Staying Healthy - Picking the Leanest Cuts of Meat
As a rule, if you're looking to cut down on the calories without making the jump to vegetarianism you're going to be eating poultry and fish. Chicken is remarkably healthy, and as long as you through away the skin a nice breast cut will serve you fine. Fish has just about no fat at all if you have the sense not to buy it from the chip shop, but the taste isn't for everyone.
The fact is, sometimes you just need your red meat. In the interests of promoting healthy options though, you can look below for a few tips on getting the leanest cuts around.
Officially, to qualify as lean a cut needs to have about 10% fat content, with less than 4.5% of which being saturates. Moving into extra lean cuts they can't have more than 5% fat content, with the 'of which saturated' limitations dropping down to a measly 2%. Remember, as a baseline for choosing meat darker means better. While everyone likes to see that pretty marbling effect in their steak, those white streaks in red steaks are just rivers of fat. In mince the pinker the appearance the more white fat is mixed in, ideally ground meat should be as dark as possible.
Now, when you're picking out beef and veal it's always best to go for the round cuts. A six-ounce eye of round beef steak will treat you to about 7g of fag, 2.4g of which is saturated. The 50g of protein on top of this makes it an EXCELLENT steak for protein, though the sirloin tip side steak is leaner still.
There is a catch to lean beef, since it tends to be less flavourful and considerably tougher. This isn't to say it's bad quality, especially if you're a decent chef, but you'll likely need to marinade a lot of them. The top round steak comes highly recommended, however. It's the second leanest out there, while also being substantially more tender than other cuts from the round and sirloin.
Moving beyond the realm of beef, there's a few other things to consider. Lamb is pretty in demand, and leans towards being incredibly tender to boot. Head to the butcher and ask for a cut from the shank of the leg. With a little trimming to cut down on fat these cuts qualify as lean while having a pleasantly strong flavour.
As ever, you should always be aware of what you're eating. Lean cuts are nice, but sometimes you just want to indulge in a tender Rib-eye or T-bone. In general it's best to just look out for marbling and stay healthy. Trying to cut down on fat doesn't mean missing out on red meat.
Mira has been writing about nutrition and fitness for years, from offering advice on building muscle mass to help burning calories. Now a featured contributor of Muscle Finesse, she's hoping to expand her readership wider than ever.
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