When you’re looking for meat that’s good for your health, the environment and the welfare of the animal, the terms can get confusing: grass-fed, grass-finished, pasture-raised. Is there a difference, and does it matter? There is and it does.
Digestive systems drive animal diets. Cows, sheep and goats are ruminants, named after the rumen, the first of four compartments in their stomach. Here they host billions of microorganisms who help them pull off the digestive miracle of eating grass. Pigs and chickens, however, are monogastrics. Like us, they only have one stomach compartment and need food with more easily accessible nutrients.
Only ruminants can be fully grass-fed. Almost all ruminant livestock eat grass during their life, but the vast majority in the U.S. are also fed grain to speed their weight gain. This increases their environmental impact and creates a slightly different nutrition profile, with more fat marbling and a lower proportion of healthy omega-3s. So when you see “grass-fed” on a beef or butter label, it can mean the cows were fed some grains in their life. If you see “100% grass-fed” or “grass-finished,” it means they only ate grass.
So what does pastured or pasture-raised mean? It applies to pigs and poultry because they thrive on pasture, exploring their surroundings and munching on plants and bugs. If you don’t see “pasture” on the label of your pork, poultry or eggs, it was almost certainly confined to a barn for its entire life without the benefits of movement and diverse nutrition.
All pasture-raised animals can benefit the land, fertilizing it with their manure and pulling carbon from the atmosphere into the soil. But the environmental and animal welfare benefits are only fully realized when the farmer is carefully orchestrating frequent movement of the animals to fresh ground, allowing grasses to regrow and deepen their roots. This extra care and hard work doesn’t appear on the label, and the only way to know if your meat is raised this way is to buy local and know your farmer.
Caney Fork Farms studies how planned grazing of dense livestock herds works in conjunction with grassland and agroforestry ecology. Over time, their organic farm in Tennessee is measuring results and looking deeply into soil carbon and improvements to our ecosystem. Find them at local farmers markets and at their website.
Carbon farming is using sustainable agriculture and land management practices that remove carbon from the atmosphere at a higher rate than conventional practices. This carbon is then able to be restored to its natural place — in soil organic matter and plant material. Agriculture is responsible for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it one of the most important sectors to address.
Carthage, Tenn.
info@caneyforkfarms.com