As obesity rates are reaching new highs, everyone seems to be on the lookout for the latest diet trend. Every health guru says something different and they all seem to limit one food group or another. One well-known food author is inviting people to try something different. Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (2008) and The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006), encourages readers to eat real food, which includes fruits, vegetables and organic grass fed meat.
According to his research, our fast food culture and habit of eating what he calls “edible food-like substances” has led to significant health challenges in North America. Instead, Pollan encourages people to eat real food, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fish and grass fed meat. He defines real food as a whole, single-ingredient food that is mostly unprocessed and free of chemical additives and rich in nutrients. Essentially, he is encouraging us to eat the type of food humans have eaten for thousands of years, before food processing became the industry it is today.
While Pollan encourages people to eat mostly plants, he also includes meat in his diet, because it is a nutritious food that tastes great. When choosing meat for his meal, Pollan looks for grass fed meat because he knows that the diet of the animals we eat makes a difference. Organic grass fed meat offers greater nutritional benefits, without the antibiotics and hormones that exclusively grain fed animals often require.
When compared with feedlot meat, grass fed meat has less total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol and calories. It has more vitamin E, beta-carotene, vitamin C and health-promoting fats, such as omega-3 fatty acids and CLA. When eating grass fed meat, you can be confident that you are eating real food that is nutritious and delicious.
If you are looking to incorporate more “real food” into your diet and want to get away from processed edible food-like substances, simply add some organic grass fed meat to your diet and enjoy the health benefits this real food provides.
