Animal Protein: Looking Beyond the Label

I’ll never forget the unexpected stress I experienced around my food choices that came after being diagnosed with cancer. One well-meaning friend handed me a list of foods to avoid. Another urged me to buy nothing but pasture-raised animal protein. Someone else suggested I eliminate meat entirely, while another thought supplements were the answer. Meanwhile, the oncology department recommended ultra-processed protein drinks filled with ingredients no one should consume.

Instead of focusing my energy on healing, I found myself drowning in conflicting nutritional advice. Perhaps you know what I’m talking about. Today, with social media added to the mix, I think it’s even harder. Influencers, companies and health professionals use predatory marketing to get us to follow their niche offerings even when no good science exists or they strategically leave out a key part of the research that might cause you to think twice before making a purchase. When you’re already vulnerable and dealing with a diagnosis, the last thing you need is to shell out money for a product that will likely end up giving you more confusion, stress and potentially more health challenges. 

Over the last twenty years, I’ve become much less interested in other peoples’ food rules and much more interested in understanding what the research says and what my body needs. When it comes to the latest craze of loading up on protein, perhaps it’s best to stick with the science. Protein is important and to maintain general fitness, aim for 0.6 grams of protein for each pound you weigh. Your body uses amino acids to build and repair tissue, maintain muscle and carry out countless biological functions. That’s the basics in a nutshell. Although, the more useful guidance arises from questions such as where protein comes from, how the food was produced, and what else is on your plate. If we’re going to talk about animal protein, I think we also need to talk about the animal itself.

Beef, pork, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy are concentrated sources of protein and generally provide all nine essential amino acids. Depending on the food source, you’ll find vitamin B12, iron, zinc, selenium, calcium and vitamin D. Fatty fish also adds EPA and DHA, the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids that are difficult to obtain in meaningful amounts from most plant foods. While that’s valuable nutritional information, primarily eating animal protein is not going to help you build a nourishing diet.

Beans, lentils, peas, nuts, seeds, soy foods and whole grains provide protein, along with fiber, which animal products can’t provide. Seeds such as flax, chia and hemp along with walnuts provide ALA, which your body uses to turn into EPA and DHA. Plants also contain thousands of naturally occurring compounds that drive interactions through our gut microbiome. This is one reason I have never found the animal-versus-plant argument particularly useful. A serving of salmon is not nutritionally interchangeable with a steak, a steak is not the same thing as sausage, and lentils are not simply a plant version of chicken. Each food brings something different to the table, which is why the overall pattern of how we eat matters so much.

What does the research say about animal protein?

One of the more interesting findings from large population studies is that consuming plant protein repeatedly comes out well. A large study, using data from more than 400,000 participants in the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study, found that greater plant-protein intake was associated with lower overall cardiovascular mortality. The association was particularly noticeable when plant protein replaced protein from red meat or eggs.

Randomized trials give us another part of the picture. In a controlled feeding study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers compared diets using red meat, white meat and non-meat proteins and found LDL cholesterol was higher on both the red- and white-meat diets than on the non-meat diet.

What I find most useful about this research is that it moves us away from asking whether meat is simply good or bad and toward a much more practical question: what are we eating instead? If I replace a steak with a plate of highly processed food, I have not improved my diet. If I replace some of that meat with lentils, beans, vegetables, nuts and whole grains, I have created a healthful plate with far more benefit than just protein. Making room for plant foods adds essential fiber, resistant starch and a wide range of beneficial plant compounds.

What do all the labels mean?

This is perhaps the most confusing part about attempting to purchase healthy animal protein. The terms most often used include pasture-raised, grass-finished, grass-fed, pasture-finished, and they all describe different things. Pasture-raised primarily tells us where and how the animal lived: cows, chickens and pigs spent most of their growing life on pasture rather than in continuous confinement. It does not tell us how the animal was treated and what it ate at the end of its life. A pasture-raised steer can still be moved to a feedlot or otherwise finished on grain. Grass-finished refers specifically to the finishing diet: the animal reaches market weight on grass or other forage rather than a grain-based finishing ration. Pasture-finished generally means the animal remains on pasture throughout its life, including the finishing period, although the exact feed rules can vary by production program. Grass-fed simply means the animal ate grass. Obviously, not a very helpful label.

Let me try to simplify this. In the United States, conventional beef production cattle commonly spend the earlier part of their lives grazing and are later moved to crowded feedlots, where they are generally finished on grain and other types of feed their bodies are not designed to eat. Grass-finished cattle remain on forage but not necessarily out on the pasture. They too could be moved to crowded feed lots and fed silage instead. Researchers have found measurable differences between the meat produced by these systems.

A review published in Nutrition Journal found that grass-fed beef generally had less total fat and a more favorable omega-3 fatty-acid profile than grain-fed beef. A later review reported higher amounts of total omega-3 fatty acids in grass-fed beef and a lower omega-6-to-omega-3 ratio. Consuming foods with higher omega – 3 fatty acids can help lower inflammation in your body.

That distinction matters when we talk about nutrition. The fatty-acid differences described in most beef studies are tied more directly to the finishing diet, not simply to whether cattle had access to pasture earlier in life. A 2024 study comparing cattle pasture-finished on Western rangelands with cattle grain-finished in a feedlot found higher omega-3 fatty acids and several phytochemical and antioxidant compounds in the pasture-finished beef. More recent commercial sampling has also found that cattle finished on diverse pastures can produce beef with higher omega-3 concentrations, but with substantial variations from farm to farm. These studies strengthen the case for paying attention to the finishing system and the quality and diversity of the forage consumed by the animal you eventually consume.

I think that distinction helps us separate evidence from marketing. If grass-finished beef is available to you and fits your budget, the research supports it could have a more positive impact on your health. While that is useful information, it shouldn’t be taken that it’s evidence meat will somehow help you prevent disease. There is also considerable variation among grass-fed animals themselves. Breed, forage, geography, and the way the animals are managed can all influence the final nutrient composition, so a label can tell us something about how an animal was raised without telling us everything about what the meat provides.

The same general principle applies to eggs. Pasture-raised hens spend most of their time outside eating grass, seeds, and bugs, making their eggs more nutrient dense. Free-range, on the other hand, just means the hens had some access to the outside, but the area is likely small and barren, meaning they’re only consuming what they’re fed – a diet of grains they aren’t designed to process. In one controlled study comparing conventional eggs with eggs from pasture-raised hens, the range eggs contained higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, carotenoids, and vitamins A, E and D. They also had lower ratios of saturated fat. In addition to the nutritional profile of the eggs you consume, you might also consider how the animal that produced your food was cared for.

Pasture-raised poultry deserves the same careful wording. Chickens are not ruminants, so “pasture-raised” does not mean they live on grass. They still receive a formulated feed, while pasture gives them access to plants, insects and outdoor space. Research on broilers has found that outdoor or pasture access can alter fat content and fatty-acid composition, but the results are inconsistent and are influenced by breed, age, the amount of forage eaten and the composition of the regular feed. A 2014 meta-analysis found lower fat concentrations in several cuts from birds with pasture access but relatively few consistent differences in meat quality overall. That makes “pasture-raised” useful information about the production system, but not a guarantee of a particular nutrient profile.

How the animal is treated matters.

There is another reason I care about pasture and production systems that has nothing to do with whether the meat contains a little more omega-3. If an animal is going to provide food for me, I believe I have a responsibility to make sure that animal has a good life and a humane death. It’s an ethical value measured in the animal welfare field with science-based standards. The World Organisation for Animal Health defines welfare in terms of an animal’s physical and mental state and uses principles that include freedom from hunger and thirst, fear and distress, physical discomfort, pain, injury and disease, along with the ability to express normal patterns of behavior.

In practical terms, humane treatment should extend through the animal’s entire life. Animals should have adequate food and clean water, appropriate shelter and protection from weather, enough space and a physical environment that allows comfortable movement and rest, opportunities for species-appropriate behavior and social interaction, preventive health care and prompt treatment when they are sick or injured. Handling should minimize fear, pain and unnecessary stress. Pasture can help provide space, movement, grazing or foraging opportunities and natural behaviors for some species, but pasture access alone does not guarantee good welfare. Animals living outdoors still need shade or shelter when conditions require it, reliable water and nutrition, protection from injury and predators, and attentive management.

Transport and slaughter matter just as much. Animals should be fit for travel, handled by trained people, provided appropriate space, ventilation, water and rest for the journey, and transported for as little time as reasonably possible. At slaughter, handling, restraint, stunning and killing should be designed to minimize fear, pain and distress, with effective stunning and prompt corrective action when something goes wrong. Humane treatment is not simply allowing an animal outdoors. It is a commitment to its welfare from birth through its final moments.

This is also why I think consumers should look beyond words such as “natural,” “pasture-raised” or “grass-fed” and learn something about the farm or certification behind the food. Some independent animal-welfare certification programs use audited standards covering living conditions, handling, health care, transport and slaughter. No label can tell us everything, but asking how animals are housed, whether they can express natural behaviors, how illness and injury are treated, how they are transported and how slaughter is handled gives us a clearer view of what humane food production looks like. My preference is to buy from local farmers. I like to visit the farm and see how they run their operations before purchasing from them. It’s interesting and fun to chat with the people providing your food. My eggs come from a farmer who used to be a lawyer!

Wild-caught vs. farm raised fish isn’t so simple.

This is an interesting case of assumptions not entirely panning out. If we just compare the nutritional profile of wild caught salmon and farmed salmon, we might wonder if farmed is better for us. Just considering fat, protein, and omega-3 fatty acids, wild salmon has less total fat and higher protein levels but slightly lower omega-3 fatty acids because of the lower fat content. Farmed Atlantic salmon typically contains more total fat with a little more omega-3 fatty acids but lower protein levels.

A three-ounce serving of wild salmon has 22.5 grams of protein, 4.7 grams of fat, and .8 grams of omega-3s while farmed salmon has 18.8 grams of protein, 10.5 grams of fat, and 1.8 grams of omega 3s. This can be confusing because wild-caught salmon has a significantly higher percentage of omega-3s relative to its total fat than farm raised salmon. Wild caught total fat content is 24.2% composed of long-chain omega-3s as compared to farm-raised salmon coming in at 8.9%. Wild-caught also has overall higher levels of other nutrients.

Pollutants and antibiotic resistance also play a role in choosing where you get your fish. After older studies raised concerns about persistent organic pollutants such as dioxins and PCBs in farmed salmon, aquaculture and fish-feed formulations have changed. In a Norwegian study, researchers found higher concentrations of several measured contaminants, including mercury, arsenic, dioxins and certain PCBs in the wild salmon samples than in the farmed salmon. Both remained below European regulatory limits but still a concern when we consider how our behaviors impact the environment where we get our food.

That doesn’t mean farmed salmon is always cleaner, nor does it mean wild fish should be avoided. Both wild and responsibly farmed fish can provide important nutrients, and knowing something about where our fish comes from gives us more useful information than simply assuming one category is always better. In addition, the body of water fish are caught in matters greatly. The cleanest source of water for wild-caught salmon is Bristol Bay, Alaska. My family has been purchasing fish from those waters for more than a decade through Wild Alaskan Company and Sitka Seafood Market who both support local fisher men and women. I encourage you to give them a try. Fresh, clean seafood delivered right to your door!

Why plants are still the foundation of my plate

The more we learn about nutrition, the harder it becomes to look at protein in isolation. When you eat a cup of lentils, your body is not simply receiving protein. You are also getting fiber, resistant starch, vitamins, minerals and plant compounds. The undigestible fiber and phytonutrients found in lentils and other plant foods make their way to your gut microbiome where they get fermented, providing your body with nutrients it needs to run smoothly. Plant foods are essential to the quality of your health and longevity.

Higher plant-protein intake has repeatedly been associated with favorable long-term health outcomes. For me, the practical takeaway is not that meat is out, but it doesn’t dominate my plate, nor do I eat it daily. The easiest way to think about it is to do what professor and journalist Michael Pollan recommends, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

What does this all mean for you?

It all comes back to eating with the intention to heal. I make plants the foundation of my snacks and meals. I eat a wide variety of beans, lentils, vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds and whole grains because they provide far more than protein. They provide fiber along with a broad range of nutrients and compounds that keep me healthy and disease-free.

If animal foods are part of your diet, they can be chosen thoughtfully rather than automatically. Food should not become another source of fear, especially for someone already trying to navigate a serious diagnosis. That may be the lesson I wish I had understood when I was first diagnosed. I was desperate to do everything right because doing everything right felt like one of the few things I might be able to control. Over time, I learned that being perfect with my food wasn’t necessarily helpful. Science doesn't give us a list of perfect foods. It gives us information that we can use to make better choices for ourselves. My body’s needs are different than yours. So, don’t blindly copy what someone else is doing and expect the same result they’re getting.

The research tells us that eating more plant protein is associated with favorable health outcomes. Maybe today you add beans to a meal that normally wouldn't include them such as pasta sauce and smoothies, make vegetables the largest part of your plate, and meat a smaller part. Find a local farmer and ask a few questions about how their animals are raised. Then, you can walk into the grocery store knowing a little more than you did before to make the best choice for you.

Healing just for today is enough. Tomorrow, you’ll make another choice, and over time those choices become a pattern. It is that pattern, rather than one meal, one ingredient or one perfect decision, that matters most.