Where's the beef

Meat lovers must be having a hard time swallowing the bad rap on beef. Typically, beef, 'the red meat', is said to contain between 15 and 20 per cent saturated fat, the 'bad fat' which science associates with risks for cardiovascular disease.

Diets high in red meat are also associated with prostate and colon cancers. And, to make matters worse, memories of 'Mad Cow Disease' (mostly in European beef) are still fresh, supporting the scare of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease or CJD in humans.

It's not for me to recommend adding regular servings of juicy steaks to your diet, but I have been noticing that on certain phases of the popular South Beach Diet (where the focus is more on protein and less on carbs) lean cuts of beef are being recommended. The stress is on 'lean cuts', without the fatty parts. But it makes me wonder if beef is making a comeback (like coconut oil, like eggs, like milk and so on and so on) as the latest health-food marvel. You know, the whole bad-food-turned-good-food (sometimes bad food again) cycle.

Good quality protein

Beef is not without its nutritional value. It's high in protein, contains no carbs, loaded with minerals (depending on soil on which the cows graze), has small amounts of folate and vitamin C and is an excellent source of the B vitamins especially vitamin B12, important in red blood cell formation, neurological function, and DNA synthesis. (And you should know that vitamin B12 occurs naturally in animal products such as meat, fish, poultry, eggs, milk but is not usually present in plant foods).

And, on top of it all, 100 grams of lean beef pack on only about 170 calories. One portion of roast beef will deliver almost half of the recommended daily protein, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) information, but it has only about 14 per cent of the day's recommended fat intake. Now how can you beat that value?

The South Beach Diet carefully guides its dieters to choose from the healthiest of the approximately 300 types of retail cuts of beef. For more muscular and less fatty cuts choose meat from the more active parts of the cow (such as the round loin, tenderloin and flank). For tender, fatty meat (such as prime rib and brisket) take the cuts from the sedentary parts of the cow.

New labelling rules

It would be helpful if local consumers could have properly labelled meat (displaying calorie, fats and other contents). But I notice that by the end of this year, the USDA is requiring that 40 of the most popular cuts of meat (including beef) and poultry be labelled with important nutritional facts (such as calories, grams of total fat and saturated fat); just so that consumers can make informed decisions about what goes into their mouths. And if it's lean protein you want, the new labelling rules say that labels should give lean and fat percentages (for example, say 76 per cent lean).

Eulalee Thompson is health editor and a professional counsellor; email: eulalee.thompson@gleanerjm.com.