Beef: Why I Include it in My Daily Diet

Why does my family include beef almost daily in our diet?

Sometime around the middle of my college years I decided that my health and my body were pretty important things to take care of. After all, I did choose a career in the health professions, and I have spent the last nine years working and caring for others and helping physicians to diagnose illness, injury, and disease. I see the effects of patients’ lifestyle choices daily. Whether the result of smoking, alcoholism, or an unhealthy diet, the effects are real and measureable. Lifestyle choices are therefore always on my mind.

So while I cannot control every aspect of my health (because genetics)—cancer, stroke, heart attack etc. strike even the seemingly healthiest individuals—I CAN do my best to eat a healthy diet and fit in movement and exercise daily, get plenty of sleep, and do things to help reduce stress.

Nutrition

As a fitness instructor, busy mom, and just over-all active individual, it is important that I fuel my body with the best nutrition possible. Good nutrition to me means eating a well-balanced and varied diet of foods in as close to their natural state as possible. A basic blueprint for each meal and each day in our household consists of lean proteins, vegetables and fruits, healthy fats from nuts and seeds and avocados, dairy, and complex carbohydrates (mostly from whole grains and starchy vegetables).

Side note: We definitely are not perfect eaters (there’s no such thing), and especially for kids, it’s helpful to look at what they eat over a week vs. daily.

For me and my family, a delicious and nutritious, high-quality source of lean protein is beef. Did you know that today’s beef is even leaner than the beef raised 30-40 years ago? And there are 29 cuts of beef that meet the USDA’s guidelines to be classified as lean (containing less than 4.5 grams or less of saturated fat, less than 10 grams of total fat and less than 95 milligrams of cholesterol per 3.5 ounce serving). This holds true whether the beef was grass-finished or grain-finished. So you can see why this makes it a versatile ingredient when planning nourishing meals to feed a family.

As someone living an active lifestyle, the nutrient-dense aspects of beef appeal to me too. Did you know that a serving of beef provides more than 10% of the daily recommended value of four essential nutrients and vitamins, and 20% of six other nutrients and vitamins? All for less than 10% of your daily calories. I know that part is important to a lot of people. That’s why beef is considered nutrient-dense—because it would take more than twice the same amount of calories to get the same amount of protein from alternative food sources.

Let me just use that one nutrient—protein—for example. Take black beans—you would need to consume 1 ½ cups, at 314 calories, to get the same amount of protein. Or even quinoa, which is a grain, would require you to eat three CUPS at 666 calories to get the same amount of protein as in one 3 ounce serving of beef (for on average 170 calories).

This only scratches the surface of the facts about beef nutrition that make it an excellent choice for almost any diet. That’s why my family and I continue to eat beef almost daily! You just can’t beat the taste or nutrition!