Wild vs Modern

I'm as guilty as the next of showing off pictures of marbled meat, but I've been thinking about and researching marbling for years.

It obviously adds eye appeal, and generally makes for a more tender & juicy eating experience.

BUT all the red meat that wins the nutrition density shoots out is wild game.
Why?
It's likely a result of an extremely wide selection of plants, plu saccess to plants or all different growth stages.

Fred Provenza writes about this extensively in incredible depth and I thoroughly recommend his book "Nourishment".

How does that nutrient dense red meat present? An obvious lack of marbling, aka intramuscular fat.

A fat cap - subcutaneous fat - is a sign of good body condition and health.

Marbling - intramuscular fat - is not necessarily. It's a sign of excessive calories (maybe correlated to lack of movement) and is the last place an animal stores energy. Marbled fat is less accessible and efficient than subcutaneous fat as an energy source.

Marbling in excess is often a result of grain finishing - but not always. I finish many herbivores on grass and many of them are reasonably marbled.

We know that animals on a grain diet experience insulin resistant immediately which is a sign of metabolic dysfunction. (Study link)

I am not writing this to demonise marbling per se, but to defend a leaner red meat (lack of marbling) from disparagement, and to open up dialogue and honest thought.

If we operate under a simple heuristic such as "natures template of production leads to the healthiest outcomes" we would end up prizing lean meats that mimic nutrient dense wild game.

If nature doesn’t store fat inside the muscles of healthy wild ruminants, then marbling in farmed ones is a human-made deviation, rather than a design nature knows or prefers.

Following another thread, we know that facial development of our young people is stuffed - and it's all environment based. I'm certainly not saying that marbled meat is the sole (or even major) contributor to this, but for sure our obsession of easy eating sloppy & tender food is.

Although no one is going to search out tough meat to laboriously chew and chew and chew to strengthen our jaws and encourage wide pallet development in our children, it would certainly be a helpful tool to combat the epidemic of narrow crowded mouths.

It's helpful to acknowledge and observe downsides when they appear.

To sign off, I'm happy to be proven wrong. I'm in cog dis when I show off a chop or steak on social media that's beautifully marbled. I can't help but feel that the breeding selection prioritising marbling (eye candy and eating experience) is leaving really important gains on the table (metabolic health and nutrient density).

Intellectually honest and curious dialogue is always welcome.

• Share on:
• Send in WhatsApp
• Share on Facebook
• Share to X
• Pin it
• Send to Messenger
• Send to Email
• Share