Pastured Chicken/pork - Safe Or No?

[lvysaur]

I have access to pastured chicken (the real free range, although chickens don't survive on grass alone). Does anyone know what this means, regarding the fatty acid content of the chicken?

 

[Mittir]

Someone asked RP similar question in a recent KMUD interview about egg yolk.
I believe same thing is applicable to chicken fat. He said that the egg yolk has less PUFA
when chickens are fed whey and sugary fruits. IIRC In another interview he mentioned that
grass/leaves has good amount of PUFA. So, grass fed non-ruminant animal's fat can have considerable
amount of PUFA. I think It is best to avoid chicken fat. You can also do some google search on
fatty acid profiles of different animals on various diets. I remember seeing those type of studies.
PUFA content of animal also depends on surrounding temperature. He mentioned how fish
in amazon has very saturated fat due to high temperature.

 

[lvysaur]

Someone asked RP similar question in a recent KMUD interview about egg yolk.
I believe same thing is applicable to chicken fat. He said that the egg yolk has less PUFA
when chickens are fed whey and sugary fruits. IIRC In another interview he mentioned that
grass/leaves has good amount of PUFA. So, grass fed non-ruminant animal's fat can have considerable
amount of PUFA. I think It is best to avoid chicken fat. You can also do some google search on
fatty acid profiles of different animals on various diets. I remember seeing those type of studies.
PUFA content of animal also depends on surrounding temperature. He mentioned how fish
in amazon has very saturated fat due to high temperature.

So how would ruminant meat have fewer PUFA from grass feeding? I know they have bacteria that digest cellulose for them, but I don't see how they'd have a lighter PUFA load from eating the same stuff.

Regarding the climate, I don't think that would apply to other classes of animals. Both birds and mammals are "warm blooded", so they maintain a constant body temperature by generating heat. Thus, there shouldn't be any variation in PUFA content simply due to the climate in which a bird/mammal evolved or lived in.

Since food sources in cold climates have PUFAs, the mammals and birds living there will also accumulate them as well, but not due to the cold climate itself; I wonder if there has been any sort of evolution among such mammals to counteract the PUFA overload?

 

[Mittir]

So how would ruminant meat have fewer PUFA from grass feeding? I know they have bacteria that digest cellulose for them, but I don't see how they'd have a lighter PUFA load from eating the same stuff.

RP has mentioned that some type bacteria in ruminant gut converts PUFA to saturated fat
and vitamin E in grass is a co-factor. I am bit unsure if vitamin E separately converts
unsaturated to saturated fat or bacteria need vitamin E to do that.

I know warm-blooded animal tries to maintain a constant temperature.
RP talked about pigs wearing sweater having more saturated fat under the skin.
I do not know for sure if chicken in Siberia and chicken in hot African desert
maintain same body temperature ( not just core temp) and if this plays any role
in their fatty acid composition. I think there are good studies that measured
fatty acid composition of chicken in many different countries.

 

[j.]

Peat wrote on his website that humans can convert some PUFA to saturated if there is vitamin E in the intestine.

 

[Jenn]

Ruminants can convert pufa's into saturated fat if they are eating fresh grass or getting supplemental vit E. Pigs' fat is most significantly determined by what they are fed. A milk fed pig will have a different fat profile than a grain fed pig. A free range chicken with eat some grass for the sugar when it is young and tender but will mostly eat bugs, grubs etc. if given the opportunity and fruit, of course.

-jenn

 

[Daimyo]

Yeah... It depend's what does someone mean by pasture raised chicken. If there's too much chickens per acre, they're not being rotated often enough, the pasture is not suitable for chickens (the grass is too long and or/old), they are not getting too much food from the pasture. It's better for hygiene, they get sunshine etc, but they might not eat too much stuff from pasture. Depending on many factors usually chickens get around 30% (+-20%) from pasture.

My grandma told me that when she was young she used to gather sugar beets around the roads leading to sugar factory, then she fed them to her chickens. She said they would kill you for that stuff.

Even 30 years ago farmers in Poland used to feed pigs and chickens with potatoes. Nowadays they don't do it anymore because it's more time consuming than feeding them mainly grains/commercial formula (you need to cook/steam potatoes first before you feed them). Also in the pasture situation feeding potatoes (or any other starchy vegetables) might be less convenient, as to give the same amount of calories you need to carry 4x times that weight as moisture content of vegetables is around 70-80% and grains/commercial feed is around 15%.

 

[Daimyo]

I forgot to mention, that genetics of the birds are also important factor, as some breeds have been designed to be lazy, not move (as it burns calories and decrease Feed Conversion Ratio) and just wait near the feeder and eat. In that case the feed provided by farmer will have even greater impact on fatty acid profile of the chicken.