Not All Meat Is the Same—Here’s What It Does to Your Health

Healing Through Food

Autumn Smith shares a personal story of suffering from severe irritable bowel syndrome and debilitating gut issues during her youth. Despite appearing outwardly fit as a dancer, she experienced constant and crippling gastrointestinal pain accompanied by intense bloating that made her look pregnant, along with middle-of-the-night stabbing pains. She recalls how conventional medicine offered limited answers, often dismissing her symptoms as stress-induced or psychological rather than physiological, a common misconception rooted in an outdated gut-brain paradigm.

What Autumn found transformative was a fundamental shift in her diet. By crowding out processed foods and embracing nutrient-dense whole foods, including high-quality animal products, bone broths, fermented foods, and stabilizing her blood sugar with low-carbohydrate meals rich in vegetables, she began to heal. The dietary change lifted the mental fog and dramatically improved her anxiety and depression, underscoring the often-overlooked gut-brain connection. This personal breakthrough fueled her passion for the nutritional metabolic psychiatry movement—recognizing that diet can be a critical factor in managing mental health issues beyond just medication.

The Crisis in Our Food System

The podcast moves to explore the structural problems within the modern food system. Autumn explains that the nutrient density of our foods has plummeted due to industrial agricultural practices that degrade soil quality. The rich, life-supporting soil that historically enabled plants to absorb vital minerals has been stripped away, depleted of its microbes and minerals through relentless tillage, chemical inputs like pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizers, as well as monoculture farming.

This degradation means the foods people consume today—fruits, vegetables, and animal products alike—contain far fewer essential micronutrients than those grown a century ago. For example, comparing apples from the early 1900s to those of recent decades shows drastic reductions in calcium, magnesium, and iron content, which compounds over time to compromise public health at the cellular level. Autumn stresses that "we are filling our bellies but starving at a micronutrient level," and that true nourishment depends on restoring soil health alongside changing diets.

Meat Is Not Just Protein

Autumn highlights groundbreaking research that fundamentally challenges the simplistic narrative about meat as merely a source of protein and fat. She details a collaborative project known as the Beef Nutrient Density Project, which assesses how different farming methods affect meat's nutrient and phytochemical content using metabolomics—a sophisticated science that analyzes thousands of bioactive metabolites in foods rather than just basic nutrient panels.

This research reveals that meat carries a complex array of beneficial compounds, many of which originate from the diversity and quality of the plants the animals consume. Regeneratively raised animals grazing on diverse pastures absorb a vast array of phytonutrients, antioxidants, and healthy fats, which then bioaccumulate in the meat, making it a "photograph of the land." This means that the healthfulness of meat depends heavily on the ecosystem supporting the animals.

Intriguingly, regenerative meat can contain as many phytonutrients as some vegetables, including antioxidant compounds like carotenoids that give fat a yellow hue, as seen in wild bison or high-quality pasture-raised animals. The omega-3 fatty acid content—including EPA, DHA, and DPA—and a more favorable omega-6 to omega-3 ratio are significantly higher in truly grass-fed and regeneratively raised meat compared to conventional grain-fed or feedlot animals. Additionally, specialized fats like conjugated linoleic acid are elevated in grass-fed meat, potentially offering anti-cancer, cardiovascular, and metabolic benefits.

These findings dismantle old myths that demonize saturated fats and meat, especially since the types and diversity of fats vary significantly by diet and farming practices. Some saturated fats in grass-fed meat have neutral or even protective effects on cholesterol and heart disease risk, contrary to decades of oversimplified dietary fat guidelines shaped in part by political and industry influence.

The Varied Quality of Meat

Autumn clarifies that "grass-fed" labels can be misleading today, as many animals are grain-finished or given total mixed rations that reduce the nutrient value of their meat. She contrasts feedlot beef (factory farmed) with genuine grass-finished and regenerative meat, emphasizing the superior nutrient profile of the latter. Regenerative agriculture—a system that mimics natural ecosystems by promoting biodiversity, rotating animals across diverse pastures, and avoiding chemical inputs—revitalizes soil and produces more nutrient-rich foods.

Moreover, regenerative agriculture has vast environmental benefits, including restoring soil carbon sequestration, enhancing biodiversity, improving water retention, and reducing runoff pollution. Healthy soils harbor microbial populations that not only nourish plants but may also support human microbiome diversity and mental health, connecting planetary and human wellness inextricably.

Autumn and her husband's company, Wild Pastures, strives to make regenerative meat affordable and accessible by sourcing directly from American farmers practicing holistic management, promoting whole animal utilization, and eliminating intermediaries. With rising meat prices in conventional markets, their approach offers consumers an entry point into supporting healthier food systems without breaking the bank.

Beyond Beef

The discussion extends beyond beef to address the nuances of chicken and pork quality. Conventional poultry and pork tend to have an extremely skewed omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, sometimes as high as 20 or even 30 to 1, largely due to grain-based diets. Since chickens and pigs are monogastric animals (single-stomach), they incorporate these imbalanced fats directly, which can exacerbate chronic inflammation in humans and contribute to diseases like heart disease and mental health disorders.

By contrast, grass-fed ruminants (cattle, bison) can biohydrogenate fats, modulating some of these imbalances. Autumn and her team work on developing special feeds and husbandry techniques to improve these ratios even in non-ruminant animals, bringing them closer to the 2–4:1 omega-6 to omega-3 ratio that supports health. Consumers often mistakenly perceive chickens as a healthier option when much of today's chicken supply may promote inflammation due to poor feeding practices.

Food as Medicine

Throughout the conversation, there is an overarching theme that food is the most powerful medicine we have, especially when nutrient density and quality are prioritized. Autumn emphasizes that significant health transformations, including for mental illness and chronic diseases, can begin with diet changes rooted in whole, minimally processed foods rich in micronutrients and phytonutrients.

She underscores the importance of supporting regenerative agriculture not only for personal health but as a critical intervention for public health and ecological sustainability. While affordability is a legitimate concern, Autumn and Dr. Hyman encourage small, sustainable changes like eating more whole foods, cooking at home, exploring organ meats (which are nutrient powerhouses and inexpensive), and buying directly from trusted local sources or companies like Wild Pastures.

The podcast also challenges the widespread narratives that nutritious food is only for the elite, asserting that the true cost of cheap, ultra-processed foods manifests in chronic illness, environmental degradation, and quality-of-life deficits. Investing in nutrient-dense, regeneratively produced food is an investment in long-term health and planetary healing.

Conclusion

The episode closes with a powerful reflection on the mutual interdependence of human health and the environment. Autumn and Dr. Hyman evoke the wisdom that by healing our soils—the living foundation of our food systems—we inevitably heal ourselves. The regenerative agriculture movement, supported by modern science and rooted in ancestral knowledge, offers a hopeful path forward to reclaim vitality for individuals, communities, and the planet.

By understanding the intricate science behind meat quality and the role regenerative practices play in producing truly nourishing food, listeners are invited to reconsider their dietary choices and push for systemic reforms in agriculture and food policy.