Carrying What a Lifetime Built

A 2022 study found that the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio in grass-fed beef varies wildly, from 28:1 to 1.8:1

Same label. Completely different food.

Our ratio: 1.88:1. Five times more omega-3s than conventional. That matters for inflammation, heart health, and your kids' brain development.

Here's what most people don't realize. Everything in this country's food system is designed to make nutrition like that disappear. Every market pressure, every incentive, every shortcut, all of it pushes in the other direction. Keeping nutrition like this alive is why Grass Roots exists. And it's why I'm in Montana this week.

A few weeks ago, I told you Andrea and I were exploring something that scared us. A ranch where a couple spent decades building a herd and soil that can't be replicated. I'm here now. So are two young ranchers who might be part of what comes next. We're learning this herd and this land. Sitting at the kitchen table going over spreadsheets, trying to make the math math.

The math I can handle. What I wasn't ready for is this: over the past few days we've lost a few calves to something nobody can explain yet. Healthy one day, gone the next. Postmortems, vets, every test in the book. No answers yet.

I'm emotionally spent, and I wasn't even close to carrying the heaviest load. We worked alongside these ranchers for two days, every person on this ranch pouring everything they had into those calves. Because that's the deal. You take responsibility for a life, you fight for it. We fought. We still lost some.

A week like that strips everything down to what matters. These ranchers put their whole lives into this land. A lifetime of early mornings, brutal losses, and moments of beauty that only people who do this work ever get to see. And through all of it, they kept showing up.

Ranch succession isn't a transaction. It's the most personal decision a rancher will ever make. Who gets to carry the thing you built with your life? That doesn't get decided at a negotiating table. It gets decided in moments exactly like this one.

And when I look around, here's what I see. Ranchers who spent their lives building something extraordinary. Two young ranchers who we hope will be part of what comes next. Andrea and me doing everything we can to bring it all together. And behind all of us, a community of families like yours who keep showing up. Every order. Every email you open. Every conversation you start about where your food comes from. That's the other half of this equation.

That's how a 1.88:1 omega-6 to omega-3 ratio survives.

Your farmer,
Cody