UK PROF SAYS NEW ZEALAND BEEF AND LAMB IS AS GOOD AS ORGANIC
September 17, 2002
Meat Processing News
A visiting UK Professor has praised New Zealand Beef and Lamb for having all
the benefits of organic production simply because it is grass-fed.
Professor Robert Pickard, Director-General of the British Nutrition
Foundation, said: "Grass fed cattle have five times the level of beneficial
polyunsaturated fatty acids in their meat compared to non-grass fed cattle.
So with New Zealand Beef and Lamb, which is grass fed, you already have the
benefits of organic production without having to change your techniques."
"That's a really important marketing point for New Zealand Beef." said
Professor Pickard.
The New Zealand Beef and Lamb Marketing Bureau invited Professor Pickard to
visit New Zealand to deliver his message that human beings are omnivores,
with red meat forming an important part of their diets. The Bureau is
jointly funded by Meat New Zealand and meat companies to promote beef and
lamb in New Zealand.
"Man has been eating meat for seven million years.  Twelve per cent of our
diet should come from animal protein, and a third in total from animal
sources including dairy." Professor Pickard said.
Professor Pickard reported a dramatic upsurge in consumer interest in
nutrition and a demand for different meat products to deliver nutritional
needs.
"Consumers are really starting to listen to nutritional messages and are
looking to food to make them superheroes. They are starting to look for
health promoting benefits of foods, and there's no doubt they want low fat
meat that has been bred to have reduced saturated fat and high levels of
unsaturated fat."
Professor Pickard added that the ultimate irony came in dealing with
increasing obesity in the Western population.
"The only way we can tackle obesity in the short term is to identify non
digestible substances that can be added to well-known foods so that 10 per
cent of it contributes no calories."
He acknowledged that long term cultural changes were needed to rectify the
mismatch in diet and exercise.
"At the opposite end of the spectrum, half the world is starving, and they
need nutritionally dense food like meat.  We really need two food policies
for different parts of the world," Professor Pickard said. Meat New
Zealand's R&D general manager Neil Clarke, said that Professor Pickard's
ideas gave food for thought, and that Meat New Zealand was conducting
research to demonstrate that New Zealand meat products deliver specific
nutritional needs. He said that current projects include measuring the
bio-availability of a range of nutrients from meat and complete meals, and
searching for the "meat factor" that enhances iron uptake. "Specific
nutrition messages can then be used to persuade nutritionally aware
consumers to buy more New Zealand Beef and Lamb at home and abroad." Clarke
said.