If I was a cow where would I want to live? On San Diego’s Palomar Mountain of course. Where I would have 7,000 acres to roam free and eat native, natural, and organic rye, wild oats, bronco grass, squirrel grass and clover. And where I would be cared for by the Mendenhall family, a family that’s been ranching the area for over a century. The only downside? At some point I’d leave the ranch to provide a nutritious meal, after all I am a cow, and I did live a good life.

The Mendenhall’s are raising animal welfare approved cattle, which is in stark contrast to most of the cattle that are raised in this country. Several popular books like Fast Food Nation, which I read ten years ago, Michael Pollan’s Omnivores Delemma (2006), and the more recent movie, Food Inc (2008), all document the mass-production of beef, with horrific stories, like “downer cows”, animals so sick and hobbled they must be dragged to the slaughterhouse with chains or pushed by a front-end loader, contamination of beef with E.coli and other bugs, as well as numerous other issues that lead to unhealthy beef. As consumers we need to become more aware of these issues, but this is the end of a cow’s journey to become beef, first lets take a step back.

For tens of thousands of years, we have been eating the flesh of ruminants. Ruminants are animals that are designed to eat grass, like buffalo, deer, elk, and cows. And what makes a ruminant unique is it’s ability to digest grass, in the case of the cow, it uses four well designed stomachs to accomplish the task. But why the lesson on what cows eat? Well in the US the mass-production system of beef doesn’t use grass for feed, rather they feed cows grains, mostly corn, well at least after they’ve weaned from the momma cows milk, and for an animal that has evolved eating exclusively grass, that’s problematic.

When a cow is fed corn, or really anything other than grass, their immune systems are compromised and they get a horrifying list of diseases; feedlot polio, abscessed livers, rumenitis, all these kinds of things that require antibiotics. There’s good reasoning behind this, corn makes cows gain weight quickly, and for a rancher that’s selling a product by weight, well that’s good business. And in the last fifty years we’ve been conditioned to select a steak with a high fat content, or marbling, because the fat improves the taste.

But there are consequences for messing with the natural food of cows, beyond the health of the animal. And this is why grass fed cows from the Mendenhall’s Palomar Mountain ranch are so much better than their grain fed counterparts. Many studies have shown that the nutrition profile of grass fed beef is substantially better than grain fed beef. How so?

• 10 fold increase in β-carotene levels for grass-fed beef
• α-tocopherol (Vitaman E) levels 3-fold over conventional beef
• Cattle fed primarily grass enhanced the omega-3 content of beef by 60%

So we have a challenge. Over the past fifty years our connection between animals and food has been blurred, the welfare of animals raised for food has been blurred, and creating awareness about the sad state of many factory farms hasn’t seemed to help reconnect us. In fact most of us remain unaware to the fact that those yummy burgers and burrito’s getting handed to us through our car windows, are in fact animals, most likely raised in conditions that had you seen them, would keep you from eating them.

But hey, I’m not throwing a rock from a glass house, I’m just as guilty as everyone else. The goal here isn’t to condemn us for eating animals we’ve eaten for decades, the goal is to see what we can do differently, and to see what benefits we get, both for our health, and for our environment, and to see if those benefits can provide lasting sustainable change, without giving up In-n-Out Burger of course.

Even if you agree that grass fed beef is the way to go many find it too expensive, well over $20 a pound in some cases. So what’s the Health Uprising solution? It’s called Cow-Pooling, as described in this Time Magazine article: Cow-Pooling: Buying Beef in Mega-Bulk. This is exactly what myself and several friends recently did to help lower the cost of our grass fed beef. We contacted Joel Mendenhall and we bought ourselves a cow, which is currently hanging in a butcher shop cooler, aging nicely. This purchase will not only provide a more nutrient dense source of food for our families, it will steer (pun intended) dollars away from factory farms, and will allow us to get grass fed beef for less than what we’d pay for grain fed beef in the supermarket.

And it seems more people are making the same choice we have. According to this article, Allen Williams, president of Livestock Management Consultants, LLC, says “in 1998, the United States was home to about 100 serious grass-fed beef producers. Their market share was approximately $2 million. By 2009, the niche market had grown to over 2,000 producers, nationally, with a domestic market of over $380 million. After adding in imported beef, the small alliance has catapulted to over a $1 billion industry in just over a decade. I strongly suspect that the industry will top $2 billion this year,” he says

So join the Health Uprising. Get a few friends together and buy a cow from a local rancher, or check out Eat Wild, a web site dedicated to helping connect consumers and farmers, or give the Mendenhall’s a call and buy one of theirs.

Part of my personal Health Uprising has been to evaluate the foods I eat, and see if there’s any way to get more out of them. For instance whole chickens, previously I would just throw out the carcass, but now I use it for making soup or chicken stock, allowing me to extend the value of my food dollars, and lower my overall consumption of resources.

Recently I went fishing with a good friend and we were fortunate to have caught four White Seabass, ranging in size from 30lbs to our personal best of 55lbs. These are highly prized fish, both from a eating perspective, and as an angler, since they’re very elusive, partly due to overfishing, but with the help of the Hubbs-Seaworld Research Institute White Seabass hatchery project, and the restriction of coastal gill nets they’re making a nice comeback, validated by our recent catch.

So here we are with four beautiful fish. In the past we wouldn’t have given much thought about the value of the whole fish, we would have just filleted the fish and thrown the carcass back into the sea, but the goal this time was to see what value, if any, the other parts of the fish might offer.

First off we had to gut the fish. Surely those were going overboard? Actually no, in fact fish guts are one of the best fertilizers, they contain nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and trace minerals that support root and foliar growth of plants. So we saved the fish guts and now my garden is getting some much needed nutrition.

While I was gutting the fish I came across two sacks of roe (fish eggs) in each fish. Now I remember growing up that my dad would mix some fish roe in with his eggs, so I knew they could be used, but he used small roe, these were as big as my arm. After a quick Google search I found a use, turns out in Italy and other countries large fish roe is salted and used as a additive to pasta, it’s called Botargo. And it’s relatively easy to make, currently my five year old son and I are making this. We’ll update the post as we progress.

One part that of the fish that is often overlooked, and one part I have been using for many years, is the collar and belly meat, which are excellent for the barbecue. If you’ve ever been to a sushi restaurant and had Toro, or Bluefin belly, you know it’s highly prized as food because it’s so expensive. Most fish have cheeks, belly and collars that make for excellent eating, some would say they’re the best parts.

The obvious part of the fish is the fillets, no questions on what to do with those. So what’s left? A simple whack with the knife and we now have a head, bones (with some meat), and a tail. What do we do with these? We buried the tail in the garden.

The head? Well that goes to science, as mentioned previously since 1986 the Hubbs-Seaworld Research Institute has been raising and releasing juvenile white seabass, over 1.5 million seabass have been released. Each White Seabass has a microchip placed in its head, by returning the heads they can scan the head and determine whether a fish was from the hatchery program, and if so where it was released. In speaking with the hatchery program director Michael Shane, he asked that we fisherman spread the word about returning the heads. The more information they have on the success of the hatchery program, the more likely they’ll continue to get funding, and giving us fisherman more opportunities to catch these magnificent fish.

So now we’re just left with bones and the attached meat. When I lived in Costa Rica I lived with the locals in a small fishing village. The fisherman would sell the fillets of the fish they caught to Gringo’s and keep the rest of the fish to make soup, which was awesome. And in my travels throughout coastal areas of Mexico, Asia, and Europe, most every seafood restaurant had some sort of fish or seafood soup, with the head, bones or tails being exposed from the bowl. But for some reason it’s relatively rare here in the US. Certain ethnic communities in the US have seemed to adopt their home culture and utilize the whole fish, but I would say most of us have shunned the idea of using the whole fish, it is perceived as, dare I say, food for “lesser cultures”, or maybe it’s just that most don’t know any recipes, or that those recipes might involve more than just slapping a piece of fish on the barbecue (i.e. more work).

I’m not sure what the reason is for fish, but I do know we seem to be fine with using meat and bones of chickens and pigs for chicken nuggets and hot dogs, although maybe most don’t realize they’re in there. Failing to utilize the whole fish, or any animal for that matter, is clearly wasteful, and hence the “lesser” culture should be the one who doesn’t understand the value of a resource, and that would be most of us here in the US. And when you stop to think about it, why wouldn’t you want to make five meals from a whole fish when you would otherwise make only two from just the fillets? Seems the past fifty years or so we’ve been lucky, or extremely wasteful, in that we haven’t had to get the full value of a resource. In talking with my parents it seems their parents knew the value of resources much better than we do, as I recently learned both of my sets of grandparents put fish heads in their garden, but since they weren’t plentiful they only used them for their highly prized plants. Imagine, a fish head, highly prized for soil nutrients, and for soup in other cultures. Guess we have a lot to learn.

So in keeping with my attempt at using the whole fish I fired up a large pot of water on the burner and then added the bones, along with some cilantro, onions, old bay, salt, pepper, garlic and an hour later I had yummy fish soup. I ate a little and froze the rest for future meals.

In reexamining my consumption of resources I would be remiss to leave out the resource we fisherman use the most, BAIT!! Yes, in this case the reason the White Seabass were around was because of their favorite meal, squid. To fish for White Seabass one needs to be knowledgeable about the whereabouts of squid. In our case we found some squid, and then as dark approached we put a green light into the water. The squid rose from the depths because they’re attracted, as many fish are, to the light. We netted several hundred for bait, and after fishing saved the rest for fried calamari (squid) and to add to our fish soup. So we even used our leftover bait for food.

So what was accomplished in this reexamination of the resource?

• Fillets are great, but the cheek, collar and belly meat are perhaps even better.
• Fish guts make excellent fertilizer for the garden.
• Hatchery programs are great ways to help populations of fish recover, and they need to be supported.
• FIsh soup is a great way to extend the value of your catch
• And don’t overlook the bait. If you don’t catch any fish you may be able to eat the bait!

I learned a lot with this project and moving forward I will always look to utilize the full resource of what I harvest. Next up? Buying a cow and using all of it!!

By the way you don’t need to be a fisherman to obtain a whole fish, for those that aren’t into smelly hobbies the best way to obtain a whole fish is just to request one from your local fish market. In San Diego we have a little known wholesale fish market, Catalina Seafood, and they sell to the public during limited hours. A quick call to Tommy over at Catalina and he’ll let you know what fish he has, and if you stop in he’ll let you go back and pick the whole fish from his inventory.

Let me know if you have any other ideas for using whole fish or bait.

Analyzing the cost of whole chickens? Well as I’ve been eating many per week I figured I’d try to figure out the best choice, organic, natural or drugged. Turns out these tasty little buggers vary quite dramatically in price, from $.69 a pound to over $4. At Jimbo’s where I buy the organic and natural whole chickens there are two choices, “Smart Chicken” and Petaluma Poultry:

- Smart Chicken – This uber chicken is Certified Organic & Certified Humane, air-chilled, and never given antibiotics.  Smart Chicken is $4.49 a pound.

- Rosie, she’s fed a certified organic corn and soy diet, has room to roam inside a barn, can go to a pasture area outside the barn, and never given antibiotics. Rosie is $3.99 a pound.

- Rocky, he’s on a corn and soy diet, (according to a company spokesman his soy is most likely GMO and the corn may sometimes be organic), like Rosie he has room to roam inside a barn and can go outside, and never given any antibiotics, Rocky is $2.69 a pound.

Then we have Foster, at the unbelievable sale price of $.69 a pound, (limit three) but I was curious about Foster. There must be a catch. What was he eating? Did he ever see sunlight? Was he getting drugged like some back alley addict?

Turns out he’s free to move around but just gets circulated fresh air, he and his buddies get shot up with antibiotics, and his food most likely contains GMO’s. And Foster is, according to Consumer Reports in the article and video, How safe is that chicken?, most likely infected with harmful bacteria 80% of the time. Of the 484 raw broilers examined, 42 percent were infected by Campylobacter jejuni, and 12 percent by Salmonella enterides.

And it turns out Foster and his friends from Purdue, and Tyson are given antibiotics, according to Is Meat Safe from PBS it makes them grow 3% larger (like BGH milk and GMO crops these antibiotics are banned in Canada and the European Union, lucky us). In addition if one of Fosters buddies gets sick they give the whole flock antibiotics in their drinking water, so while Foster’s parents say their use of antibiotics is prudent, most in the know say the birds are getting lots of antibiotics, and it’s a big issue which is why some folks have fought and won in lawsuits regarding marketing.

So what does it matter if they’re getting antibiotics? At $.69 a pound Foster is quite a bargain compared to the $2.69 price for Rocky. Well more great news. Scientists have become increasingly concerned that the routine use of antibiotics in animal agriculture may accelerate the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that could lead to a pandemic or other health crisis. In the New York Times there was an outstanding editorial about the link to antibiotics and agriculture. They say: Every year in the United States, 325,000 people are hospitalized because of food-borne illnesses and 5,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s right: food kills one person every two hours.

So what’s the health ROI on chicken? Seems the risk in consuming a drugged chicken and dying is 5000 in to whatever percentage of people eat them, say 200 million people maybe, so that’s a .0025 percent chance. And the risk of getting sick is 325,000 into 200 million or 16% chance, but probably only down for a day. And consuming antibiotics from Foster probably isn’t a good idea, especially for my kids. Clearly the keys to dealing with Foster are to keep the sanitize the prep area and make sure to cook him to the 185 degrees recommended.

Chicken ROI by the numbers. The cost for the month when eating 4 whole chickens a week (16 chickens @ 6lbs each) would be:

Rosie is $3.99 a pound, $23.94 for a 6 pounder Monthly Cost for 16 = $383.04, Yield 4.2 pounds, cost per pound for meat $5.70.

Rocky is $2.69 a pound, $16.14 for a 6 pounder Monthly Cost for 16 = $258.24, Yield 4.2 pounds, cost per pound for meat $3.84.

Foster normal price $1.69, $10.14 for a 6 pounder Monthly Cost for 16 = $162.24, Yield 4.2 pounds, cost per pound for meat $2.41.

Foster sale price $.69, $4.14 for a 6 pounder Monthly Cost for 16 = $66.24, Yield 4.2 pounds, cost per pound for meat $.98.

The cost for grass fed ground beef is $6.99 for USA, and $5.99 for Uruguayan, roughly $3-4 for conventional grain fed, other cuts are much more, and most fish is at $7 or more. So Rocky the natural chicken coming in at $3.84 per pound isn’t too bad.

It costs $258.24 for 16 Rocky’s per month, which would cost me an extra $192 per month versus Foster when he’s on sale, and would cost me an extra $96 when compared to regular priced Foster. So I would pay an extra $80 to $170 per month for Rocky.

Overall health/cost ROI seems to lean toward Rocky, even though I would like to avoid Foster, his sale price sure is a compelling option on a tight budget. Clearly we all need to find our boundaries, and deal with financial realities, but for me supporting sustainable farms and feeding my family a chicken without antibiotics and harmful bacteria is worth the price, sorry Foster you’re too much of a risk, Rocky it is, and Rosie, you’re purity may have been an option in 2008, but not in the foreseeable future.