What Health Difference Does Pasture-Raised Beef Actually Make?

It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

So, no question/request too big or small 😎

❝How much healthier is pasture-raised beef?❞

Interesting question, interesting answer!

We’ll assume you mean healthier to a person eating it, and not an enquiry about the cow’s health, although the two are linked.

The bad news

So, we’ll start with the bad news: there are some things that are bad that aren’t going to get better no matter what is done or not done to the cows:

• Red meat consumption, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis
• Red Meat Consumption (Heme Iron Intake) and Risk for Diabetes and Comorbidities?
• Red meat intake and risk of type 2 diabetes in a prospective cohort study of United States females and males
• Meat consumption: Which are the current global risks? A review of recent (2010-2020) evidences
• Health Risks Associated with Meat Consumption: A Review of Epidemiological Studies
• Associations of Unprocessed Red Meat, Poultry, or Fish Intake With Incident Cardiovascular Disease and All-Cause Mortality
• Red and processed meat consumption and cancer outcomes: Umbrella review

…and that’s just a top few papers of 4,078 that came up quickly in a PubMed search.

The “neutral-but-watch-out” news

Generally speaking, labels will make the strongest claim that they’re legally allowed to make, while farms will generally do whatever is cheapest, to whatever degree they legally can while still using those labels (and sometimes less than that, but that’s not something that can be controlled for by the consumer).

So, “pasture-raised” beef, as per the question, will indeed be from cows (steers, in fact, usually—male offspring are the mostly sold-off byproducts of the dairy industry; cows do not, of course, just spawn with the 99:1 sex ratio commonly found on dairy farms) who were raised in a pasture environment, with access to the outdoors at least a certain number of hours per day. They’ll generally not be there for long, but it will be their whole life, so what you’re getting is what is being paid for: “pasture-raised beef”.

However… If separate claims are not also made for such things as “without antibiotics” or “without added hormones” etc, then you can assume those things were used.

With regard to “grass-fed” beef, jurisdictions will vary on whether that has to be for all of their life, or just for the last part of it (called “grass-finished”, in some jurisdictions, but this is rarely seen on packaging; often grass-finished beef is sold as “grass-fed” because sure enough, they were fed grass at some point).

About those antibiotics, by the way, antibiotics in food (such as from farmed animals, including fish as well as terrestrial animals) is the main cause of antibiotic resistance in humans. A lot of people assume that the problem is doctors handing out prescriptions for antibiotics on a whim, but it’s mostly not that, these days (most doctors know better, and do better). Mostly it’s about antibiotics in the food chain.

See also: Farmed Fish vs Wild Caught: Some Important Differences

The Good News

While the things we listed up top still stand, pasture-raised beef will indeed have more of certain nutrients.

Namely, it’ll have a better fatty acid profile in the fat:

❝These composition differences ultimately impact nutrient supply to consumers of conventional, organic and grass-fed meat.

For this review, predicted fatty acid supply from three consumption scenarios were modelled: i. average UK population National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) (<128 g/week) red meat consumption, ii. red meat consumption suggested by the UK National Health Service (NHS) (<490 g/week) and iii. red meat consumption suggested by the Eat Lancet Report (<98 g/week).

The results indicate average consumers would receive more of the beneficial fatty acids for human health (especially the essential omega-3, alpha-linolenic acid) from pasture-fed beef, produced either organically or conventionally.❞

Source: Nutritional Benefits from Fatty Acids in Organic and Grass-Fed Beef

Note that this means that it being organic does not make a meaningful difference to the nutritional quality—it “just” means you’re not getting some of the same additives used in most modern farming.

However, it being grass-fed (here meaning: for life) does make a difference.

See also: Is Better Nutrition a Justification for Choosing Pasture Raised Animals?

As that last paper notes, the benefits are also reflected in dairy produce. So, if you are vegetarian (obviously the asker today doubtlessly isn’t, but we know some readers are), then that’s something to bear in mind.

For more about butter in particular, check out: Butter vs Margarine ← notwithstanding the title, this wasn’t a “This or That” article, it was a mythbusting edition article

Enjoy!