What are
Lean meats are foods generally used as a dish, with variable consumption rates based on family culture, nutritional needs and individual tastes.
Lean meats contain at most 5% lipids, while fatty ones contain them in percentages higher than 5% up to 40%.
Importance of the cooking method
Obviously, a similar distinction does not take cooking methods into consideration; it is useless to use lean meat for frying or larding.
Role in the Diet
Lean meats constitute a group of foods that should almost completely replace fatty meats and, in the frequency of consumption of dishes, should alternate with fish (at least twice a week), eggs [1-2 times a week (2-3 eggs in total)] and cheeses / ricottas (maximum 2 times a week).
From a nutritional point of view, lean meat is an excellent source of high biological value proteins, B-complex vitamins, bio-available iron, phosphorus and other essential microelements (provitamins and amino acids).
What are they?
The high consumption lean meats are:
- Adult cow: topside, baby-walker, walnut, under-course
- Calf
- Horse (all cuts)
- Rabbit (all cuts)
- Chicken (without skin)
- Light pork: fat leg and loin
- Turkey (without skin)
- Calf: fillet
The lean meats defined as obsolete or niche are:
- Deer (all cuts)
- Daino (all cuts)
- Buffalo (defatted)
- Pheasant (without skin)
- Guinea fowl (without skin)
- Snail
- Frog
- Ostrich (without skin, degreased)
Lean offal
A few words should also be spent on offal, often snubbed or considered processing waste. As you already know, offal mostly represents the internal organs of slaughter animals; the organs are essential components for life, therefore, the greatest concentration of essential nutrients (above all vitamins) present in the organism is found precisely in the offal (see deposits of vitamins in the liver, phospholipids in the brain and in bone marrow etc.). Not all offal are lean, indeed, some of them are good food sources of saturated fat and cholesterol; however, if our diet contains mainly lean meats, fish, few eggs and milk derivatives, eating offal 1 or 2 times a week could be good for you.
Lean offal:
- Lamb and veal coratella (heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys and intestine)
- Liver of: bovine, equine, light pig (few total lipids but lots of cholesterol)
- Spleen (bovine)
- Lung (bovine)
- Kidney (bovine)
- Tripe (bovine)
- "Diaphragm"
NB: Some offal (or meat) has been subjected to commercial restriction during the period of spread of animal diseases potentially harmful to humans (such as BSE and avian); moreover, it is important to remember that all the meats, therefore even the lean ones, should be eaten cooked to prevent parasitic diseases (from protozoa and worms), and the same is true for offal. For the latter, it is of fundamental importance to have the trick of carefully selecting the sources of supply; liver, kidneys, intestines, stomach, etc. they are organs that often reflect the state of health and the food style of the slaughtered animal (as for humans), therefore, if the beast has been subjected to intensive pharmacological treatments (residues in the liver and kidneys) or has been fed with feeds that are NOT regular because they are contaminated with heavy metals (residues in the stomach and intestines), these unwanted molecules could also harm us end consumers.
Meat ragout LIGHT - No added fat
X Problems with video playback? Reload from YouTube Go to Video Page Go to Video Recipes Section Watch the video on youtubeCuriosity: it is HIGHLY recommended to all anemic subjects to consume (if available) with moderate frequency the "diaphragm" (which contains excellent amounts of iron) and, to the anemic ones who do not suffer from severe dyslipidemia, to frequently consume also the liver.
