Heart Health Hangs A Left: Bout Dat Beef

All week, we’re going off-road to explore heart health along paths you knew were there, but are definitely the road less traveled by conventional sources.

We’re not supposed to eat red meat because it’s fats are said to be bad for your heart.

But, it’s a little more complicated than that. Just like wild caught salmon is much better for you than farm raised, the same is true — and for the very same reasons! — for grass fed vs grain fed cattle.

If you have WAY too much time on your hands, you can read a nice summary paper here.

Just exactly like wild caught salmon, grass-fed beef has less total fat, more heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids, more conjugated linoleic acid (which is thought to reduce heart disease and cancer risk), and it also has more antioxidant vitamin E.

And remember the Trans Fats we are supposed to avoid like the plague? Grain fed beef increases their levels in the meat you eat, a completely unreadable summary is here.

The bottom line comes back to common sense. If you’re going to eat conventionally produced corn fed beef, just know that it’s not AS good for your heart as grass fed beef. This means, like salmon, that you should limit its consumption more than you would if you had the grass fed variety.

One more little wrinkle. In healthy cultures, they don’t eat a lot of beef. It’s not like they have a beef with beef, they just lean on fish and chicken.