HEALTHY EATING: Meatball soup with fried garlic and greens - The Sentinel

It’s Week Two of the Fall Soup Series. Last week I shared a delicious and warming Tuscan Bean Soup. This week I’m beefing it up with a super simple, crazy fast meatball soup.

Eating a clean, wholesome and nutritious diet is not just about loading your plate up with heaps of vegetables. Don’t get me wrong, you should still do that. But, if you are an omnivore it’s really important to eat clean meat. Here are a few reasons why:

1. CAFOs: Also called Concentrate Feeding Operations, CAFOs are where animals are kept and raised in confined situations. Feed is brought to the animals rather than the animals grazing or otherwise seeking feed in pastures, fields, or on rangeland — their natural habitat. Much of the meat we consume in the United States comes from animals raised in CAFOs.

2. Stress and inflammation: Animals living in CAFOs are understandably stressed, causing their stress hormones like cortisol to be very high. These stress hormones are very inflammatory for the animals and us when we consume their meat.

3. Antibiotics: Eighty percent of the antibiotics that drug companies sold in 2011 was used on animals. We are starting to see a strong connection between this high use of drugs on animals and humans suffering from antibiotic resistant infections.

Recent studies have shown that grass-fed meat is higher in omega 3 fatty acids — important anti-inflammatory fats that are cardio protective than meat raised in stressful, nutritionally poor conditions.

Reading labels for meat can get a bit confusing. Ideally, you want to buy meat that is “grass fed.” Stores are carrying more and more organic and grass-fed meats. However, when you look closely, those meats are shipped in from another country whose organic and grass-fed farming practices may not be what we imagine. Visiting the farmers market and talking to your local farmers is the surest way to get meat from happy, disease- and antibiotic-free animals. For more information on meat labeling check out the Environmental Working Groups Meat Eaters Guide at www.ewg.org/meateatersguide.

To get a taste of some delicious local ground beef, come visit me at Farmers on the Square between 3 and 5 p.m. I’ll be there making this delicious Meatball Soup with Fried Garlic and Greens. Then, you can visit some of our local farmers to pick up your clean, wholesome and nutritious meat for your cooking pleasure. I’ll see you there.

Tanya McCausland is a nutrition and culinary coach and founder of Home Cooked Healing. Join her twice a month on Wednesday afternoons at the Farmers on the Square market for her seasonal cooking demonstrations and market recipe ideas. Learn more about how you can heal with food at www.homecookedhealing.com and sign up for her weekly newsletter.