Conjugated What?
by Larry Kupecz is the President of the Ontario Dairy Sheep Association

There is work underway at a University nearby that could change the way our customers perceive fat in our sheep. This is not only important to sheep-milk producers, but regular meat-sheep folk as well, in that it appears that it doesn’t matter whether it’s butter fat from milk or the fat cover that presently downgrades our lamb carcasses. The message so far from this work is that there is a unique property to fat coming from ruminant animals…rather than being a problem, ruminant fat is good for you.

Just a few miles across town from the OSMA offices, a team of researchers at the University of Guelph is investigating Conjugated Linoleic Acid, referred to (in the modern jargon that makes a three letter acronym out of everything) as CLA. Dr. Art Hill, Food Science and Dr. John Kramer from Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada are collaborating in an investigation of milk from various species to get a better understanding of this component of fat. This is a three-year study supported by Dairy Farmers of Ontario, Ag. Canada, OMAF and the Milk Research Foundation. The objectives of the study include determining what types of fatty acids are in milk and how to improve them. Recently there was a call from Research Technologist, Francie Niekamp, to the sheep milk community asking for sheep-milk samples from Ontario farms. One of the reasons for this is that sheep produce CLA in spades and at the highest levels found in common farm livestock.

It seems as though fat has never had it easy in regards to the human diet. Not that long ago, fat was a premium item, being expensive to put on an animal and present as the last thing to be laid down on a carcass - the “finish”. It represented a healthy animal, well fed and cared for. Fat facilitated many aspects of food preparation as it made things hold together, allowed for cooking without sticking or drying out, and added taste. Fat in the diet was a luxury. Butter fat in milk went for a premium, often being separated and the only aspect of the milk sold off the farm. The milk industry still lives with residue of this fact today as fat is the basis for quota, payment and production while at the same time fluid milk is skimmed of its cream and butter consumption has fallen.

Our collective regard for fat has reversed itself with modern living creating an environment were the physical activity needed to make it though a productive day can’t keep up with the availability of cheap, tasty calories. The result has been an endless series of diet fads and trends, a good portion based on poor science and an even poorer understanding of the chemistry of food. Meanwhile the population continues to put on weight, become diabetic, die of cancer and we are on the verge of an obesity epidemic while a well-meaning community of doctors and writers haven’t been able to diss fat fast enough. That something is wrong with this picture is obvious but we are just beginning to understand the situation enough to do something relevant about it.

Could the connection between our population’s health concerns be a basic misunderstanding of the benefits of eating “natural” fat? Not that biochemistry is easy to understand or that our knowledge is anywhere near comprehensive. Far from it. “Fat” is one of the more confounding of the chemicals we ingest. Perhaps this three letter word encompasses too broad a category to allow an all-encompassing judgement declaration such as “Fat is bad (or good) for you”. Actually, it appears that our present knowledge of the positive effects of CLA started out in the 1970’s by researchers trying to identify those carcinogenic elements in hamburger. I mean, after-all, everyone knows the stuff is bad for you right? Instead of causing cancer, they found a remarkable anti-cancer effect. This was further isolated to the fat portion of hamburger and further still to a particular type of CLA. Fortunately, for most of those reading this article, the right type of CLA comes from ruminant animals, as it is a chemical that originates from bacteria in the rumen environment. As an aside, one name proposed for the magic fat was Bovinic Acid, until it was pointed out that it wasn’t just bovines that produced this but any animal with the right gut environment eating the right feed-stuffs, especially sheep. Ovinic acid would have been more appropriate.

Part of the reason for the ongoing study of CLA and also part of the reason for it not exactly being a household term is that CLA is a very confusing chemical. I won’t feel bad if this paragraph makes you refer back to some organic chemistry texts in that a discussion of CLA quickly degrades into “cis” and “trans” terms for geometric configuration of double bonds. Yikes! Interestingly enough (I hope), the most important CLA under study is properly called 9,11 CLA making it sound like it could be some sort of third-world terrorist cell. The 9 and 11 refer to locations on the Linoleic acid molecule that have the critical bonds that appear to make it behave the way it does. There are other Linoleic acids, even other conjugated Linoleic acids that have been identified as being harmful, particularly ones called “trans” fats. I’m sure we will be offered more information on this than most of us really want to know in years to come. So far though, it looks like this 9,11 CLA thing could be a winner for us.

There are, as I see it, a few hurdles along the way for the CLA story to be a benefit to us as farmers. One is that fat with the most CLA is produced primarily from pasture diets, next from stored forage and then grain. This doesn’t jive with the direction that North-American agriculture has taken with feedlot finishing and high grain, stored forage rations. Also, CLA is still a high-energy item and people consuming natural foods that are high in CLA are still going to need a healthy life-style of exercise and fresh air to see its true benefit. CLA, being a naturally occurring aspect of meat production, won’t have the muscle of corporate advertising and celebrity endorsement that seems necessary to sell a concept these days. In the meantime, while we struggle with finding a market for our sheep-milk (rich in CLA), enjoy the whole-fat milk as it comes naturally from the ewe. While we mellow in the after-math of a Mad-Cow scare, enjoy that tasty fat (rich in CLA) from the chops on the BBQ. Be confident that the daily farm chores will wear off the calories from ingesting healthy, natural, cancer fighting fat. And it is good to know that our own local researchers are front-and-centre in the study of good things to come.

(Larry Kupecz is the President of the Ontario Dairy Sheep Association, a shepherd and ruminant nutritionist. He lives in Burgessville Ontario and can be reached at harp@oxford.net).