Food Freedom Friday Edition 281 - Benefits Of Beef
Beef was not always vilified and, in fact, was once (and still should be) considered a nutritious health food.
In our modern times, some of the more extreme vegan views have even called for the removal of meat from the food supply and in general, there is a sentiment that meat consumption should be reduced.
Whatever your opinion on red meat might be, there are some important health benefits of eating beef.
Beef is High in Protein and Helps Improve Muscle Mass
Beef is packed with health-promoting amino acids, and it’s one of the single biggest sources of protein in the human diet.
There are numerous reasons why you should strive to ensure a sufficient protein intake including:
· Protein is the building block our body uses to repair and make bone, skin, and cartilage.
· Sufficient protein supports the building and maintenance of lean muscle mass.
· Protein is the most satiating of all macronutrients, and it discourages food cravings.
A 6oz (170g) portion of 80% lean beef provides 46g protein and in a leaner variety of beef, the protein content can be even higher (11).
Lean muscle mass is especially important as you age where building—or at least holding on to—lean mass should be a priority.
Research shows that older adults with lower muscle mass are at a higher risk of mortality. The more skeletal muscle mass someone loses as they age, the higher the risk of an earlier death.
Furthermore, with age, the rate of muscle protein synthesis rapidly drops making it more challenging to build and maintain muscle .
It is thus vitally important to ensure adequate protein consumption, especially essential for elderly people.
Rich Source of Glutathione
Commonly known as the ‘master antioxidant,’ the benefits of glutathione are well researched and known. These include:
· Anti-aging benefits
· Increasing longevity
· Preventing illness
· Reducing the risk of chronic disease
· Strengthening the immune system
Glutathione helps protect every cell in your body from cellular damage, which is often at the root cause of numerous chronic diseases. A glutathione deficiency contributes to oxidative stress and inflammation. As a result, optimizing glutathione levels is important for our overall health.
Your body produces glutathione endogenously (inside itself) by utilizing raw materials (in this case: amino acids) in its production.
For this process to occur, adequate levels of the amino acids cysteine, glutamate, and glycine need to be present. These amino acids are known as glutathione precursors, and each of these amino acids is present in beef.
Furthermore, beef is a reasonably rich source of complete (pre-formed) dietary glutathione.
Keeping your glutathione levels high is critical for good health, and beef is definitely supportive of this. As your ‘master antioxidant’, Glutathione detoxes your body better than any ‘detox plan’ or supplement can.
L-Carnitine
L-carnitine is an amino acid that occurs naturally in meat products.
The L-carnitine content of beef is 10 times greater than that of other animal foods and about 100 times greater than that of many plant foods.
Among other functions, L-carnitine plays a part in fat metabolism, in part by transporting fats into your mitochondria for energy utilization. Your body is able to synthesize sufficient amounts of L-carnitine for general needs making it a non-essential amino acid. The body synthesizes L-Carnitine within the liver and the process relies on the amino acids L-lysine and L-methionine.
As a result, deficiencies are rare. However, research suggests that a higher dietary intake of L-Carnitine may have some positive health impacts including.
· Diabetes and cholesterol management
· Weight loss
While there are many L-carnitine supplements around, the absorption rate is poor in comparison to beef with your body only absorbing around 14-18% of the synthetic form of the nutrient.
Rich in Minerals
If you are looking to increase your intake of various minerals, increasing your beef consumption is one of the best options to consider as beef is a rich source of many important minerals including calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, phosphorous, selenium and zinc.
A 6 oz serving of beef provides more than half of the day’s recommended amount of selenium and zinc.
Global mineral deficiencies run rampant and eating beef can help to restore vital levels of iron, magnesium, and zinc.
Beef Helps Prevent Iron Deficiency Anemia
Sadly, iron deficiency anemia is a growing epidemic around the world. In a developed country including Canada and the United States, nutrient deficiencies should not be a cause of death, yet anemia kills thousands every year. The latest release of statistics showed that Anemia hospitalized 146,000 Americans in one year of whom 5,219 died.
Globally the problem is even more dire. According to the World Health Organization, 1.62 billion people suffer from iron deficiency anemia.
Heme and Non-Heme Iron
There are two types of iron available in food. These are referred to as heme and non-heme iron.
· Heme Iron: Heme iron is the most bioavailable form of iron, and meat and other animal foods exclusively contain it.
· Non-Heme Iron: Non-heme iron is found in plant foods such as fruit, vegetables, and nuts. In comparison to heme iron, the body is challenged to convert and utilize non-heme iron effectively and efficiently.
One of the best health benefits of beef meat is that it contains a substantial amount of heme iron with the richest source of hem iron found in beef liver.
Interestingly, anemia disproportionately affects females. In reality this makes sense as modern society tends to shame women who eat any significant amount of red meat. The image of women smiling while eating a bowl of salad is, sadly, quite ubiquitous.
Carnosine
Beef provides an abundance of carnosine, a potent amino acid. In fact, beef is one of the richest sources of carnosine (containing about 50% more than poultry)
Carnosine (beta-analyl-L-histidine) is an amino acid found throughout the body, and it has several important roles in human health.
Carnosine has anti-glycosylation properties. This means that carnosine reduces the harms of a process called ‘glycation’ which involves advanced glycation end-products (AGES). Glycation is central to the aging process and progressively damages your body (think of it as rusting from the inside), potentially leading to atherosclerosis and various other chronic diseases.
Additionally, carnosine helps boost the immune system and reduce inflammation. The amino acid is also thought to help prevent lipid peroxidation (damage) within your cells.
Abundant in Vitamins
There are many important nutrients in beef, and those present in significant amounts include the range of B vitamins.
A 6 oz portion contains the following as a % of RDA
· Vitamin B12 - 82
· Vitamin B3 - 50
· Vitamin B6 - 36
· Vitamin B2 - 18
· Vitamin B5 - 14
Additionally, beef contains smaller amounts of vitamins E and K.
Vitamin B12 (cobalamin) is a notably essential nutrient, and is only available from animal-based foods. This vitamin also has a wealth of benefits that include skin improvements, positive mood, better sleep, and neural regeneration.
Low and insufficient levels of vitamin B12 may also increase the risk of depression and mental health issues.
Fortunately, a 6oz serving of beef provides almost 100% of the recommended amount of B12.
Those most at risk from B12 deficiency are vegetarians/vegans. Anyone following a low or no meat diet should test regularly, take great precaution and supplement with the vitamin.
Conjugated Linoleic Acid
Otherwise known as CLA, conjugated linoleic acid is a naturally occurring trans-fat. Although the word “trans-fat” carries with it fear and dread (and from man-made sources needs to be avoided at all costs!), this naturally occurring fat has a very different effect to the synthetic version.
Randomized controlled studies involving human participants suggest that:
· Conjugated linoleic acid helps to improve insulin sensitivity (30)
· CLA appears to promote fat loss
Notably, the bulk of the evidence suggests that getting CLA from whole food sources is better than supplementation.
As is usually the case, perhaps nutrients in whole foods have a different effect to a synthetic pill?
The top sources of CLA include meat and dairy products.
After lamb and certain cheeses, beef is the next highest provider of the nutrient.
Although all beef contains CLA, grass-fed, grass-finished meat offers a significantly higher amount than beef from non-ruminants.
Specifically, the average amount of CLA in grass-fed beef is 0.46% of the fat content. Comparatively, with grain-fed beef, this average content drops to 0.16% of fat.
Creatine
Although the dietary supplement version of creatine is widely known, especially in body building circles, beef is a good, real food source of creatine.
On average, beef typically contains 350mg creatine per 100g.
The health benefits that creatine bring include;
· Improved exercise performance
· Creatine assists in muscle growth and development
· Provides muscles with greater energy supply and improves endurance
· Increased muscular size
It’s also worth noting that the liver is able to produce about 2g creatine per day, depending on the availability of the necessary pre-cursors. Creatine precursors include arginine, glycine, and methionine. Not only are all of these amino acids present in beef, but beef is one of the single most significant dietary sources for them. Not only does eating beef provide a decent amount of dietary creatine, it helps your body to produce it too.
Final Thoughts
Beef contains dozens of health-promoting nutrients form necessary components of a well-formulated diet. Furthermore, per calorie, beef is a very affordable food and is often more cost effective than plant matter. Beef also requires minimal preparation, and is delicious, quick and simple to cook.
Of course, there may be other foods which offer some of the same positives, but not in the same amount or as bio-available. Overall, meat is one of the most nutrient-dense foods in the human diet.
Bottom line: Eat more beef, your body will thank you now and for years to come!