This part 9 of my video series, Switch Over to a Real Food Lifestyle in 10 Easy Steps. You can view the introduction video here, step 1 here, step 2 here, step 3 here, and step 4, and step 5, step 6, step 7, and step 8. Don’t forget that you can buy your own copy of How to Switch Over to a Real Food Lifestyle in 10 Easy Steps and follow along while we take this journey (it’s only $4.99).

Step 9 – Switch to Pastured Meats

I chose this step as one of the last steps because it comes with a higher price tag. It can also be a bit overwhelming to try and switch to pastured meats in the beginning of your real food journey. In this video, I shared the benefits of pastured meat products plus a few suggestions/tips in making pastured meat affordable to any budget.

*To read the script, scroll past the video.

Links Mentioned in Video-

• Source for finding pastured meats
• Source for finding farmer’s markets
• Another source for finding farmer’s markets
• Make your meat stretch further –> 64 Awesome Real Food Ground Beef Recipes

Th 9th step in our journey is choosing pastured meats. I chose this step as one of the last steps in our journey because it can be really expensive. There is no hiding that pastured meats are more expensive than meat you would find at the grocery store. But, the higher price comes with more benefit.

Conventional animals are confined and living in inhumane conditions like dirty, around other sick animals, antibiotics, hormones, and all those kind of things. Pastured meats don’t have that which is a huge benefit within itself. Another huge benefit is that pastured meats are nutrient dense. That means, they are packed full of essential vitamins and minerals. The way these pastured animals get dense amounts of vitamins and minerals is through the way they live. They’re able to express their animal-ness — like Joel Salatin says. Chickens can express their chicken-ness and cows are able to express their cow-ness. Basically, they live in environments that are happy, peaceful, out in the sun soaking up vitamin D and eating foods they are meant to eat; all of this equals a nutrient-dense animal. Pastured meats are full of CLA (conjugated linoelic acid) which is basically a fat that is super essential to the overall health of ourselves.

Now because of the expensive factor, what I recommend you do — if you are just making the switch — is to dedicate yourself to one meal a week using pastured meats; that’s not too hard to attain. Eventually before you know it, you’ll start adding more and more because you’ll realize how great it tastes and how beneficial it is to your health. Another way to make pastured meats affordable is to buy in bulk. What I did a few months ago is I bought a whole cow and got four families to go in on it. It really made the cost much more affordable and we have a freezer full of meat that has lasted us 4 months so far and we still have some left.

If you need help sourcing pastured meats, look at the links above.

Your challenge this week is to source pastured meats and make a meal out of it. Dedicate yourself to one meal a week and eventually you’ll start adding more to your diet!