Grass-Fed vs. Grain-Fed Beef: What's the Healthy Choice?
Next time you shop for groceries, you can find a wide variety of choices at the meat counter, including grass-fed beef, an alternative to conventionally farmed beef.
Grass-fed cattle spend their entire lives grazing from pastures. Here in Iowa and the Upper Midwest, grass-fed cattle are also fed hay in the winter, when the grass isn’t growing and pastures are covered in snow.
Grain-finished, or conventionally farmed, cattle also spend the majority of their lives grazing from pastures. When cattle are grain-finished, they eat a balanced diet of grain, local feed ingredients, and hay or forage in the feedyard.
Is grass-fed beef healthier?
Food marketers and health influencers often claim that grass-fed beef provides more omega-3 fatty acids than grain-fed beef. Omega-3 fatty acids are considered “good” fats for heart health.
Studies have shown that grass-fed beef has more omega-3s than conventional grain-fed beef.
However, that doesn’t mean grass-fed beef is a significantly better source of omega-3s than grain-fed beef, says Ruth Litchfield, an Iowa State University nutrition scientist.
A 3-ounce serving of grass-fed ground beef has about 0.015 grams of omega-3 fatty acids, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Nutrient Database. “So 100ths of a gram of omega-3s,” Litchfield notes. (For a real-world visual, 1 gram is equal in size to one raisin.)
In comparison, a 3-ounce serving of conventional ground beef has about 0.003 grams of omega-3s, according to the National Nutrient Database.
Even though conventional beef has less omega-3s than grass-fed beef, it isn’t a clinically significant difference to human health, Litchfield says.
What is a good source of omega-3s?
Beef in general – whether grass-fed or conventional – isn’t considered a good source of omega-3s, Litchfield explains.
Seafood, in comparison, is an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids. A 3-ounce serving of wild-caught Alaskan salmon has about 1.5 grams of omega-3 fatty acids, much greater than the 0.015 grams of omega-3s in grass-fed beef, according to the National Nutrient Database.
“You would have to consume 100 times the amount of (grass-fed) ground beef to get the same amount of omega-3s as the similar portion of salmon,” Litchfield says. “So in the scheme of things, you can’t eat enough (grass-fed beef) to make a significant impact on your (omega-3) intake.”
What are the nutritional benefits of beef?
However, all beef – grass-fed and grain-fed - is considered an excellent source of many other micronutrients, including B12, iron, zinc and high-quality protein, that are essential for human health, Litchfield says.
The USDA also recommends lean beef as part of a heart-healthy diet in its MyPlate dietary guidelines.
So whether it’s grass-fed or grain-fed beef, both are nutritious choices, Litchfield says.
