Mythbusting Monday: Beef; A Healthy Choice

I’m sure that at one point or another we have all heard that red meat is bad for you. Weather it is the latest fad diet or some TV show it seems as if everywhere is encouraging you to give up red meat because it is ‘too fatty’ or ‘bad for you’ in some other way. I am going to share with you some startling truths about beef that just might have you thinking differently.

·         There are 12 cuts of meat that are leaner than a skinless chicken thigh

·         Beef is a great source of protein, phosphorus, zinc, iron, b-complex vitamins, selenium, and riboflavin (all of these are needed to maintain healthy body function)

·         1 serving of lean beef can contribute less than 10% of calories to a meal, but has over 10% of the required daily value of the 9 essential nutrients

·         It would take 3 cups of raw spinach to get the same amount of iron that is in one serving of beef,  

·         A fatty acid found only in meat (conjugated linoleic acid) has been shown to reduce the chances of cancer because it slows tumour growth.

·         Conjugated linoleic acid is also shown to help decrease body fat and increase lean muscle mass

·         One serving of T-bone steak has only 3 grams of saturated fat

So there you have it, if enjoyed in proper serving sizes meat is a very healthy addition to a diet!

info from: http://www.beef.org/
picture from: http://tipdeck.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/How-Long-to-Cook-Beef.jpg

Mythbusting Monday: There’s A Chicken in my Egg!

So I’m sure that everyone knows someone who at one time claimed they bought a carton of eggs from the grocery store and one of them had a chick in it. The truth behind this myth, it is absolutely impossible. (well unless you are buying farm eggs from places that are not large farms that produce only eggs for eating,  most, if not all eggs sold at grocery stores are from large egg producing farms)

from: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/


Although there are some breeds of chickens that are both good for meat and egg production most farms specialize in a breed that is good for one or the other. A large commercial farm that produces eggs for consumers buys their chickens from hatcheries; they buy only female chickens because roosters are not needed for chickens to produce eggs. The only way that an egg can have a chick in it is if it is first fertilized by a male. Since there are no male chickens on the premises of commercial egg producing farms finding a chick in your egg is impossible.

But this all being said, obviously if someone is to claim they found a chick in an egg bought from the super market they had to have seen something. What they most likely mistake for chicks are actually just deformities that happen when the egg is being produced. There is no way you can get a chick out of an egg produced on a commercial farm!

Mythbusting Mondays: Cow bites

So today I was asked if a mark on my arm was from a cow biting me and although this isn’t exactly a myth it is close enough that it is the one I am going to use today.

Cattle teeth are designed to eat grass and other plants that are not flat on the ground. They have teeth on the bottom of their mouth, but on the top is a tough pad of skin. So to eat grass cattle actually first wrap their tongue around it, then clamp it in between their teeth and the pad of skin, then pull with their head to rip the grass out of the ground (you can see this in the video posted below) After ripping the grass loose cattle will quickly swallow it.  It will then sit in their 1^st ‘stomach’ or digestive cavity the reticulum. Here the grass is softened and later regurgitated as cud for the cow to chew when she is not eating. It is clear to see that this type of anatomy is defiantly not designed to rip the flesh off of a person. I am not saying that if you were to stick your hand in a cow’s mouth they would not try to clamp down on it, they are just not going to go out of their way to take a bite at you!

Mythbusting Monday: Feeding the Hungry

First of all I would like to start out by apologizing for my absence from the world of blogging lately. I have spent the weekend at my sisters 4H show and sale and hauling cows out to pasture. The plus side of doing these things is that I have some new ideas for my blog that you will be seeing soon. But I would like to start this week off with another myth.

This week I have decided to cover a myth that is near and dear to my heart, the idea that by becoming a vegetarian you can help to feed the hungry. This myth comes to be because of the assumption that eating less meat (especially beef) would free up land to grow crops on, in theory these crops could more easily be transported, and are often what is lacking in diets of people below the poverty line people. Like the other myths I have busted this is also false.

One of our pastures that is too sandy
to grow other crops on

I have mentioned before that cattle are essentially living machines that turn products that are unusable to people into high quality protein. There is very little in a cows diet that competes with that in a human diet, even the grain they eat is a poorer quality than what we can use.  Especially in western Canada most cattle are raised on land that is unusable for growing crops (by being too salty, too rocky, too dry etc.) If this land were to be turned into crop land there would not be an increase in production. In fact this land would grow very poor crops that could not be used for human consumption. On top of that a valuable source of protein would be lost to the world.

Info from: http://www.animalagalliance.org/ http://cowcalf.cattle.ca/the-land

Mythbusting Mondays: We All Milk Cows

I remember the first day that I met my roommate’s boyfriend. He seen on my table an alarm clock that was a trophy I won from our 4-H show and sale, he asked me if I was a farm girl then when I replied yes he asked if that meant that I got up every morning bright and early to milk cows. This, like many other myths about agriculture is false.

First of all to begin with some basic cattle knowledge. There are two broad categories of cattle, beef and dairy. Although dairy cattle can be used for beef and beef cows due produce milk they do much better if they stick to their own thing. This would be like having a math teacher teach biology and a biology teacher teach math, they both could probably do ok, but if they taught their own subjects it would probably make a lot more sense.  

A holstein Dairy Cow from:
http://carolvaage.net/images/cow5.JPG

Dairy cattle are the ones that people are most familiar with (the white ones with the black spots) This particular breed of cattle is called Holstein and although there are many different breeds of dairy cattle that don’t look anything like this Holstein is the most popular dairy breed in Canada by far.

Beef cattle is where things get a little more complicated. I have talked frequently about my Angus cattle, but there are many different breeds raised (such as Charolais, Herford, Limousine, Semimetal etc.) Each breed has a different advantage when it comes to meat quality, taste, temperament, adaptively to climates, and other features.



many different breeds of beef cattle from:
http://www.usask.ca/beefresearch/herd72.jpg



So to answer the question, no, I do not get up and milk cows in the morning; neither do most of the cattle farmers in this area. But people who own dairies do. they have to get up at certain times and milk cows on a schedule. There was a day when most farms had a dairy cow on their place to produce a little milk for themselves, but now a day’s most people raise either beef or dairy.

Mythbusting Mondays: Bulls and Red

I’m sure that we have all heard the old myth that bulls will charge at you if you wear red. Like many other myths about the agriculture industry this is false. Hand in hand with this myth is that Cattle are colour blind. This is also false.

To explain this I’m going to have to get a bit technical. Cattle are Dichromats, this means that their eyes is most sensitive to 2 main spectrums of colour (green/yellow and purple/blue) humans, on the other hand, are trichromats meaning that they can see the entire spectrum.

Cattle are not more sensitive to red than any other colour, but what they are sensitive to is movement. Since cattle are grazers their eyes work so that they can see things coming from a long ways a way. But although they can see it they cannot clearly distinguish what it is. This is why movement will often make them jump even if it is something simple like a tree blowing in the wind.

My family raises bulls and it always amazes my friend when I strike off across a pen of 20 of them without looking back. This is because I know my cattle, for the most part I have seen our bulls every day from the time that they are 7 months old. Even though I know that my bulls are used to people and my family I still take precautions. Even the most nice animal can have its grumpy days or just want to play and bunt you with their head (this is not so fun for me considering they are about 10 times my weight) When walking through a pen of bulls, no matter how tame, it is always good to make slow, deliberate movements and have a quick exit rout in case something goes bad. And you are probably safer to wear your favorite red shirt then to wave something in front of their face.

my sister and one of our bulls

Myth busting: Ag style

Recently I have heard some pretty interesting myths about the agriculture and beef cattle industry. I have decided to do a segment here on discussing some of these myths and telling the truth behind them.

The other day someone asked me: is it true that if you see cattle lying down there is something wrong?

This is defiantly not true. Cattle actually sleep lying down much to the disappointment of all the myths about cow tipping. If a cow is sleeping standing up it is probably due to either poor ground conditions such as excessive mud so that she can’t lie down, or a really bad storm. In the case of a storm a cow will sleep standing up so as to avoid getting snowed in.  If a cow is forced to sleep standing up she will get really weary and become too tired to eat and will lose weight. This is why ranchers always ensure that cattle have a comfortable place to sleep.  

Healthy cattle should spend most of their day chewing their cud or ‘idling’ (lying down or standing as part of a group) Cattle naturally have only two active periods where they are standing and moving around. These time periods are usually between 5-11 am and 4-10 pm. The rest of the day is usually spent lying down and chewing their cud. This is what i naturally observed, but since cattle are curiouse creatures if people come in they will often get up to check them out.