We are Pastured Finished and Grain Blended for Gamma/Beta Tocopherols - Why?

Sometimes I am asked - why don't you offer strictly grass-finished beef as an option?  For many in nutritional fields, the answer is not what they might expect.

Our craft beef seeks to load both omega six and omega three fatty acids, for the most significant balance that you want, if not crave, to eat.

Any quick chatGPT run or google search into "gamma tocopherols" and "human health" and "National Institute of Health" will point you in the direction that humans can more readily consume, process, and benefit from omega 6 fatty acids (scientifically-known as gamma/beta tocopherols).  Why?

Human brain health against dementia risk.  Potentially lower risk of breast and/or colorectal cancers.  However, chances are that most folks hear or know less about omega six nutrition than omega three uses.

By contrast, Vitamin E sources from omega three acids have been more widely studied, published, and promoted.  Why?  Perhaps because vitamin E as omega threes are easier to commercialize, synthetically-produce, and source in processed seed oils like soybeans.  When Big Agriculture sought to ultra process gamma tocopherols, it was too difficult to make and stabilize outside of Mother Nature.  Less money seemed to translate to lower promotions from early research of vitamin E.  

Nevertheless, Mother Nature kept back a secret, right in our beef.

So, what's limited when humans consume nutrient rich omega three beef?  Probably us.  Concentrations of omega three sources in our food can be limited by the fact that it is less bioavailable to our guts.  

Not the case with omega six fatty acids woven inside custom grain finished beef tissue.  Human muscle, brain, and blood tend to process gamma tocopherols pretty quickly, when the body can find it inside its favorite form - beef muscle and fat.  However, trying to find a superfood supplement targeting omega sixes can be difficult unless it is embedded in whole food.

So, perhaps an unexpected reveal in a 2024 Evans et al study was that grain finished beef was found to be 14.6 fold higher in gamma/beta tocopherols than grass-finished beef.  Not a little better, like other compounds.  A LOT better. So what?

To be clear, we like omega threes and seek to include it in our craft beef diet, through supplemental fish oil during our final 100 day diet.  However, few might expect such significant advantages from grain-finished beef within a study designed to prove out the advantages of grass-finished beef programs.  

I doubt that you will find this report link from those promoting "nutrient dense" grass finished beef, so here's the link if you're a scientific mind...

https://www.nature.com/article..

Some might be wondering - why isn't this more central to the grass finished debate?  Well, first, some outlets have convinced consumers to pay more for their program, and to each, their own.  However, another reason that this may be not commonly understood is that many grass finish herds cannot grow, feed, or afford custom grain blends based upon their microclimate or grazing landscape.  We are fortunate to have the rain that makes corn grow on fewer acres that cows need to graze.

Bottom line - we are committed to providing you with what we believe it is the absolute best protein for our family.  As a family with members lost to Alzheimer's disease and maturity onset dementia, we found this early research inspiring to keep improving on what we do.  

For our farm, pasture finishing blended with our custom grain products for both omega six and omega three benefits made sense to us.