Weight, Weight… don’t tell me!
Each new year, many of us make resolutions of one kind or another to begin, change, or renew goals we’ve decided are “about time”, to make part of our everyday lives.
For many, that incudes our health, whether it be losing a few pounds, or just getting into better shape.
Just pass any fitness center or gym in January and it’s likely you’ll see their parking lots unusually full.
Most any fitness trainer will admit that achieving and maintaining a weight or fitness goal has as much to do with your diet, as it does exercise.
When it comes to protein, and specifically meats, many people want to know which meats are the best to choose to specifically reduce their dietary fat intake.
In other words, which meats are the most LEAN.
While we admit that fat contributes a GREAT deal to the “experience” of enjoying a fine cut of meat, specifically its ability to add flavor, salinity, “mouth feel”, and “juiciness”, there are times when, as they say; “you can have too much of a good thing”.
If this is you, we have here, some “easy peasy” information to help you choose just the right meats, and some suggested cooking methods for you to consider.
So, what exactly does Lean mean?
A general definition of “lean”, is when freshly cooked meat it contains less than 10 grams of total fat, 4.5 grams or less of saturated fat and less than 95 mg of cholesterol per 100 grams, which is about (3½ oz).
3 ½ ounces is about half of a “typical” dinner size portion.
If you’re going for lean, many seafood items are at the top of the lean list, and that would include shrimp, lobster and many of the lean, white fish, such as Tilapia, Cod, Flounder, Orange Roughy and Sole.
Many are also low in calories, provided you don’t serve them with drawn butter or a rich cream sauce.
When asked, which non-seafood “meats” are the leanest, most folks get the top 2 right. Excluding Bison, that would be turkey breast and boneless, skinless chicken breast.
Having said that, many people fail to realize that there are a number of beef, pork, ana lamb cuts that definitely fall into the lean category.
But first, let’s talk about visible fat and marbling.
As mentioned above, regardless of whether you choose beef, pork or lamb, a certain amount of fat is considered a good thing.
In most steak cuts, we look for an appropriate amount of exterior cap or side muscle fat (typically a quarter inch or so), and a good amount of interior muscle fat (marbling) which should be evenly dispersed throughout the center.
This gives us flavor, juiciness and tenderness.
When shopping for leaner cuts, less visible fat and less marbling is best, providing you cook them with more care as they can otherwise tend to be less juicy and less tender.
The two extremes of this example are below. Both are New York Strip Loin Beef Steaks, cut from the loin. The one on the left is a typical cut, the one on the right a Wagyu bred beef cut, bred and raised to promote an excessive amount of interior marbling.
Although the New York Strip Loin Steak can be one of the leaner cut of beef, in this case, ordering a Wagyu Strip Loin Steak in a fine dining restaurant is akin to eating a stick of beef flavored butter.
The charts below give you some of your best choices for lean cuts of both beef and pork. And although not considered a “cut”. A 90/10 or 95/5 ground beef is another excellent choice, especially for recipes such as meat balls, and in casserole dishes.
Pork and lamb are similar, the leanest cuts are from the highest area of the animal, such as the loin, (center cut chops for instance), and from the tenderloin. Conversely, most all the cuts from the lower half of the animal (the belly area) are full of fat.
Here, in the case of pork, is, as the old saying goes, where you want to be living “high off the hog”.
