For generations beef was considered a nutritious health food. Currently however, this is not the popular narrative and opinion is split between whether beef is healthful or harms our health. Some of the more extreme views are even calling for the authorities to remove meat from the food supply.

Whatever your thughts on red meat might be, there are some important health benefits of eating beef.

High in Protein and Helps Improve Muscle Mass

There are numerous reasons to ensure a sufficient protein intake:

·       Protein is the building block your body uses to repair and make bone, skin, and cartilage.

·       Sufficient protein helps build and maintain lean muscle mass.

·       Protein is the most satiating of macronutrients, and discourages food cravings.

Beef is packed with health-promoting amino acids, and it’s one of the single biggest sources of protein in the human diet.

A 6oz portion of 80% lean beef provides 46g protein. Leaner beef contains even more protein

The Importance of Lean Mass

Building—or at least maintaining—lean mass should be a priority as age increases.

Research shows that older adults with lower muscle mass are at a higher risk of mortality and the more skeletal muscle mass someone loses as they age, the higher their risk of an earlier death.

The rate of muscle protein synthesis also rapidly decreases with, making it significantly harder to build and maintain muscle.

Sufficient protein consumption is vitally important and is especially essential for elderly people.

Helps Prevent Iron Deficiency Anemia

Sadly, iron deficiency anemia is a growing epidemic around the world. In developed countries nutrient deficiencies should not be a cause of death, yet anemia kills thousands every year.

Heme and Non-Heme Iron

There are two types of iron available in food, namely heme and non-heme iron.

·       Heme iron is the most bioavailable form of iron, and meat and other animal foods exclusively contain it.

·       Non-heme iron is found in plant foods such as fruit, vegetables, and nuts. In comparison to heme iron, the body finds it more difficult to absorb.

One of the best health benefits of beef meat is that it contains a substantial amount of heme iron. The best source of all is beef liver.

Interestingly, anemia disproportionately affects females. Perhaps this isn’t a huge surprise considering how society seems to shame women who eat meat. The imagery of women smiling while eating a bowl of salad is quite ubiquitous.

Provides L-Carnitine

L-carnitine is an amino acid that occurs naturally in meat products in significantly greater amounts than any other animal or plant food.

Importance of L-Carnitine

Among other functions, L-carnitine plays a part in fat metabolism. As part of this, L-Carnitine does the job of transporting fats into your mitochondria to burn for fuel.

It’s important to clarify that your body can synthesize sufficient amounts of L-carnitine for general needs; this makes 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:

Heart Health 

A meta-analysis of randomized trials suggests that L-carnitine improves patient outcomes. Specifically, it exerts an effect on hypertension, oxidative stress, nitric oxide, and inflammation. A further systematic review found that L-carnitine is associated with a 27% reduction in all-cause mortality in heart failure patients.

Diabetes

A systematic review shows that higher L-carnitine intake in type 2 diabetes patients improves fasting glucose levels and the overall cholesterol profile.

Weight Loss

According to yet another review and meta-analysis of nine randomized controlled trials, subjects using L-carnitine supplementation lost “significantly more weight” than the control group.

It’s worth noting that while there are many L-carnitine supplements on the market, the absorption rate is poor in comparison to beef. The body only absorbs approximately 14-18% of the synthetic form of the nutrient.

Rich Source Of Glutathione

Commonly known as the ‘master antioxidant,’ glutathione has significant research linking it to:

·       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 can lead to many chronic diseases. A deficiency in glutathione contributes to oxidative stress and inflammation. As a result, keeping glutathione levels high is important to support overall health.

Subsequently, the question becomes “how can you keep our glutathione levels optimal?”

Endogenous Glutathione Production and Dietary Sources

The body produces glutathione endogenously (within itself). The body uses raw materials (in this case: amino acids) to make glutathione. For this process to occur, there needs to be adequate levels of the amino acids cysteine, glutamate, and glycine. These amino acids are known as glutathione precursors, and each of these amino acids is present in beef. As an added bonus, beef also contains a reasonably high source of complete (pre-formed) dietary glutathione.

Rich in Minerals

If you are looking to increase your intake of various minerals, then beef is one of your best options to consider as it is relatively nutrient-dense in minerals.

The mineral content of 80% lean beef as percentage of RDA per 6 oz portion is:

·       Calcium 4

·       Copper 8

·       Iron 26

·       Magnesium 10

·       Manganese 2

·       Potassium 18

·       Phosphorus 38

·       Selenium 52

·       Zinc 72

Beef provides more than half of the day’s recommended amount of selenium and zinc.

Many people have deficiency issues with some of these minerals.

This means that the nutritional value of beef can help fight prevalent global deficiencies in iron, magnesium, and zinc.

Good Source Of Vitamins

There are many important nutrients in beef, and those present in significant amounts include the range of B vitamins:

B vitamins in 80% lean beef as percentage of RDA per 6 oz portion is:

·       Vitamin B12 82

·       Vitamin B3 50

·       Vitamin B6 36

·       Vitamin B2 18

·       Vitamin B5 14

Beef also contains smaller amounts of vitamins E and K.

Vitamin B12 (cobalamin) is a notably essential nutrient, and this is because it is only available from animal foods. B12 also has a wealth of benefits that include skin improvements, positive mood, better sleep, and neural regeneration (23, 24).

It’s important to realize that insufficient 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, and these groups should supplement with the vitamin.

Contains Significant Carnosine

A further advantage of eating beef is that it provides a high level of carnosine (beta-alanyl-L-histidine) - an amino acid found throughout the body, having several important roles in human health.

As beef is one of the richest sources of carnosine (containing about 50% more than poultry), this offers another health benefit.

Role Of Carnosine

Carnosine has anti-glycosylation properties and 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, 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 within our cells.

Source Of Conjugated Linoleic Acid

Otherwise known as CLA, conjugated linoleic acid is a naturally occurring trans-fat.

Although the word “trans-fat” name is a little scary, it has a very different effect to the synthetic/man-made version when this fat is naturally ocurring.

Randomized controlled studies involving human participants suggest that;

·       Conjugated linoleic acid helps to improve insulin sensitivity

·       CLA appears to promote fat loss.

Notably, the bulk of the evidence suggests that getting CLA from real food is better than supplementation. As is usually the case, perhaps nutrients in whole foods have a different effect to synthetically

Food Sources of CLA

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 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. With grain-fed beef, this average content drops to 0.16% of fat.

Provides Creatine

The dietary supplement version of creatine is very well known, but what many often fail to realize is that that beef contains it too.

Beef typically contains 350mg creatine per 100g (35).

The health benefits of creatine include:

·       Improved exercise performance

·       Creatine assists in muscle growth and development

·       Provides muscles with greater energy supply and improves endurance

·       Increased muscular size

It might also be worth noting that your liver can produce about 2g creatine per day, depending on the pre-cursors being available. 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. This means that, eating beef gives you a decent amount of dietary creatine, and it helps your body to produce it too.

In Conclusion

Beef contains dozens of health-promoting nutrients that are necessary when working on optimizing your diet. There are other foods which offer some of the same benefits, but not altogether or in the same amount.