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Health Concerns About Meat
4 Health Tips for Eating Meat

What's the beef with meat? This question can be answered in two nutritional words: fat and cholesterol.

Too much fat. No matter how you slice it, meat is high in fat. Unlike milk, in which you can separate out part or all of the fat, you can never get rid of all the fat in meat, no matter how well you trim it. Even the lean parts are laced with fat. Extra lean select-grade beef contains around seven percent fat.

Wrong fat. Not only is there too much fat in meat, it's the wrong kind. Nearly half the fat in meat is the artery-clogging, saturated type. And, of course, meat is also high in cholesterol. Beef fat is more saturated than poultry fat because the bacteria in the ruminant stomach of cattle hydrogenate, or saturate, the fats in the plants that cows eat. It's like having a fat factory inside the food source.

Fat without fiber. Unlike meat, plant foods that are low in fat and high in fiber tend to pass through the intestines rapidly, causing less upset and fewer problems, such as gastroesophageal reflux. Meat has a double fault. It's high in fat and contains no fiber, so it takes longer to empty from the stomach and pass through the intestines. While most people do not experience "indigestion" from meat, those who suffer from reflux should not eat much meat, as it may aggravate the problem.

Problems with protein. Not only are the fats in meat unhealthy, meat proteins have also recently come under fire. Recent evidence suggests that animal proteins increase blood cholesterol levels, while plant proteins, especially soy, decrease them. Meats contain high levels of the amino acid L-lysine, which increases insulin production, prompting the liver to release fat and cholesterol into the bloodstream. If L-lysine is experimentally added to animal diets, blood cholesterol levels increase by over fifty percent and the animals get plump. Studies show that substituting 30 grams of soy protein daily for a meat meal dramatically reduces cholesterol levels. So, the Japanese may have lower cholesterol levels than Americans, not only because they eat less meat, but also because they eat more soy. The quality of meat protein ranks below that of egg white, fish, and dairy products.

Other concerns. While there is experimental evidence to implicate the meat fats and proteins in meat with disease, the effects of muscle-building hormones and infection-killing antibiotics fed to livestock are harder to pin down. These substances appear in the meat at the supermarkets, and common sense tells us they certainly can't contribute to our health and may harm it.

The most compelling reasons for going meat-less are the undisputed studies showing that countries with higher meat consumption rates also have higher rates of heart disease and cancer. And within these countries people who eat less meat have a lower incidence of both heart disease and cancer than the general population. One of the most famous studies is called the Nurses' Health Study. In this study of more than one hundred thousand female nurses, those who ate the most animal fat were twice as likely to get colon cancer as those with the lowest intake of animal fat.

You may not want to completely eliminate meat from your diet, but there are ways to cut back on both the meat and the fat.

1. Trim the fat. Trim all the fat you can see surrounding that sirloin. In addition, choose cuts of meat that are less marbled with fat, the kind of fat that not even the finest surgeon could trim. Since there is no law requiring beef to carry these labels, you may have to ask which category of meat a particular cut is. Here are some fat-trimming words to look for in reading labels on cuts of meat:
   • Select is the leanest cut of meat, containing around 7 percent fat by weight.

   • Choice contains 15 to 35 percent fat by weight.

   • Prime is the fattest grade, containing 35 to 45 percent fat by weight

   Fat content will vary with different cuts of meat, as well as with the grade. Here are different cuts of select-grade beef in order from lowest fat content to highest.

   1. top round
   2. eye of round
   3. round tip
   4. bottom round
   5. shank
   6. sirloin
   7. arm
   8. top loin
   9. t-bone
   10. tenderloin
   11. porterhouse
   12. brisket
   13. rib-eye
   14. flank
   15. ribs
   16. blade

2. Drip-dry the fat. Broiling is likely to remove more fat from the meat than frying, especially if the fat drips out of the meat. Roasting or baking the meat in its own juice is certainly better than adding fat by frying, yet the fat can soak back into the meat this way.

   Instead of buying hamburger, choose the leanest piece of beef you can find, such as select lean or select top round (around four grams of fat per 3.5 ounces compared with 18 grams of total fat for lean ground beef) and ask the butcher to grind your chosen cut into hamburger for you. (Of the popular cuts of beef, select top round has the lowest amount of total and saturated fat.)

3. Beef up the main dish without beef. Rather than making meat the centerpiece of a meal and vegetables the accent, reverse the importance of these foods. Dicing up three ounces of beef into a vegetable stirfry is much healthier than sitting down to a 16-ounce sirloin. Instead of planning meals around the meat, let the meat accompany the vegetables or be part of a pasta or grain-based casserole.

4. Consider other meats:

   Game meats. Game meats are the lowest in both total fat and saturated fat. Some have one-fifth to one-twentieth the fat contained in domestic meats. For example, 3.5 ounces of venison contain only three grams of fat, one of which is saturated. Rabbit meat is higher in vitamin B-12 than any domestic meat, supplying six micrograms, 100 percent of the recommended dietary allowance.

   Veal. Though veal is higher in cholesterol than many cuts of beef and contains about as much fat, it is much higher in niacin (a 3.5 ounce serving contains 10 milligrams, half the RDA). In addition, veal contains two to three times more calcium than most cuts of beef or pork. If possible, buy free-range veal.

   Lamb. Depending on the cut, lamb is nutritionally similar to beef. It's slightly higher in niacin than beef, except veal.

   Pork. There is no nutritional advantage to eating pork over beef. It is lower than most cuts of beef in vitamin B-12, zinc, and iron. Avoid fatty processed meats, such as bacon and sausage; they not only contain lots of saturated fat but also may contain nitrates.