Has Beef gotten a Bad Rap? Its what I Eat for Dinner!

I have taken most of this last week off from exercising because I over did it again. I ran my incline hike-runs on Sunday and Monday (Monday was the 4th day in a row) and noticed my legs felt like rubber on Monday’s run. I got really light-headed too so I only ran the first hill.

I thought this weeks weight was going to be bad because of only working out 3 days (I ran Saturday too) but I was pleasantly surprised I dropped another pound! I’m down to 232 pounds. My best guess is since I kept up the diet (my way of eating) and one loses more weight from running a calorie deficit than from “burning” calories – that dieting did the trick this week!

Now as you have probably noticed by the title of this post, I think beef has gotten a bad rap! What you might be thinking? Yes in the push to eat leaner cut of meat, people have over looked one of the most nutritious types of meat out there – Beef! In this post I will endeavor to point out what is good about beef, some of the criticisms and some of the best beef commercials (pro and con). I will touch on why I eat beef and how beef is helping me stay on my diet! Here is one commercial I remember from the 1990′s.

I don’t know about you but I grew up eating beef in my spegetti and meat balls, hamburgers, meat loaf and steaks! While I did also eat various types of fowl and fish on Friday’s, for the most part beef was nutritious and affordable.

Why in health class in high-school, we learned that a jumbo-jack with cheese had all four food groups in it! This was back in the day when there were only four food groups. I found this website entitled, “Beef It’s What’s For Dinner” that has lots of good information. If you click on the “Lean Beef” like, it will bring you to a page entitled, “Get the Skinny on Lean Beef” defined as 3 1/3 oz’s of less than 10gm’s of total fat and 4 1/2 or less of saturated fat! Check this site out!!! 

The thing about eating meat and dieting is you cannot eat a lot of fatty cuts of meat. You can eat these every once in a while though but you have to have some discipline! I remember after I wrote my book entitled, “Slimmer Zimmer; Safe, Lasting Weight loss” a woman asked me if she could eat the occasional pizza with her boyfriend. My first response was no but she looked concerned, so I qualified. I told her if she could stop at a slice or two and did not eat this way every night – sure, almost any food was ok.

So my point about eating beef is you cannot easily eat 16 oz T-Bone steaks every night and then expect to lose weight (fat). It is very healthy and nutritious to eat a 3 – 4 oz serving of beef with your dinner. Most leaner cuts of hamburgers and beef will fall into this category! I cook a roast every couple of weeks and slice it for sandwiches. My servings are normally 2 – 3 oz’s and I eat hamburgers about 4 times a week (about 6 oz). I eat turkey burgers on the other nights. So if beef is one of those foods that you can moderate your intake – go ahead and keep eating it!!!

Now I remember back in the 80′s that there were groups that started endorsing not eating red meat for health reasons – too much fat they said. There were also fringe groups that did not like the fact that we had to kill our food! I have a real beef with those groups. Here is a video about one such group, PETA, on Bill O’Reilly’ show.

I resent the comment about people that represent themselves as animal lovers and then eat meat. I remember a girl once as she was going on about how she liked to work with animals, that I worked with animals too! She looked at me with those large brown eyes, smiling and I told her I cooked all kinds of beef, pork, chicken, and turkey in the kitchen!

I, like O’Reilly seems to, think that these fringe groups have a right to speak their mind, heck this is America, but I find their arguments unconvincing. I think to eat meat, one has to kill livestock. Their arguments would have sounded silly in the early 1900′s when there were a higher percentage of ranchers and farmers.

I remember in the 80′s I bought my ex-wife a rabbit fur coat. I think it cost about $80.00. She loved it but after watching a news story about some animal rights activist throwing red paint on some women wearing fur – she would not wear it out in public. I promised her at the time that I would gladly knock out any offenders but the coat just hung in the closet for years.

Ok – now that you realize that if we eat meat, there is no nice way to candy coat our source – it is farm animals. It is not a nice thing to have to kill to eat but in nature – that is the way. We like to think of ourselves as civilized but basically all of our instincts are intact. If we had an EMP attack and were thrown back into the stone age – we would survive just fine after a period of adjustment and be eating meat!

Speaking of meat, back in the 70′s, Jack-in-the-Box restaurant sold a mushroom burger that was out of this world. Recently Carl’s Jr has added a portabello mushroom burger to its menu? Have you ever wondered about the word, “portabello?” I found a quick video on Hot for Words about this very topic for your viewing pleasure.

This burger has been marketed quite extensively and I found a couple advertisements that I will highlight.

I’m with this guy – I like to savor my burger because I also use portion control. Generally the burgers at the fast food places are the higher fat content (cheaper) but this is ok to consume once in a while. Here is another one of Carl Jr’s hamburger ads.

You see? Even models can splurge once in a while. So I would like to urge everyone to consider the leaner cuts of meat in your diet as I have done in mine. The benefits to me include, less expensive, lower sodium, very nutritious, and widely available. Now I am off to Carl’s Jr to eat a Teriyaki Burger!