Belinda, CLA and grain, was Re: pastured vs. range-fed

September 14, 2002

> > stating that is only takes 15 pounds of grain to change the

CLA levels.

> > Thought that would be of interest.

> > piimaman

> >

>

> 15 pounds in what period of time?

>

> Belinda

Sorry if someone else has already replied to this, I haven't had

time to keep up with this list. Belinda, Dr. Tilak Dhiman at Utah

State is a leading researcher on CLA in the meat and milk of

grassfed ruminants, he says he's found that grain *at any time*

in the life of a meat animal can significantly reduce the CLA

content of the meat. It doesn't come back even if the animal is

finished on pasture.

Milk animals seem to be able to recover to some extent after

going back on exclusively grass, and the CLA level of the milk

will rise again after ceasing grain (which is not to advocate

feeding heavy grain to milk animals at any point). This was

reported in the August issue of the Stockman Grass Farmer. I

think the 15 pounds of grain quote perhaps came from this part

of the article: " Unfortunately, a lot of graziers think a little grain

won't hurt, but it does. For example, the milk from [pastured] dairy

cows fed as little as 15 pounds of grain per day is not

significanlty higher in CLA than that of a conventional

confinement dairy. " It does not say if he's studied whether a

snack of grain each day (as I know many cows and goats get at

milking time to help keep them occupied and standing still)

would have an impact on CLA levels, but I suspect it would have

at least some effect, since it would be influencing the functioning

of the digestive process, which is what puts the CLA into the

milk. You can get the back issue of SGF if you want the article,

Aubin

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