Happy Animals are More Nutritious

by Rhona Mahony. In The Jungle Effect, Daphne Miller has described her travels to places in the world where very few people get sick with heart disease (Crete), Type 2 diabetes (Copper Canyon, Mexico), depression (Iceland), colon cancer (Cameroon), and cancers of the bowel, breast, and prostate (Okinawa). She is a family-practice physician in San Francisco. Her immigrant patients pointed out to her the contrast between their traditional diet and superior health when visiting relatives back home and their regimen of donuts and weight gain after coming back to the U.S. Dr. Miller decided to follow the clues herself.

In the disease “cold spots” that she visited, she found people eating the foods that their great-grandparents had eaten, prepared in the old ways. The animals they eat also live as they did 200 years ago, either wild or domesticated but unconfined.

The farm animals forage for wild plants, moss, and fungi on the hillsides: goats on Crete, sheep and cows in Iceland, chickens that strut about the village in Cameroon, pigs in Okinawa, and pigs, goats, and cows in Copper Canyon in Mexico. The chemical composition of the animals that Miller had tested was striking. They contained less saturated fat and a higher ratio of omega-3 fats to omega-6 fats than animals raised in the U.S. using the methods that have become conventional here. The milk of the Icelandic cows is also unusual. It is low in saturated fat and has a high ratio of omega-3 fats to omega-6 fats. Physicians think that the high level of omega-3 in Icelanders’ bloodstream helps them ward off depression, in spite of their country’s paucity of sunshine and, now, abundance of bank failures. High omega-3 levels may also help Okinawans hold down their rates of breast and prostate cancers.

The traditional folk that Miller interviewed also eat lots of wild sea creatures. In Crete, they eat sardines, anchovies, dorado, and octopus. Icelanders set the world record for fish consumption: 225 pounds (kilos) per person per year of char, salmon, and cod. Okinawans eat lots of fish, crabs, and shrimp. Fish are rich in omega-3 fats and in Vitamin D, which seems to help prevent breast and prostate cancer.

Wild creatures of the air and land are also an important part of the diet in several of these places. Icelanders roast wild sea birds, such as puffins and guillemots, that live on wild fish that they catch and are full of omega-3′s. Cameroonians must serve wild porcupine at any festive meal. They also make stews of boar, antelope, and boa constrictor.

On November 4, 2008, Californians voted in favor of Proposition 2, the Standards for Confining Farm Animals. The new standards prohibit “the confinement on a farm of pregnant pigs, calves raised for veal, and egg-laying hens in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs.” Supporters of Prop 2 argued that the changes would be kinder to the animals. Opponents pointed out that raising costs in California might result in more imported veal, pork, and eggs from unkind states and Mexico. No one argued that animals that can walk about, frisk, and eat the wild food that instinctually appeals to them might be more nutritious. Perhaps they should have.