14: What I Learned About Feeding Kids Beef: 5 Surprising Takeaways from a Cattle Ranch Tour

In this episode, Sarah talks about her recent firsthand experience on cattle ranches in Nebraska and some of the main takeaways for families. She shares some of the myths about beef and misinformation about grass-fed vs. conventional beef, and talks about beef nutrition, especially for growing kids. 

From how cattle are raised to what happens before beef ends up in your grocery store or on your toddler’s plate, Sarah breaks down 5 key takeaways that every parent should know. If you’ve ever wondered about the nutrition, safety, sustainability, or ethical side of feeding your family beef, this is a must-listen.

Beef recipes for kids:

• Cheesy beef taco pasta
• Skillet breakfast scramble
• Ground beef recipes for toddlers

Transcript

Sarah Schlichter (00:08)
Welcome to the Managing Mealtime Madness podcast, your go-to resource for making family meals less stressful. I'm Sarah Schlichter, a registered dietitian and mom of three, here to help you simplify meal time from the mental stress and prep work to gathering around the table. No matter what family looks like for you, sharing meals has real benefits. Whether you're squeezing in a workout, rushing to soccer practice, or tackling the never-ending dishes, I've got you covered.

Join us for practical nutrition tips, time-saving mom hacks, and fun, easy meal ideas to make feeding your family more enjoyable. Let's get going. Sarah here, and I am popping in for a solo episode today, all about a recap, actually, of my recent farm tour out in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Today we're gonna talk about beef and the nutrition of beef and serving beef to kids and recommendations for that. And I'm going to share some insights from my recent farm tour that I took. So a couple of weeks ago, I had the honor of attending a ranch tour out in Nebraska. And this was put on on behalf of the beef council. So I was invited on an all expenses paid trip.

and it was a couple days long and it was really, really eye-opening. I went with many other dieticians from around the country and I think we all came back with such better understanding for the cattle industry and I don't know, I feel like there's just so many myths and there's things, misinformation that can spread so quickly on social media. So for me personally, getting able to talk to the source, like the

ranchers, the farmers, was really, really powerful. So today, of course, as this podcast is, we're going to keep it within the family meals and feeding kids realm. But I'm going to share some of my top five takeaways from this trip and then talk about beef for family. So ⁓ again, we were in Lincoln, Nebraska. I've never been to Nebraska. This was on the Eastern

edge of the state. It's about 30 minutes from Omaha, but we actually flew into Lincoln, which was a tiny airport. It was so neat, so cute, so easy to get in and out of. And by easy, I mean, there's really only a few flights and a few airports that connect, but easy in the fact that we could show up 45 minutes before our flight out and be okay because it was just such a small airport.

But anyway, on this trip with fellow dieticians, we got such an in-depth look into agriculture from cattle farming. We saw soy and corn growing along the sides of the road, very rural, probably what you would picture if you were driving through Nebraska. But personally rural Nebraska is just so different from my life. And I'm just grateful for this opportunity that I was able to have to learn.

And from the eyes of ranchers and farmers, it just really puts things into perspective. All of the hard work that these people do day in and day out, I think it's so easy for us to take it for granted. We're not doing it, but where our food comes from, ⁓ how often are we stopping to think, ⁓ this was grown at a farm in Nebraska and it's here in my grocery store. And I'm so thankful for the people who raised this cow and

brought it to my table. just think, you know, not many of us are doing that. And these ranchers, they don't take days off. There's no vacations. It's very physical labor. It's family oriented. And I just think, again, as I'm going to share, it just brought so much more appreciation on my part to what these people are doing. So the first takeaway that I think is important and

I had heard this before, but again, like without seeing it in person or really like understanding the source of the information, it can sometimes be difficult to know what's true and what's not, I guess is the best way to say it. In the meat world, there's grass-fed beef and there's conventional beef, which is grain-fed. ⁓ And what I want everyone to know here is that all beef is grass-fed. So what it should say to be a little bit more

exact is grass finished versus grain finished, but all cattle are grass fed. Some are 100 % grass fed and finished, meaning they start on grass and they finish on grass, while other cattle are started on grass and then they're finished with a grain mixture in a feedlot. And is what I've been hearing some of the misinformation when it comes to grass fed versus

Grain fed is that grass fed is so much better for the environment. It's so much healthier. So let's take those two points. So grass fed is leaner than grain fed. Now, I think this is gonna be person to person dependent and family dependent as to what we actually consider quote unquote healthier and tastier. So grass fed is leaner. It does have more omega fatty acids.

And that's one thing that you hear a lot. Oh, grass fed has double the omega fatty acids than grain fed. True, but when that amount is like pretty minuscule, it's not really a big deal at all. So to put that into perspective, a three and a half ounce serving of grass fed meat gives you about 80 milligrams of omega threes. Yeah, that's twice as much as regular beef, which has like 40.

But the same serving size of salmon, three and a half ounces, has a thousand to two thousand milligrams. So eating grass-fed beef is not going to get you to meet your omega-3 needs. You should eat salmon or algae or take a supplement for that. So if you're only eating grass-fed meat to get omega-3s, that's just a marketing tactic that has kind of been very much exaggerated. The second thing is the sustainability piece. And I'm going to touch on this in a few different

points that I came across. But the sustainability piece is really interesting because I think it's going to mean something different to everyone, right? Like what's sustainable to a farmer and a rancher, something that keeps their business going, something that they're able to maintain, something that they can sell to consumers. What's sustainable for the environment, something that regenerates, right? So is grass fed more sustainable than grain fed? If we're looking at like output, methane output,

output, not quite. So grass-fed cattle actually take longer to reach their goal weight because they're eating a leaner diet. But because they take longer to reach their goal weight, they are producing more methane in the process. Now, I don't have the exact numbers of how much more methane they're producing. But if you are trying to, you know, if you're environmentally cautious and you do eat meat and you want to reduce that environmental

footprint, buying conventional beef might be a better option for that. Okay, if you have more questions on the grass-fed beef, please reach out and if I don't know the answer, I can reach out to my contacts at the Beef Council and find out for you. Secondly, and this point was just reiterated all about beef's nutrition, but beef is a great iron source. So we're talking about feeding kids.

Iron is such an important micronutrient that helps with growth, that helps with cognition, that helps with overall well-being. So knowing what foods are high sources of iron is really, really helpful. It's widely recognized that iron is one of the most important nutrients for a baby and a pregnant mother. Yet iron deficiency is one of the most common nutrient deficiencies worldwide.

So before we even have the baby, right, a mother's nutrition status or how much iron she has stored is important because it's going to impact the baby, the baby's developing brain. 80 % of the iron stores a baby has at birth is built up during pregnancy. So what the mom eats before birth is, it counts, it matters. So eating iron rich foods like beef can be really, really helpful.

Now once babies are born, they generally, and this is assuming mom has sufficient iron stores, they generally have enough iron in the first six months of life through mom's iron stores. After six months of exclusive breastfeeding, mom's iron stores start to decrease. If babies are on formula, formula is fortified with iron, so they will continue getting iron through the formula through ideally those 12 months of life. However,

Breastfeeding moms especially, this speaks to the importance of introducing iron-rich foods when you start solids. So when we start solids, a lot of people talk about starting with avocados and bananas and those small mashable foods. Yes, that can be helpful, but they're not providing iron. You want to think about iron-rich foods when you're starting solids, things like oatmeal, fortified baby cereal, beef.

things like that because iron is such a crucial micronutrient for babies' growth. And iron deficiency can happen when babies aren't getting enough iron to sustain their normal functioning, whether that's through little iron in the diet, poor absorption of the iron, low iron stores at birth, et cetera. When we talk about iron absorption, beef is an animal source, so the bioavailability of beef is much higher than something from a plant source.

Again, when we're talking about like nutrition bang for our buck, beef is great. It's great nutritionally. And I'm never, you know, I'm, eat plants, we eat beef. ⁓ I understand I have clients who don't eat animal products and I understand that. But when we're talking objectively from a nutrition standpoint, the nutrition is there. So to tie this back into feeding kids, especially with baby lead weaning and stored starting solids, think about that beef. Think about holding some.

beef or grounding up some beef for baby to start to ingest. Even sucking on a piece of beef and sucking the juice can get iron for baby. So that's great to know. Just want to reiterate here that that first 1000 days of life, so that's, you know, almost three years of life is so important for brain development of your baby. And many nutrients that are found in beef do play a role in building that brain structure. So we mentioned iron, protein, zinc,

polyunsaturated fats, and iodine are a few just to get you started on the brain health part. Again, the American Academy of Pediatrics does recommend that all breastfed and partially breastfed babies receive an iron supplement at four months of age. Again, this is something you should talk to your pediatrician about, especially if you are breastfeeding, just knowing what to do for babies' iron stores when you start introducing solids.

Number three, there are so many cuts of beef that can work for all different families and eating styles. So again, if you are a strictly vegan family, maybe beef will not work for you and that's totally fine. But again, I'm talking from a science-based perspective here. And what's great about beef is that there are several quick and easy ways to incorporate it. Whether you do ground beef, for example, we do ground beef a lot and throw it in pasta or quesadillas.

You can throw it over a salad. can cut lean pieces of steak, which is very flavorful. Add it to a sandwich. You can add that to a salad. It can be juicy and flavorful for babies to suck on. And again, get that nutrition. If your family likes lean beef, again, the grass fed beef may be a great option for you. There are also leaner cuts of meat that you can purchase in the grocery store, which I'm going to go over in a little bit. But also if you're

family wants more flavor or fattier cuts, you can find that too. So beef is very versatile. It's pretty much available in all grocery stores, no matter what area of the country you live in. And the nutrition that it has is very far ranging. So it can be just a great nutrition source for the whole family.

All right, number four was something we learned called the rule of 10. And we're kind of going back to beef's nutrition profile here. So a three ounce cooked serving of lean beef provides over 10 % of 10 essential nutrients for less than 10 % of your total calories. So again, nutrition bang for your buck. There's a lot in just that three and half serving of beef. We've talked about iron, there's zinc, protein, choline.

selenium, vitamins, and today's beef is leaner than ever before. And that's a lot for the breeding process. Ranchers have been doing a lot of research on this and trying to cater to the public's needs. Like we had a really interesting seminar where some of the ranchers were saying like, we will make what the public buys and what people want at the grocery store, but there's a lag time. So for example, it's going to take years.

If the public wanted much more leaner beef, ranchers could do that, but it's going to take time because they're going to have to breed these cows, cattle and babies. And you know, it's going to take years. So it's not just a quick turnaround. So if something were to change in consumer insights in the future, ranchers, farmers are listening. They want to put out what we want as consumers. They just need the time to catch up. So I think knowing that

Today's beef is leaner than ever before. That has come about because of consumer demand. And let's talk about what lean even means. So the USDA definition of lean is less than 10 grams of total fat. So there's more than 36 cuts of beef that are in fact lean with under those 10 grams of total fat. About 65 % of the beef in the fresh meat case are lean. So if you're going to the grocery store, chances are you're going to have a few different choices for lean,

Beef. Lean beef is what provides greater than 10 % of over 10 essential nutrients for less than 10 % of your total calories. So for the leaner cuts, if you are shopping, just try to find something with loin or round in the name. So sirloin, tenderloin, top round steak, flank steak can be pretty lean. And then if you're buying ground beef, you can look for 90 % lean or even leaner sometimes.

If you are someone that likes a little bit more flavor, you can buy, you know, like the 70 % ground beef and then soak up some of the grease or rinse it underwater if you want to reduce some more of that fat. So there's also just a lot of things we can do in the kitchen and dietitians, we can show you how to do that. We can come up with the recipes to help your family eat leaner forms of meat. Now I do want to talk about the fat though, because I think fat is what's scary. And we think about

beef and we've heard about heart disease and heart health. So while many of the cuts of beef are lean, more than half of beef's fatty acid content is actually monounsaturated fat, which is what olive oil is, right? So olive oil is something that as dieticians, we are promoting to the public. We want you to get more healthy unsaturated fats like monounsaturated fat. That is

a good proportion of the fat that's in beef. So it's not all the story that you've been led to believe that beef is full of saturated fat and that's what's causing heart disease. In fact, a third of the saturated fatty acid content is steric acid. Steric acid has been shown to have a neutral effect on blood and LDL cholesterol. So

when you factor in that steric acid, the fatty acid profile of beef is actually pretty similar to poultry and pork. So that was kind of eye-opening for me. I didn't realize about all of the unsaturated fats in beef. And again, just how many lean cuts there are available. Okay, this fact as a science nerd and someone interested in nutrition, I think this is super cool. I don't know about the regular public, but

One thing that came up in just about every presentation and then when we went out to see the cows, cows have rumens. So rumens is kind of like cows are a ruminant animal. Ruminant, it's like a stomach compartment in ruminants. And what makes it so cool is that it helps convert carbs and fibers to protein. So it...

does, it has microbial fermentation and the carbs and fibers that cows eat, for example like grass and corn, can be turned to protein which can help feed tons and tons and millions of people. This is kind of actually a sustainability fact if we're looking at sustainability for feeding large populations. So the land that would otherwise stay dry and unused, a lot of land in the US is actually

too rocky or too dry to farm. So otherwise, it wouldn't really be used for anything. But since cows are ruminant animals, they can digest that grass and convert it into protein. So they can help lead to more sustainability by feeding more of the population, and not just feeding, but giving adequate protein, essential amino acids, to the population.

So I thought that was super cool because we don't hear that story a lot. hear animal products are just contributing to methane. We hear, you know, eating beef is bad for your heart. We hear cows are not treated properly. And on my three day tour, I saw firsthand how each of those is just misinformation disguised as a fear tactic.

What was so eye-opening to me is that a third of all agricultural land is pasture land. That just means it's too dry or rocky to farm. Cows can eat that, so it's not going to waste. So cows can take that dead brown grass and convert it to food, which is so magical. Like they can convert that to food that will go on to feed hundreds, thousands, millions of people. Also in eating that dry, dead grass,

they can reduce the risk of wildfires by clearing up that matter. And in one of our presentations, we talked about, you know, if you take 770 pounds of corn and you fed that to children, yes, you would be providing food and some nutrition to kids. But if you took 770 pounds of corn and you fed it to cattle through their microbial fermentation, through protein upcycling,

They could turn that into available protein for the masses. Like we are multiplying how much just corn would feed kids to the trillions. We can just feed so many more people and it's such a more efficient process. Every single person in the ranching industry spoke to that about how their goal is to feed people. And yes, when you think about like slaughtering cows and all of that, it's sad.

It's not a pleasant thought, but animal welfare is top of mind. I'm going to get to that point next. These cows are so loved and well taken care of and what they are providing to all of the population is immense. This population that might not otherwise get this nutrition, that might not otherwise get this high quality protein and all of these essential micronutrients that we talked about. So what really is

pretty cool how what the rumen does, how these cows are ruminant animals, but how they can just provide grass into a usable form of protein for the population. And then the last thing I wanted to talk on just briefly is just all of this is an incredibly humane process. Animal welfare is top of mind. These ranchers have every interest in taking care of the animals.

They're not neglected, they're not underfed. I mean, they are not stressed out. Any stress that the cow has is going to impact the bottom line for the farmer. So the lower the stress, the better the yields. And farmers, ranchers are very cognizant of that. They're up at 4 a.m., they're feeding them first thing, they're changing their water out.

They are aware of the weather, so they talked about kind of the storms and the snowy season and how cold it gets in Nebraska. And when it's calfing season and cows are having babies, a lot of the ranchers are sleeping out in the fields with them. It is just such a process that requires devotion and attention, and they're not sleeping much. The farmers, the ranchers, they're with the cows making sure they're taken care of, making sure they're not sick. If they are sick, they notice it right away.

They are checking on these cows every single day, multiple times a day, taking their temperature, figuring out if they need medicine, figuring out how to treat them better, how to get them to eat, how much they're eating, when they need water. I mean, it is incredible how much attention goes into these. And I think a misconception is that, you know, it's such like a, it's just like a big corporation type business. And we met the families, we met,

the families who have kids and grandkids that are helping on the farm and the ranch. And they are so passionate about what they do. More than 90 % of farms and ranches across the US are family-owned and operating. They're not these huge systems. Yes, they do export across the US and some internationally, but they're family-owned. I mean, I could tell you the names of the ranchers I met. And it was incredible how much attention and care. They knew everything about every process.

They knew everything about the cattle. They knew, you know, down to exactly how much food was provided, what was in that food. We met a nutritionist that did the feed and the nutrition for the cows' food, which was very, very fascinating. And they really do care about these animals. So should kids be eating more beef? Let's talk about that.

So the dietary guidelines recommend that adults consume five and a half ounces of lean protein each day. So the research shows that adults are consuming beef at levels that fit the variety. We're not over consuming it. On average, Americans are consuming just under two ounces of beef daily. We have more than 20 research studies, randomized control trials that support

lean beef in the heart healthy diet and lifestyles, especially when paired with an overall healthy diet, right? Like most people aren't just going to eat beef alone. We want to encourage them to eat beef with fruits and vegetables, with healthy fats, with low fat dairy, with fiber rich carbohydrates. Okay. Now when it comes to kids, I do think beef has a place in the diet for kids.

I think it can be a flavorful source of nutrition. I think it can be a great way to get protein in. The dietary guidelines does suggest keeping total fat intake between 30 to 35 % of overall calories for children ages two to three. And then as children get older, ages four to 18, the recommendation drops to 25 to 35 % of total calories coming from fat.

Now the reason that the fat content, the fat recommendations are higher in ages two to three is because again, fat is so important for the growing brain. Beef does have fat, but remember over half of it is monounsaturated fat. So that is the same type that's in olive oil. And again, if parents are buying and preparing that lean beef, we're also reducing this total saturated fat content.

And kids also are going to be consuming other foods and then otherwise varied diverse diet. So of course we do want to reiterate the importance of beans and pulses and legumes. We don't want all of our protein to come from beef. We do want to get a variety of foods in the diet and there are plenty of other healthy lean protein sources. And we're not here to say one is better than others. I think families

can make the best decision for what fits their value, what fits their budget, what fits their time and their cultural preferences, but also knowing the nutrition content and knowing that they can make a decision based out of science and confidence rather than fear can be really empowering. So my goal today was really to share what I learned, hopefully take away some of the fears and maybe bust some of the misconceptions or myths that you've heard about beef and really

provide information for you to make the best decision for your family with the available evidence and information that you have. So that is it for today. Again, thank you to the Beef Council for providing me on a very educational trip.

And I will share in the show notes some of my favorite ways to serve beef to kids. mean, it doesn't have to be extravagant. It can be super easy, but knowing all of the nutrition that it provides, it's something that I want to serve and have available for kids. So check out the show notes for some of those recipes. I'll see you next time.