If you’ve ever tasted lamb fed entirely on diverse, natural pastures, like ours, there’s an inherent knowing that it must be better for you, because it tastes SO damn good. But *why* is pasture/grass-fed lamb, and meat in general, better for us than grain fed? As this is a topic that’s close to our family’s hearts, and has multiple important and detailed answers, it’s only right that we give this the coverage, attention, and content space it deserves on our blog. This way, we can arm you guys with the full, accurate information to make the best health, nutritional, and purchasing decisions for you and your family.
1️⃣ SECONDARY COMPOUNDS
One reason why you may like to choose pasture-fed lamb over grain fed is due to the secondary compounds, or phytochemicals (naturally contained in plants), that grass fed animals access when grazing – things like tannins, flavanoids, aromatic oils and alkaloids. These are rarely talked about with relation to food. We regularly hear about the primary compounds – protein, carbohydrates, energy, and mineral contents of food, but rarely do we hear about these secondary compounds. This is possibly understandable, because there are thousands of different compounds – but don’t let this have you underestimate their importance!
The combination of a large variety of these different compounds contributes to overall health and wellbeing – in this case, of our sheep and lambs. It also, importantly, has a positive knock on effect to YOUR health – those of you eating our natural, pasture-fed lamb! These secondary compounds are like nature’s medicines. For example, they are the things responsible for why red wine is said to be good for your heart (in moderation) and why certain herbs and spices naturally aid health. Secondary plant compounds have many roles in your body including appetising, digestive, and therapeutic purposes. What sheep and lambs need then, to access the necessary variety of these compounds, is a natural and diverse pasture on which to feed and roam. The access to this diversity of plants and grasses means that the animals maintain good health, and the need for chemically treating sickness is avoided. Animals that feed on a single species crop (like oats) however, simply don’t have access to this nutritional diversity.
As modern humans, you and I have, unfortunately, lost most of the intuition for knowing what we need to eat to ensure good health or to mend illnesses naturally. Sheep and lambs, and other animals, however, have not. Giving them diverse, natural pastures to freely roam and feed on provides them with the natural nutritional options required for them to not only optimally feed, but to also ‘self medicate’ and ensure their own health and wellbeing naturally, as Mother Nature intended.
This is great because it means that our sheep and lambs are in tip-top health, naturally, and we can then avoid pesticides and undesirable chemicals, that may otherwise be needed to treat health problems in our animals.
Secondary plant compounds are responsible for a huge range of positive impacts on our sheep and lambs (and then you). Here are some examples of the positive effects that plant secondary compounds can have.
They can:
🌱 Be antibacterial and/or anti-parasitic in the digestive tract
🌱 Provide antioxidant protection
🌱 Inhibit cancer growth
🌱 Stimulate circulation
🌱 Prevent diarrhoea
🌱 Offer pain relief
🌱 Boost immunity
🌱 Provide satiety (feeling satisfied or full)
🌱 Influence feed intake
🌱 Improve fertility
🌱 Naturally provide flavour and colour to foods
One sheep/lamb will have different needs to the next - just like we have different nutritional needs to our friends. So a diverse pasture gives our sheep and lambs the ability to select for what they uniquely need to be in their best health. Comparatively, as with the grain-feeding process, a bog-standard grain mix is rationed between all the animals every day, meaning it does not account for individual animal requirements or provide them with the natural, wholesome, unprocessed, and high-quality nutrients and secondary compounds needed for a holistically healthy diet.
Ultimately, if you choose to consume our lamb, fed on diverse natural pastures – it’s better for you. Our sheep and lambs freely roam and feed off our farm’s totally natural, chemical-free, diverse pastures. This way, we can avoid the need for ‘chemical bandaids’ for our sheep and lambs’ health and wellbeing. Consequently, this also means that you, our customers, get the healthy knock-on effects of clean, wholesome, natural food.
2️⃣ FATS - THE GOOD & THE BAD
Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) are named so as they are required in multiple of our body’s biological processes, as opposed to the other non-essential types of fats that are for storing and providing energy. Omega-3 and Omega-6 are Essential Fatty Acids, and it is the balance of these that is important.
There is much evidence to suggest that, the diet on which we evolved, consisted of a ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids of around 1:1. Modern-day Western diets, however, have much higher relative levels of Omega-6 fatty acids, which has been found to promote negative health conditions like heart disease, cancer, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, as well as Alzheimer’s disease, weight gain, allergies and depression. Shockingly, most current Western diets consist of ratios of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids of around 16:1, and sometimes even higher!
Choosing pasture-fed lamb over grain-fed lamb assures you a healthy balance of fats. Particularly, our New England Lamb meat is, of course, entirely pasture-fed but our lamb is also a special breed, called the Australian White. You see, the specialty Australian White sheep breed that we rear genetically has naturally elevated levels of the good Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids. As such, our lamb has an Omega-6 to Omega-3 fat ratio of around 1.5 : 1 – a level consistent with high-quality wild game – because, like wild game, grass-fed animals are eating what nature intended! This is compared with grain-fed lambs – the meat of which has an Omega-6 to Omega-3 fat ratio of up to 8:1 – much higher in its relative quantity of the less-desirable Omega-6 Fatty Acids.
Research shows that choosing pasture/grass-fed and finished lamb helps put you in a position to naturally prevent or fight these diseases. Virtually all sheep in Australia are born into a grass-fed environment. However, MOST of them are then sent to feedlots as yearlings (at a certain weight and age), where they are fed and finished on grain. Research shows that the fat profile of the animal changes VERY quickly - to an undesirable level - once the animal’s feed is switched from fresh, natural pastures to grain. Grain-fed lamb then takes to YOU, as the consumer, the potential health problems associated with grain-feedings’s higher Omega-6 to Omega-3 fat ratio – unknown to the consumer. This is one of the reasons that our family strictly chooses to eat and produce lamb that is not only fed on our farm’s fresh and natural pastures, but is also finished on pasture – completely 100% pasture-fed and finished.
Pasture-fed lamb is one of the BEST ways to source healthy Omega-3 fats, along with other pasture-fed & finished meats, coconut oil, olive oil (not heated above its 170*C smoke point where after it becomes toxic), pasture-fed & finished butter, and eggs from pasture-fed & finished chooks. Avoiding commonly used vegetable and cooking oils (which are high in Omega 6’s… the not-so-great fats), will also keep your Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio healthy - things like canola, sunflower, soybean, rapeseed & cottonseed oil. We avoid these whenever possible (and it’s not so easy to do if you eat anything remotely processed – they are in so many things, including most sweet and savoury biscuits, crackers, and even sultanas – listed as vegetable oils!). Many of these oils themselves are highly processed. So, stick with whole foods - stick with what nature intended.
3️⃣ CONJUGATED LINOLEIC ACID (CLA)
It is not only the greater proportion of the desirable omega-3 fats that makes grass-fed meat a healthier option. Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) is another substance found predominantly in ruminants animals (sheep and cows) fed on grass pastures.
These CLA’s have great health attributes, such as aiding in the prevention of:
🌱 Cancer
🌱 Heart disease
🌱 Osteoporosis
🌱 High blood pressure
🌱 Inflammation
Bodybuilders also love it for reducing body fat and increasing lean muscle mass.
4️⃣ MINERAL CONTENT
Grass fed beef contains more vitamins, minerals and antioxidants than grain fed beef. Research has shown grass fed beef has increased levels of beta-carotene, which is a precursor to vitamin A. Higher levels of cancer fighting antioxidants (vitamin E, glutathione and superoxide dismutase) have also been attributed to grass fed beef.
Grass fed meat has also been shown to have higher levels of zinc, iron and vitamin B12, all of which form important functions in our bodies.
5️⃣ PASTURE-FED MEAT TASTES BETTER
It’s great to have healthy food to eat, but we all, also, just want to have something that we enjoy the taste of, and this is what grass-fed lamb provides.
I especially love that thin layer of succulent, flavoursome, juicy fat on the top of a thick lamb rack, or the divine taste of a internally fat-marbled, pasture-fed and finished, slow-roasted lamb leg (my favourite).
The French refer to ‘terroir’, a set of environmental factors that affects the qualities and character of produce – like climate, soils, aspect etc. This is often referred to in relation to wine, but is increasingly being used when referring to other produce. In the case of grass fed lamb – the type and quality of feed that the animal consumes has a big influence on taste, overall quality, and health nutritional factor. This is why we graze our sheep and lambs on diverse, totally natural pastures and we say "we're different in the best kind of way" and "it's a difference you'll love the taste of".
