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From our family to yours...
We are a 100%-owned family farm, so you can rest assured that everything that bears our name is produced on our farm with the greatest attention to every detail.
You see, we truly care about the health of our family, and we care about yours too.
Our mission is to provide families with truly healthy meat.
Farm Blog
Posted by: Trevor
May 17, 2025
Butyrate deficiency is a major risk for most of us. It is primarily produced by friendly bacteria in our microbiome, and it plays a major role in our sleep quality, metabolism, skin health, intestinal lining, brain function, body composition, and general health.
Although we can get butyrate directly from dietary sources (such as butter), our microbiome is capable of producing large amounts of butyrate, 24-hours a day --- but only if given the right fuel. Prebiotic fibers and polysaccharides from onions, garlic, mushrooms, and hyaluronic acid provide the raw material that our microbiome needs to do this.
Onions and garlic provide the raw material for butyrate production
People who are low in butyrate can experience an array of symptoms --- from obesity, to brain fog, to asthma, to skin rashes, to insulin resistance, to hypertension, to insomnia, to depression, and anxiety.
Part of the reason why butyrate is so important is that it increases the expression of proteins that compose our intestinal barrier, thereby reducing endo-toxemia. This strengthening-of-the-gut-lining effect of butyrate is similar in mechanism to the way it thickens the epidermal layer and moisture barrier of our skin, thereby improving skin health.
When our intestinal lining is compromised, endo-toxemia results, resulting in widespread inflammation, chronically elevated cortisol levels, and an increased incidence of nearly every chronic disease.
Research has shown that butyrate can rapidly decrease fasting insulin levels, which may explain its beneficial effect on body composition (Mayorga-Ramos et al. Protective role of butyrate in obesity and diabetes: new insights. Frontiers in Nutrition. November 2022).
Research has also shown that ingestion of onions provides prebiotic material which is crucial to butyrate-producing bacteria such as bifidobacterium, feacalibacterium, and fusicatenibacter. The same study also showed that several other beneficial bacteria, including lactobacillus reuteri, l. rhamnosus, lactobacillus plantarum, lactobacillus casei, and lactobacills fermentum, also exhibited increased growth in the presence of dietary onion ingestion (Yoo, Kim, et al. The prebiotic potential of dietary onion extracts. Food Microbiology: American Society for Microbiology. January 2025).
The prebiotic fiber in onions works in two ways: first, it acts as a substrate for bacterial fermentation, resulting in increased butyrate production; second, it helps increase the number of bifidobacteria, which increase butyrate production but indirectly.
The great thing is that onions are relatively inexpensive, and very easy to incorporate into our diets. Any alliums will do --- white onions, purple onions, shallots, and garlic are all excellent ways to help increase our butyrate levels.
Just before I wrote this article, we had round roast for dinner. It was very easy. I started with a mini round-roast. Why mini? Some time ago we started producing smaller sized roasts, in the range of 1 or 2 pounds, instead of the more traditional 3 to 5 pound roasts. This is to reflect the modern reality that most households have substantially fewer people in them than a generation ago. Mini-roasts can therefore be more economical and convenient.
I added some liquid (any of our bone broths are excellent options. Alternatively you can use red wine, the alcohol burns off readily), and plenty of onions and garlic. I turned the slow cooker on, and less than 3 hours later --- all done.
Mini round roast, cooked well-done, in the slow cooker
This simple meal combined several nutritionally important things: collagen-rich beef (roasts tend to be high in collagen) from our grass-only certified organic cattle, which is naturally very high in glycine and proline, and certified organic onions and garlic which provide the specific sort of prebiotic fiber that butyrate-producing bacteria thrive on.
Just imagine how easy it is, every day, to add delicious and relatively-inexpensive onions and garlic to your meals, knowing that you are feeding an army of beneficial microbes which are constantly generating butyrate to make your body healthier and stronger.
This is one of many ways you can use food to accomplish specific health objectives, and avoid resorting to industrially-produced pills and powders. By providing your body with the nourishing, life-sustaining, and healthy substances which it recognizes as safe and familiar, you are giving yourself precious natural medicines which produce abundant energy and effective healing.
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