From farm gate to front door…. whenever I have the opportunity, I support my local markets and farmers by purchasing their fresh produce and I also enjoy spending time listening and learning about their speciality products.

One such local producer I had a chat to recently was Maree King from Silverwood Organics. Maree has a family farm based near Longreach in Queensland that provides certified organic 100% grassfed lamb via a home delivery service throughout SE Queensland.  Silverwood Organics are passionate about quality and understand the importance of eating organic, 100% grass fed lamb. They have won numerous awards over the last 14 years.

Maree has some wonderful recipes on her website and also some great articles that are worth a read:  Information about meat labelling and the difference between the terminologies; and
10 reasons why eating more lamb weekly is a healthy option.

I’m loving the force (such as our local farmers), behind the push to eat real foods and the realisation that disease should be tackled by food and lifestyle changes.  The pendulum is swinging more toward traditional foods and traditional cooking, and away from packaged, refined foods and quick pill fixes.

Back when humanity’s most serious dietary concern was the chance of ending up as lunch for a ferocious carnivore, our diet consisted of basically whatever we could forage (some fruits, nuts, seeds, eggs, vegetables and a little bit of meat).

As time went on, we became masters at hunting and meat then became a diet staple, along with what nature could provide. It is only in the last 50 or 60 years that we have developed the capability and the wealth to dine on meat whenever we like. Now the average family has meat twice a day. But not only has the quantity of meat we devour changed significantly, so has the quality. There aren’t many wild animals roaming in the untamed wilderness – much of today’s meat is processed and manufactured and contains many harmful chemicals and additives, including meat glue and pesticide residues.

Organic farming practices need to be adopted for all animals – biodynamic red meat and organic free-range poultry is what they are termed. These animals are free from drugs, steroids, hormones and other chemicals. They are bred the old fashioned way. A few years ago I could only buy my organic, grass-fed meats from two or three places. Now the demand is increasing as more people are becoming aware of the importance of choosing biodynamic meat for not only their health, but that of the environment too.

Contrary to popular belief, good quality, fresh meats and fish are an excellent source of nutrition. They are rich in vitamins, amino acids, nourishing fats, many minerals and other nutrients which we humans need on a daily basis. If you compare the amounts of vitamins in meat, fish or poultry to grains, it is actually the animal products which are top of the list. Let’s have a look at a few of them and their richest sources:

• Vitamin B1: pork and offal
• Vitamin B2: eggs, meat, poultry and fish
• Vitamin B3: meat and poultry
• Vitamin B5: meats and liver
• Vitamin B6: meat, poultry, fish and eggs
• Vitamin B12: meat, poultry, fish, eggs and milk
• Biotin: liver and eggs
• Vitamin A: liver, eggs, fish and butter
• Vitamin D: liver, fermented fish liver oils, eggs and fish
• Folic Acid: by far the richest source is liver. Then green leafy vegetables, although they can be harder to digest.
• Vitamin K2: offal, full fat dairy (cheese, butter, cream etc), animal fats and egg yolks.

Cyndi’s tips for off-cuts, bones and broth

So you can see from the above list how important it is to begin eating all parts of the animal – keep the bones and eat the fat, meat and offal because they are so incredibly nutrient dense and offal is also cheap to buy.

I also encourage you to buy cuts with the bones intact. Stockpile the bones and keep in your freezer to make beautiful bone broths. Bone broths are a wonderful nutritional and digestive remedy. As you cook the meats in water with their bones intact, a lot of the nutrients get extracted into the water. Use the stock or broths for making stews, soups, spaghetti sauces or simply drinking plain with the addition of the Changing Habits Seaweed Salt, lemon, herbs or spices for additional flavour.

We have plenty of recipes for how to use and make bone broth, and how to incorporate offal meats into your diet in our latest Changing Habits Recipe Book – a flip chart style book filled with 150 healthy, delicious and easy to follow recipes.