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How meat and poultry fit in your healthy diet

Preparing meat and poultry

  • Trim the fat. Cut off any visible, solid fat from meat and poultry. This includes the skin on poultry. When roasting a whole chicken or turkey, leave the skin on during cooking, but remove it and the fat underneath before eating. Also, remove any remaining visible fat from pork and beef before eating.
  • Use marinades. Marinades tenderize meat and keep it moist while cooking. They also can enhance flavor that may be lost when you trim fat. Choose low-fat marinades, such as mixtures of herbs or spices with wine, soy sauce or lemon juice.
  • Go low. Low-fat cooking methods include grilling, broiling, roasting, sauteing and baking. Cooking melts away much of the fat in meat and poultry. So when you cook meat or poultry in your oven, be sure to put it on a rack on a baking pan so that the fat drips away.
  • Skim ahead. Make soups, stews and other dishes in which you boil the meat in liquid a day or two in advance and then refrigerate it. As the dish chills, the fat hardens on the top and you can easily skim it off.
  • Drain the fat. After cooking ground meat, drain the fat from the pan and rinse the meat with hot water. Blot the meat with a paper towel to remove the water.
  • Watch serving sizes. Reducing your portion size reduces your fat and cholesterol intake. Don't exceed 3 ounces (85 grams) of meat. That's about the size of a deck of cards. Three ounces also equals half of a boneless, skinless chicken breast, or one skinless chicken leg with thigh or two thin slices of lean roast beef.
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References
  1. Duyff RL. The American Dietetic Association's Complete Food and Nutrition Guide. 3rd ed. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons; 2006:323.
  2. Meat, poultry and fish: AHA recommendation. American Heart Association. http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4627. Accessed March 19, 2009.
  3. Gerber N, et al. The influence of cooking and fat trimming on the actual nutrient intake from meat. Meat Science. 2009;81:148.
  4. Look for lean cuts of meat. American Dietetic Association. http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada/hs.xsl/home_19518_ENU_HTML.htm. Accessed March 19, 2009.
  5. Zeratsky KA (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., March 22, 2009.

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June 6, 2009

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