We Are What We Eat

“We are what we eat.”

Such a simple saying — yet so unbelievably true.

More than ever, it’s abundantly clear that what we eat affects, among other things, our physical health, our mental health, our energy levels, and our mood.

As you hear more and more these days, “food is medicine.”

And it’s not about going on a “diet” — hell no.

It’s about eating whole foods — fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, nuts — and avoiding processed foods.

And good meat is a super food.

Packed full of nutrients — and, importantly, packed full of nutrients that our bodies can actually absorb. (Kale — not so much.)

Lots of exciting research is being done looking at the health benefits and nutrient density of grassfed meat, and they’re finding that there are all sorts of important nutrients that are higher in grassfed meat that we haven’t previously paid much attention to.

(Dr. Stephan van Vliet at Utah State University — and a friend of NBB — is one of the leading researchers on this important subject — Google his name if you want to learn more.)

And when it comes to grassfed meat, not all of it is the same — not even close.

You can have grassfed meat from animals fed a monoculture of grass and finished in a confined feedlot. (Spoiler alert — lower nutrient density.)

And you can have grassfed meat from animals grazing diverse grasslands with healthy soils. (Spoiler alert — higher nutrient density.)

Here on our ranch, we want our soil to be as healthy as possible — as that’s where all of the magic starts.

And we want as much as biodiversity on the ranch as possible.

It leads to healthier and more resilient animals — and healthier meat.

I think about this stuff a lot — when I’m out with the bison, when I’m walking through a pasture, when I’m cooking ground bison for dinner for our family.

(I joke that we eat so much bison that one day Otto and Greta are gonna grow horns — but, seriously, it’s just so damn good for them — and they love it — that we eat an insane amount of bison meat in our house.)

And when I’m thinking about it in the winter — when the ranch is covered in snow like it is this morning — I think about this one specific photo I took on the ranch last summer in late June — that — for me — really captures the spirit of healthy soil and a diverse grassland:

I could keep writing — I love details, long stories, and long-winded answers (I don’t know how Sarah puts up with it) — but this photo says it all — this is what it’s all about for us.

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If this resonates with you, we would love to fill your freezer with our grassfed, nutrient-dense, delicious, humanely field-harvested bison meat.

Enjoy the Super Bowl. (Go Niners.) And thanks for reading.

— Matt