PUFAS - Trendy or True?

Polyface has been in the pastured livestock business long enough to have seen numerous litmus tests of the day come and go.  To be sure, some things, like Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), stick long-term and are a big deal.  But others rise and fall in cycles.

The most common recipient of these cycles is the chicken, probably because they have a rapid growth cycle and most of their feed must be purchased since they are omnivores.  One fad was the heritage bird.  Twenty years ago, if you didn't grow heritage birds, you were considered a traitor to the cause.

Interestingly, our double-breasted commercial-breed turkeys received higher marks on chef taste tests in Washington D.C. than heritage birds.  Why?  Because heritage birds couldn't be controlled, so they slept in the same spot and went to the same spot every day.  Because our heavier birds couldn't fly, we could move them onto a completely fresh pasture spot every day.  This kept them cleaner and encouraged them to eat more forage because it wasn't stale due to their daily access to the same spot. (You'll see this theme in Polyface management...We do what's best for the animals and honor their original design, and it turns out that was right all along. Read on for more examples.)

Another more recent one has been the no-soy diet. Notice the use of the term "soy." That normally means soybean meal, which is the residue after all the oils have been removed.  We all know that dissecting whole foods changes their metabolic properties.  For example, can you imagine saying "I won't eat corn on the cob because high fructose corn syrup comes from corn?"  Things happen when you break food apart and process it.

The general idea against "soy" is that it stimulates estrogens.  But none of the studies, to my knowledge, use whole roasted soybeans, with all the enzymes and oils in them.  

Several years ago the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association (APPPA) did a study on soy and estrogens and found the highest estrogen numbers in birds that ate clover.  Folks, chickens love clover.  It's their favorite salad bar ingredient on the pasture.  Sometimes I think we've become too scientifically sophisticated for our own good.  I am not going to deny my chickens clover. We understand that there are true allergies, and folks have had these stressors in their lives so long that a true immune reaction occurs but, by and large, whole soybeans don't have the same effect as "soy" products.

Imagine the USDA scientists not concluding categorically that Fruit Loops breakfast cereal is better nutritionally than beef.  Really?  Oh, they've got the data.

You'll see "soy-free" touted by some producers, but what are they substituting for the protein?  Often it's bycatch menhaden fish from atrocious Japanese fishing fleets, incentivizing ocean fishery destruction.  Or it might be winter peas which, more often than not, must be trucked in from hundreds of miles away.

The big question is "What else is happening at the production point?"  

What does the pasture look like?  

How often do the birds get fresh salad bar pasture?  

What's the social construct of the group?  

Is the feed whole or pelletized?  (Pelletizing requires a lot of heat and destroys nutrients.)  

The point is that way more is involved in the nuances of goodness than just whether or not the birds eat soybean seeds versus pea seeds.  Birds (chickens) naturally eat seeds and they certainly don't seem to express any distaste for any variety of seed.

Generally, these fad cycles develop due to an over-use.  It's like a pendulum that swings too far to one side before correcting itself.  Of course, it never stops in the middle but overcorrects.  So you get these fads of correction and over-correction, whipsawing all of us back and forth.  

"This is good" and "this is bad" changes weekly.  Here at Polyface, we try to stay out of these faddish swings and look at historical long-term patterns. Remember that "theme" I mentioned earlier?

That brings us to the new hot topic: PUFAs - an acronym for Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids.

They're generally divided into Omega 6 and Omega 3, with Omega 6 now being demonized as bad guys and Omega 3 as being good guys.  To be sure, the balance in conventional Western production and diets is different than it was at one time and many health gurus are pushing a recalibration to historical norms.

Both are essential fatty acids; meaning you can't be healthy without some of each.  

The problem is that Omega 6 is way out of balance these days due primarily to oil-bathed foods like french fries, ultra-processed foods, and snack foods like Doritos and potato chips.  In meat and poultry, the key to balance is green material, exercise, fresh air,  and less oily grain like canola.

With herbivores like beef and lamb, that's fairly easy by just grass-finishing them.  That's what we do here at Polyface. With omnivores like pork, chicken, and turkey, it's more difficult due to their completely different digestive system.  

Moving the poultry and pigs frequently to fresh pasture (salad) is the best way to make sure they ingest as much green material as possible. Pasturing like we do at Polyface also facilitates fresh air, exercise, sun, and animal proteins like insects and worms.

Interestingly, I've noticed some "low PUFA" poultry operations who have their outdoor chickens on dirt rather than pasture.  I must suggest that there's more to health than PUFAs.  Most things are a bit more complicated than single-item fads tend to admit.

We got a call a few weeks ago, for example, asking if we could grow hogs without feeding any grains. "Research" has convinced many folks that this was the only way to lower PUFAs.  Yes, we can do that, but it would take perhaps 50 acres per hog to let it forage all it wanted.  At that land use rate, we'd need to charge more than $10,000 per hog. 

While the Omega 6 and 3 ratios have certainly changed in recent decades and are indicated in various chronic maladies including inflammation, all omnivores were eating grain long before recent days. 

My collection of antique agriculture books from even the late 1800s show chickens and hogs eating corn, wheat, barley, and other common grains.  But not canola.  Ahh, there's the rub.  Fads tend to throw out everything, the proverbial baby with the bathwater, but this is simply the pendulum overcorrecting.

What has thrown our Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids out of whack is commercially feeding seeds developed for lubricants and diesel fuel, confining animals to eliminate dietary salad from pasture, creating unimaginable stress in factory farms and constant inhaling of fecal particulate, and denying exercise and sunshine.  All of these fundamentally altered the many threads weaving together the PUFA tapestry.

Many years ago a patron sent Polyface eggs to a lab for analysis and found a substantial balancing of Omega 6 and 3 when compared with industrial counterparts. 

We have not recently gone to the expense (it's substantial) of testing for PUFAs, preferring to put our effort into taking care of you wonderful patrons, making sure the animals have sanitary, hygienic, no-stress lives, and moving them onto fresh ground - honoring their original design.

In an analysis conducted a decade ago, Polyface eggs had 1,038 micrograms of folic acid per egg compared to 48 on the conventional industrial egg label. Yes, food can be medicine.

PUFAs are something, but they aren't everything.  

One-thread fads come unstitched over time, and at Polyface we take a holistic and broad approach for practical balance.  Thank you for trusting us with these decisions and we look forward to many more years of service. 

- Joel