Protocols

All of our animals are genuinely pasture-raised grazing on rich regenerative pastures and receiving fresh air and sunlight 365 days a year. What exactly does pasture-raised mean? Pasture-raised means our animals are raised outside on pasture, like nature intended, not stuck inside crammed buildings.

Not only is our lamb and beef grass-fed it is 100% grass-fed. What does this mean? While lots of products may claim the grass-fed title many are still feeding grain to their animals particularly near the end of their life to fatten them on grain. At MannaFeast our animals are not only grass-fed they are grass-finished. This means at no point do our ruminants (cattle and sheep) receive any grain ever. Just as nature intended.

We source only the highest-quality non-gmo feed for our chickens and hogs from a local feed mill here in Michigan. About 90 percent of America's field corn has been genetically modified either to be herbicide-resistant (what's known as "Roundup Ready" corn) so farmers can spray chemical herbicides like Monsanto's glyphosate-based Roundup or what's known as BT corn which has been genetically modified to produce proteins from the bacteria bacillus thuringiensis, which is poisonous to certain insects. Corn is one of the main ingredients found in animal feed. This means practically all of the meat you are getting in the grocery store has very likely been fed genetically modified grain. At MannaFeast, we believe if we don't eat GMO's then why should we feed them to our animals? Enjoy peace of mind eating non-gmo meat from MannaFeast!

Being grass-fed is good for the animal, while being rotationally grazed is good for the land. Typically what happens is a farmer will turn their animals out to the land with unrestricted access to the entire pasture in what's known as "continous grazing". In this system the grass never has a chance to recover because it is being continously grazed by the animals which eventually leads to overgrazing. Ground cover is reduced increasing the chance of erosion while limiting the amount of grass (aka tiny solar panels) that are able to sequester carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and pump that valuable carbon down through its roots into the soil feeding the soil food web. Not only this but because the animals have unrestricted access to the pasture they tend to go around cherry-picking their favorite plants and continually eating those which overtime lowers pasture biodiversity. By doing what's known as "rotational grazing" a farmer will subdivide his paddocks rotating their animals throughout the land allowing the grass to recover before being grazed again. This process mimics what happens in nature. You can think of the land like you would your muscles. Periodic disturbance from working out actually helps your muscles to grow back stronger but only if you give them the proper time they need to recover.

Antibiotics, when used properly, are clearly very useful and have no doubt saved many lives. However, their overusage particularly in animal agriculture is becoming a serious issue. Subtheraputic antibiotics are adminstered in feed or water to help animals to grow faster which creates new antibiotic-resistant bacteria. These so called "super bugs" are becoming more and more prevalent and are much harder to treat making them much more deadly. As we said, antibiotics have their place but at MannaFeast we are against the usage of subtheraputic antiobiotics in animals. These life saving drugs need to be reserved for when they are actually needed. While we would never allow an animal to die needlessly in the rare case that an antibiotic could save its life; we would never sell this meat to you as it would not be up to our standards even if sufficient time has passed to allow the clearance of the drug from the animal's body. We want to ensure the confidence of our customers and want you to know that you will only ever receive the absolute highest-quality meat possible.

Hormones are used in cattle production to increase growth rates usually in the form of capsules implanted in the ear. The amount of hormones used is very minuscule and most scientists will say that it is perfectly safe and very little ends up in the meat. Whether or not this is true we like to keep things natural regardless and tend to be purists when it comes to what we put in our bodies. Because of this, we will never administer hormones to our animals for any reason ever. It is important to note that hormones are NOT allowed in chicken production in the US. So, if you see a company claiming their chicken is hormone-free they are green-washing you to charge you more for the same product or make you think their product is of a higher quality! While we think it is great people are looking for hormone-free meat it is also important to know when it is simply being used as a marketing ploy to trick consumers. While it would probably be easier for us to simply say all of our meat is hormone-free and not go into details; part of our core values includes transparency and education and awareness. This means here at MannaFeast we believe in being upfront and honest about what's actually in your food so consumers can make better-informed decisions about what they put in their bodies.

Here at MannaFeast we raise heritage breeds whenever possible. Heritage breeds are old preindustrial breeds sometimes going back hundreds of years that have been maintained throughout history but may be endangered or facing extinction due to the industry demands of animal production today. These breeds however exhibit many exceptional qualities that small-scale producers are once again increasingly taking advantage of who aren't only concerned with simply how fast an animal will grow. This includes things like flavor, hardiness, mothering ability, and foraging ability or the ability for them to actively gleam their own nutrition from the land which believe it or not is actually a skill. Our hogs in particular are a type of heritage breed known as Tamworths prized for their excellent flavor. Tamworth hogs, once again gaining popularity, are a favorite among chefs and foodies alike and are known for their bacon with their long lean bodies. At MannaFeast you get the chance to eat these unique meats while preserving the biodiversity of some of our most important and oldest animal breeds.

What is good for the Earth naturally becomes good for the welfare and happiness of the animal and the safety of our products during a time when deplorable conditions for animals and food-borne disease outbreaks and recalls have become the norm. Our philosophy here at MannaFeast is to let animals express their natural desires by exercising their innate traits and instincts. Our pigs should be able to be pigs which means rooting and wallowing to their hearts content just as pigs do. We do not put rings in their nose so they can't root or cut off their tails which is a common practice in the industry. This means our pigs can actually take part in their natural place on our farm rooting through the soil in our forests helping to clean the underbrush and provide the proper amount of disturbance for dormant seeds from the subsoil to emerge, increasing biodiversity in our forests. Our chickens are not de-beaked and in fact we cherish that they love to scratch and peck through the manure in search of tasty fly larvae they can eat helping to sanitize our pastures and efficently spread manure into the soil. This is why we follow our birds behind our herbivores just as you see in nature like with the egret following the rhinoceros in Africa. Because our animals live a natural life it makes for a happier animals but also a much safer product. Unnatural densities of very large numbers of animals sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands crammed into buildings with poor ventilation, little sunlight, and sitting in their own waste is a breeding ground for disease. We believe nature got it right first.

Animals are a vital part of any properly functioning ecosystem as they close the nutrient cycle and help restore fertility to the land when managed properly thereby giving us the ability to regenerate large swaths of land and ecosystems. A proper pasture-based farm works within the setting of a natural grassland allowing an entire ecosystem to flourish around it.

Our products are not only more delicious due to the high-quality diet our grass-fed animals receive, but they are also much more nutrient-dense from receiving large amounts of fresh grass and a diversity of forage found naturally throughout our pastures and woods. Grass-fed meat is known to contain less fat, including saturated fat, higher amounts of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids, and more antioxidants and vitamins including vitamin E (almost 4x as much as conventional), selenium, and a unique fatty acid called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which happens to be a potent antioxidant. CLA in particular has been associated with decreasing the risk of cancer, diabetes, atherosclerosis, and arthritis, and increasing fat metabolism. Selenium has been shown to reduce the risk of several types of cancer. The fat from quality grass-fed animals is also much softer and is yellow compared to the hard pure white fat from strictly grain-fed animals. The large amount of grass they consume contains carotenoids like beta-carotene (the same thing found in carrots) and gives color to the fat of animals that eat it. Beta-carotene is a precursor to Vitamin A, an essential nutrient, and is also an antioxidant, important for protecting the body against free radicals. Pasture-raised eggs in one study were shown to have an astonishing 7 times the Vitamin E, almost double the Vitamin A, almost 8 times the beta-carotene, and over 200 times the Folate. There was over 20 times the amount of heart-healthy omega 3’s, almost 1/3rd the cholesterol, and 1/4th the saturated fat. As you can see, nutrient density is not an idle marketing claim when it comes to our products. Pasture-raised foods are truly more nourishing to the body and contain large amounts of a plethora of different vital nutrients that are essential for human health.