Body Wise*

*The information contained herein is not intended to diagnose or treat ANY medical condition.

Why Choose Grass-Fed Beef and Wild Pacific Salmon

By Leah Kriewall

Corn-Fed Beef vs. Grass-Fed Beef
Corn-fed cows eat an unnatural diet. Often, they are only allowed to graze out in the pasture for the first few months of their lives. They spend the rest of their days confined in feedlots, where they are fed corn, which helps fatten them up. Many corn-fed products come to the Northwest from these feedlots more than 1,000 miles away.


Grass-fed beef and lamb are allowed to eat the proper foods that they were meant to eat. When grass-fed animals aren’t out in the pasture — as is the case in colder climates — they are given an appropriate balance of grass silage and hay.

Beef and lamb are ruminants, meaning they have stomachs that are able to break down grasses and convert the cellulose into protein and fat. If ruminants are fed corn, their diet usually includes antibiotics and feed additives to fight the bloat and multiple stomach problems associated with an unnatural diet. Ruminants can become quite uncomfortable when given this type of fare.

Why is feeding ruminants corn so prevalent?
• Because it’s cheap.
• Because it’s easier to cram many animals into a small space and fatten them up (at abnormally rapid rates) than let them graze naturally in a field.
• Because a younger, larger animal equals higher profits.
• Because the meat of corn-fed animals is marbled with saturated fat, to which many palates have become accustomed (perhaps because it has been promoted as being “USDA Choice”, “Select” or “Prime” meat).

If ruminants are allowed to graze and eat grass, not only are they more comfortable creatures, but their meat has a healthier nutrient profile as well.
•Grass-fed meat is higher in anti-inflammatory Omega-3 fats.
•Corn-fed meat is higher in inflammatory Omega-6 fats and marbled saturated fat. Saturated fat is impossible to trim away, because it is incorporated into the meat itself.
•Grass-fed meat is higher in healthy (perhaps anti-cancer) conjugated linoleic acid fats (CLA).
•Grass-fed meat has four times the anti-oxidant Vitamin E content than corn-fed meat.

Farmed Atlantic Salmon vs. Wild Pacific SalmonDue to recent health claims that promote fish as a nutritious alternative to meat, Americans have tripled their intake of salmon (both fresh and frozen) over the past 15 years. Farming salmon has also increased dramatically. This has seriously threatened the wild salmon population, more so than the health-conscious consumer’s demand for wild fish. Farming salmon is one of the most unsustainable industries because it’s endangering many species of wild salmon.

All Atlantic salmon you see on the market have been hatched and raised in captivity. Wild Atlantic salmon species are on the endangered species list due to over fishing, damming of rivers, and pollution in Europe and North America. Thus, the only Atlantic salmon on the market are farmed. Some Atlantic farms raise Pacific varieties, so look for “wild-caught” on the label or sign next to the fish intended for purchase.

Pacific wild salmon hatch in rivers, float downstream to brackish waters to adapt to living in salt, live in the ocean and make long intense treks upstream to spawn, sometimes covering a distance of 1,200 miles during their lifetime.

Farmed salmon, because they are in such close quarters with other fish, are administered antibiotics and vaccinated. The flesh of farmed fish is gray in color, so the salmon are injected with pink dye derived from commercially raised algae. Fish are fed fishmeal, fish oil, and grains. It takes three wild fish to feed every fish raised on a farm. The fish harvested to feed farmed fish would have fed many more wild salmon in nature.

Pacific wild salmon are allowed to feed freely, and turn pink because of their natural diet of krill, which feed on algae in the sea.

Farmed salmon may harbor up to 10 times as many pesticides and mercury toxins as Pacific wild salmon.

Farmed salmon escape from their pens and continually threaten wild salmon populations with diseases originally exclusive to farmed fish. An example of this is sea lice, which infest farmed salmon and then spread easily from farmed fish that escape to the wild, plaguing wild salmon populations.

Many corn-fed products come from large feedlots thousands of miles away to the Northwest. Farmed salmon is often from the East Coast. However, there are many sustainable options such as locally raised grass-fed meat and wild caught salmon available at New Seasons Market. This is beneficial for both the health conscious consumer and the planet.

Leah Kriewall has been fortunate enough to have a number of different nutritional experiences. She received her bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, obtained a master’s degree in nutrition from Bastyr University, Seattle, WA. She interned at the University Medical Center in Tucson, AZ and completed all requirements to become a registered dietitian. Kriewall currently teaches wellness/cooking classes with New Seasons Market.