That was the whole thing about the article in question. Most of the things they brought up are like, gee the grass is green and the sky is blue. I buy grass fed beef all the time. If you taste it ones you cannot even go back to corn fed beef, and everything else you said. Same with cans everybody knows that you not supposed to keep anything in those cans. Same with potatoes, skin is the worst, most unhealthy part of potato, etc.
CharlieD; My comment about the potato is absolutely true. It is a root vegetable that stores most of it's energy in the form of starches and sugars. There is some nutritional value. The negative part is that there is not enough nutritional value in them to offset the carbohydrate content, and therefore they are unhealthy for diabetics, like me. My other comment about the potato was that like the other folks who commented, the ones I purchase from the local grocers are as good as any other potatoes, they sprout, and if cut up, can be used as seed potatoes in the garden.
My commnets about grass fed beef are not knee-jerk reactions where I'm following the latest trend. I have been following this trend for the past several years. When proper rotational, intensive grazing practices are used, the farmer enriches the soil, rather than depleting it from growing single crop foods on it. Also, single crop foods, like grains, have shallow root systems that utilyze only the top couple of inches of soil, depleting it of nutrients, hence the need for fertilizers and weed control agents. Intensive rotational grazing forces the grasses to send the roots deeper into the ground, utilizing more of the soil. In addition, the animals deposit dung onto the grazed land, enriching it with nitrogen rich organic matter. The worms do the rest. The method is patterned after unspoiled lands, where multiple species graze, moving from one area to another in search for food. Each animal has a purpose, some, like deer and their cousins, eating noxious weeds, while the bovines control the grass. Other animals such as wild pigs and various birds control insect populations. a farmer in the Shenandoa Valley started looking at how the Savanah desert could support so many different animals, and still remain a viable ecosystem. Rotational grazing is what he observed. He patterned his farm practices to mimick natures way fo doing things. He grazes his cattle in one pasature for a few days, then moves them to a second pasture. Then he grazes his pigs in the first pasture. He moves both of them after a few more days, then lets the chickens into the first pasture. He cycles all of them forward after a few more days, and introduces goats into the first pasture.
But the time the goats have eaten for a few days, the grasses that the cows like have re-grown, and with stronger roots. Each type of animal has contributed its own organic matter into the pastures, enriching the soil. The cows are moved to the first pasture again, with all of the other animals moving to the next pasture. This is repeated every couple of days for then entire grazing season.
The farmer, I can't recall his name, sells fewer of each animal than the intesive "factory" farmers. But he makes up the difference by selling more types of meat products, and of higher quality, to high end food stores, and top restaurants around New York. His product is in high demand. It costs him less to raise the livestock as he doesn't have to plow and plant every year. Nature provides the food. He only manages it.
It is no secret that the huge, comercial farms, whether they are growing meat, or food crops, can do great damage to the land in the quest for maximum profit. And we, the customer, get to eat pesticides, fertilizer salts, and watch the great farmlands slowly destroyed by salt accumulation and mineral leaching of the soils, not to mention erosion from wind and rain, and pollution of our waterways by this moving topsoil, and everything that's been put on it. Rotational, intensive farming builds root systems that resist erosion, enrich the soil with organic matter, and give us healthier livestock and crops.
I don't understand the resistance to the technique.
Whether you beilieve in a supreme being, or natural selection, the way the world works, before humans force a different "better" way of doing things, is proven again and again to be superior to our efforts to make the world the way we want it.
Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North