 3 meals per day, or 4, or 5, or 6?

I believe that eating has gotten far too complicated, we are all wrapped up in measuring calories, macronutrients and micronutrients, when I believe that if we are eating the right foods, then such ‘scientific detail’ is not really worth worrying about too much, not for most people. Read more

Feb 28

3 Comments

What’s gone wrong with our food?

What’s gone wrong with our food? Why are we so obsessed with nutrients?

For tens of thousands of years we humans were quite happy and quite healthy (and of mostly fairly normal body weight) just eating real whole foods, namely plants and animals.

Then ‘they’ came along and started poking around with microscopes and test tubes and Bunsen burners, and suddenly everything was broken down into science, and eventually they vilified animal fats. So everyone cut out animal fats, and fat was labelled bad, but the finger pointed specifically at saturated fat from animal sources. So people ate less red meat, and they cut out butter and in response the food companies made margarine, and started adding lots of extra sugar (because with no fat, the food tasted bland) and these odd ‘engineered chemical fats and oils’ to various foods. Then after a decade or two eating those, as people got fatter and diabetes and heart disease rates soared, then they changed stance, and now trans fats and cheap vegetable oils are vilified as the baddies, so we should all go back to butter and ditch the margarine.

And the people asked “But we stopped eating animal saturated fats, years ago, because they were bad…right?”

The people wanted to know “what is it that is supposed to be so wrong with animal foods? How come all that research linked high rates of disease to the consumption of animal foods?” Read more

Jan 7

6 Comments

Stick to Simple Healthy Eating: beware of overpriced supplements

At this time of year, the ‘diet industry’ is in full swing.

They know that January is the month everyone joins a gym and buys into the latest fad diet, so they are pushing their weight loss solutions, pills and powders, superfoods and supplements like crazy this month.

Before you buy anything, understand that the prices they charge for these things are utterly disproportionate to the benefits they offer to you.

Don’t scrimp at the supermarket because you have blown all your disposable income on supplements or diet aids!!  Read more

Jan 1

* * * * ANNOUNCING New Year Special January Health Program * * * *

Yes folks, here it is, just for you, the MND January special – this 31-day weight-loss plan will help you to:

  • Lose weight
  • Look better
  • Feel great
  • Drop a jeans size
  • Get fitter
  • Undo all the damage done over the holidays

All you have to pay is £0.00p per month and follow this precise plan:

1: Eat clean, eat real food, nourish your body: Read more

Dec 29

2013 Popular Posts #11 (joint 11th place): Sugar is Public Enemy #1

This post explains how the diet industry led everyone in the wrong direction when they blamed saturated fat, and animal products specifically, for the rise in heart disease.

Sugar is the great offender in the modern Western diet. Since diet foods ‘cut the fat’ they just added more sugar - and obesity rates, diabetes, heart disease and cancer have all been rising ever since.

https://mothernaturesdiet.me/2013/02/28/sugar-is-public-enemy-1-stop-blaming-meat-and-fat/

When they started pushing low fat

If you read this post and then want to know more about which animal products are health-giving and which should be avoided, I have written extensively on this subject, and you will find links on this page - https://mothernaturesdiet.me/2013/04/08/the-bbc-seemingly-recommending-a-big-mac-over-a-home-cooked-sunday-roast/

Oct 12

19 Comments

Beware of health and wellness industry rip offs

This post is about supplements, in particular, so-called superfood supplements, and how they are being sold to health-conscious consumers at extortionate prices. This post looks at the prices of these supplements, pound-for-pound compared to the price of real, natural, whole foods.

Read more

Aug 18

2 Comments

Humans - a gluttonous cancer on this planet, or beautiful loving souls?

I have been watching videos and reading this evening.
I watched this, and I think you should too: Holy Sh-t! Without Saying a Word This 6 Minute Short Film Will Make You Speechless

Watching this video, several quite obvious thoughts came to me.

If you can’t handle this video, think about your consumption of meat.

If you eat meat, I urge you to follow the guidelines laid out here in MotherNaturesDiet Core Principle 8, only eat meat, fish and eggs from organic, free range, sustainably farmed, well treated animals.

How humans treat animals is disgraceful. I think we have forgotten that WE are animals too. We seem to think that putting on clothes and building houses makes us different. We are still made of bone, muscle, blood and flesh. We feel pain, hot, cold, love, sadness. We are animals too.

Humans seem like disgusting, ugly, gluttonous creatures, self-obsessed, greedy, short-termist. We crawl all over this planet like vermin, fouling it, consuming it. Aliens observing from afar must think we are a disease, like a cancer, eating Mother Earth alive.

I spent some time thinking about how easy it is for a movie maker or editor to produce a film, cut to portray a view which he or she wishes to portray.

I spent some time thinking about how humans can be amazing creatures.

I watched this (I have seen so many times before) about Narayanan Krishnan: CNN Hero Narayanan Krishnan

And I watched this too: How To Restore Your Faith In Humanity

And finally, I decided, as if so often the case…it all comes down to YOU. Each and every one of us has to take personal responsibility, to look after ourselves, to spread love, not to hate, to respect Mother Nature and the other animals we share this planet with, to respect the trees and plants and soil an air and water, and not pollute our own home. If we all decided to be good people, responsible citizens of Earth, kind and loving humans, then many of the worlds problems would be well on their way to being solved.

Jul 6

4 Comments

Moroccan Spiced Slow-Roast Lamb

A few weeks back I came up with this delicious Moroccan spiced version of the classic slow-roasted shoulder of lamb. I’ve been boasting about how good this is, so loads of my friends keep asking for the recipe, so here it is. Enjoy. If you know my style, you’ll know I rarely follow a set recipe, my measurements tend to be “a shake of this” and “a handful of that” and I rarely use many ingredients, so this is surprisingly complicated for me…but worth it, it’s so yummy!

Buy a good quality shoulder of lamb. I purchase local, outdoor raised, grass-fed, healthy organic lamb. I can even see the animals grazing in their fields from the upstairs windows of my house, that’s how local the farm is, and that’s how I know they are outside all day, all weather.

I cooked this for 9 people, 4 adults and 5 kids, and I bought a 3.4 kilo shoulder. The kids all ate well, so I guess this quantity would be about right for up to 6 adults.

Read more

Apr 2

1 Comment

Water usage and the Environmental Cost of Beef Production

I recently received this question:

Question for MND: meat farming is considered by some to be very resource-intensive and bad for the environment, compared with the nutrition you can get from grains and other farmed foods. I know you don't like grains - but where does the balance lie?

And I thought I would share the answer with you, for your interest:

MotherNaturesDiet replies: Thanks, you raise a really good point, and it's something I am going to be covering in detail in one of the books I am writing, which will be available later in the year.

The principle argument is a classic case of ‘distorted data’. The anti-meat lobby and many hard-line vegetarian blogs love to quote all this water-and-land usage data to argue for eating grains and not meat. They quote that it takes some huge number, 2,000 gallons or more, of fresh water to raise 1 pound of beef, therefore meat is this terrible resource-guzzling food, and so the story goes. They quote that the developing world could never all eat meat the way Americans do, because it would require so much land and fresh water to raise that much beef.

Summary of this post:
•Modern beef production wastes a lot of water, is cruel to the animals and has a high impact on the environment.
•It doesn’t HAVE to be that way, organic is sustainable and achievable.
•However, in the short term, organic is likely to remain a ‘niche choice’ for the conscientious consumer.
•The human population on Earth has only become so harmfully inflated due to intensive industrialised farming processes that started since the industrial revolution.

Read more

Mar 10

Is Free Range Meat Expensive?

I am often asked about the cost of free-range, outdoor-reared, organic meat. Many people question if it costs too much to eat the MND way.

I admit that some organic food is expensive, and some free range meat is expensive, but honestly, personally, I think the investment in my health is worth it. I buy food that nourishes my body, I know the animals have been treated properly, with some dignity and respect, and I know the life of that animal, and hence the food I am eating, has been lived more in tune with nature.

The picture shows a lunch I cooked last week. Pork and greens, quick, simple, yummy. I put a drizzle of olive oil in the pan, chopped up a leek first and threw that in, then I chopped up my pork tenderloin, threw that in, then a handful of kale chopped up (I keep telling you I eat either kale or broccoli every day of my life, often both, often multiple times! I had kale in all my meals the day I made this!)

Quick and cheap, for my main meal of the day

This took less than 5 mins to prepare, and max 5 mins to cook.

My pork tenderloin weighed 395 grams raw (about a pound) it cost just £3.65

So this lunch cost about £4 quid in total, and it was tasty, natural and nutritious. I sprinkled on some black pepper and a sprig of parsley, easy, quick, tasty. No additives. No chemicals...there was even some free mud on my kale. Perfect, I didn't even wash it off.

Read more

Mar 7

2 Comments

New research linking processed meat to increased risk of death

This news story was in the UK papers today, about new research linking processed meat consumption to an increased risk of death.

Several friends have asked for my opinion on this. Personally, as you know, on MND, I don’t touch ‘junk meat’, so it is not a concern for me. I have looked at the reports in the papers – see links at bottom of this article – and I have looked into the research and the original results, to form my own opinion.

Of course, I broadly agree with the notion that processed meats are bad for us. No surprise there, I don’t eat that garbage and MND recommends that you don’t eat it either. The scrappy off-cuts of meat that food manufacturers put into cheap sausages, cheap pork pies and other cheap meats, just like those 99p frozen lasagne dishes with horse meat in them, are the trash end of the meat market, and MND advices you to completely avoid such products.

Read more

Mar 3

Stop overeating: switch to eating simpler meals using fewer ingredients

I recently wrote about how so many people opt for sugar-laden tasty foods in preference to vegetables, in large part because their media-shrivelled brains crave constant hit after hit, and sweet tasty foods is one big way to get that hit. People have forgotten that food is really just fuel, it is there to sustain us living and breeding and functioning. But for far too many people, food (and the art of creating a meal) has become a leisure activity in its own right.

To many people, eating has become a hobby, a favourite pastime, and a distraction from the many areas of their lives that are less than fully satisfying. In my opinion, (and you must remember that everything on this blog is just that, a collection of my personal opinions) food is just fuel, and it is not meant to be a hobby to indulge in every day.

I have nothing against preparing a delicious meal for a gathering of friends. The 'tribal feast' has surely been a part of human culture since long before we developed language, agriculture and society. No doubt tribes would gather and feast after a successful collaborative hunt millions of years ago. I too enjoy cooking a feast for visitors and enjoying a tasty meal with several courses as the centre of such a social gathering…but I’m talking once or twice per month, not 7 days per week. Too many people treat their evening meal as the highlight of their day, and they focus their attention and energy on preparing that meal and making it as tasty, fancy and satisfying as possible.

Read more

Mar 2

Sick of Eating Meat!!!

This ‘headline’ will get the attention of my vegetarian friends!!

I trained hard early this morning, then came home and needed a good breakfast to feed my body after training, and to nourish me for the day, as I went out rock climbing all day and I knew I probably wouldn’t get the chance to eat much during the day.

As you know, if you have been reading this blog, I eat a lot of meat. Animal products make up about 50% of my diet (measured by calories) and fruit and veggies make up the other half. I like meat and when I started on my ‘paleo’ journey it seemed like a treat to have so much tasty meat in my diet...succulent roasts for lunch, juicy sausages and eggs for breakfast, tasty chicken any time, any day, any meal. But I have to say, since I massively ramped up my meat intake about 10 months ago, that novelty has now worn off, and while I still enjoy the majority of my meals, there are days I feel like I can’t handle any more meat!!

Read more

Feb 24

Train hard, eat well, sleep

I trained hard today, in my home gym, lots of body-weight moves, but using my OLD body weight. I have a weight vest which puts 5 stones (70 pounds, 32 kilos) extra on my frame. I like to exercise wearing this vest, as it reminds me that I lost all that fat, and more, over the years.

No wonder I found 20 push-ups hard work back then. 20 push-ups now wearing that vest is hard work! Without the vest, I can bang out sets of 50 no problem, but the vest really makes a big difference, just 20 is hard work.

Read more

Feb 19

2 Comments

Horse meat in our food supply – why you only have yourself to blame, Joe Public

I have been avoiding writing about this horse meat scandal in the UK, but I can’t keep quiet about it any longer.

I am not the only nor the first to voice the broad opinion that ‘you the people wanted cheap food, you wanted to be able to buy a microwave dinner for 99p, you wanted a whole box of frozen burgers for just £1.99, what the hell did you think you were getting? Did you relay expect high food safety and quality standards when you were demanding such ridiculously cheap goods?’ I want to say ‘Shut up and quit complaining, you get what you pay for in life.’ But that doesn’t say enough, to state it like that sounds aggressive and ignorant, when perhaps ignorance is the problem in the first place, so this needs a little more explanation.

Read more

Feb 17

5 Comments

Naturally reared meat versus ‘junk meat’

With my deep interest in nutrition and good health, I have obviously read many books about food and whether or not we should eat meat, versus a vegetarian diet. There are many books, The China Study (largely the text behind the movie “Forks over Knives”) being one of the most prominent examples, which show the virtues of avoiding meat, and these books promote a vegetarian diet.

Obviously, I am a meat eater, and I do enjoy meat, I like the taste and I have found myself left wanting when I have lived on a vegetarian diet in the past. But I don’t eat meat JUST because I like the taste, and if I saw evidence that I genuinely believed, proving that meat was bad for me, compelling me to reduce my intake of animal products, then I would consider cutting right back on my meat consumption or even giving it up altogether.

Show me the evidence

Read more

Sep 8

1 Comment

Vegetarianism and Facing the Harsh Reality of Animal Cruelty

I wasn’t going to blog today, but I will, as this discussion came up in another chat-group that I am a member of, and I feel compelled to share my thoughts. Having written the below for the other thread, I will amend a few words and re-post it here.

Earthlings

We were discussing the quite disturbing movie Earthlings.

The movie is frank, open, somewhat biased, and quite graphic and disturbing, and the message is vitally important. If you have a strong stomach and want to watch it, you can view the whole thing live online, at earthlings.com

I have to admit, this movie really IS pretty heavy! It’s hard to watch for anyone with a loving soul.

Read more