When it comes to eating meat, there’s a lot of talk out there. Some folks say red meat is bad, while white meat like chicken is good. Then there’s fish, which everyone seems to agree is super healthy. But what if I told you that most of what you’ve heard about meat and your health might be completely wrong? It turns out, the real story is a lot more interesting and a bit different from what you might expect.
The Truth About Fat In Meat
Let’s clear up some common ideas about meat, especially when it comes to fat. People often think red meat is loaded with saturated fat, and that’s why it’s supposedly bad. But that’s not the whole picture.
The amount of fat in meat can change a lot depending on the cut. You can find lean beef with just a little fat, or really fatty cuts. Even with those fatty cuts, a lot of the fat cooks off. For example, if you cook ground beef, you’ll usually end up with less than 15% fat left.
Pork tends to be a bit leaner than beef on average, and chicken can vary a lot too. If you eat chicken breast without the skin, it’s pretty lean. But if you go for thighs or wings with the skin, there’s more fat. If you cook a whole chicken, you’re looking at just under 10% fat.
Fish is a whole different ballgame when it comes to fat content. Salmon, which is often recommended for its healthy fats, comes in around 13% fat. So, the total fat really depends more on the specific cut or type of fish than just whether it’s red or white meat.
Monounsaturated Fats: The Good Stuff
Now, let’s talk about the different kinds of fat. You know about monounsaturated fatty acids, right? These are the good fats you find in olive oil and avocados. They’re liquid at room temperature but get solid in the fridge. Most people think meat only has saturated fat, but guess what? Meat actually has a good amount of monounsaturated fat.
In beef, about 45% of the fat is monounsaturated. Pork is similar, chicken has a bit less at around 35%, and fish like salmon has about 40%. So, these healthy fats, often thought of as plant-based, are also found in animal products.
Saturated Fats and Cholesterol
Then there’s saturated fat. If it comes from an animal that lived a healthy life, it’s not necessarily bad. Beef has about 40% saturated fat, which is pretty close to how humans store fat. Pork has about 35%, chicken around 30%, and salmon about 20%. So, all these meats have a fair amount of saturated fat.
What about cholesterol? That’s another thing people often blame for heart problems. In 100 grams of beef, you’ll find about 80 milligrams of cholesterol. Pork and chicken have about the same. Salmon has a little less, but it’s still in the same ballpark. So, the idea that cholesterol in meat is terrible, or that some meats have way more than others, isn’t really true. You get roughly the same amount no matter what type of meat you eat.
The Polyunsaturated Puzzle: Omega-3s and Omega-6s
After monounsaturated and saturated fats, the rest of the fat in meat is mostly polyunsaturated fatty acids. These include omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids, both of which your body needs. However, in today’s world, with how we raise food and make vegetable oils, we’re getting way too much omega-6. So, while polyunsaturated fats in whole foods are generally good, we really need to focus on getting enough omega-3s and not too many omega-6s.
Let’s look at the amounts:
- Beef: Has a small amount of polyunsaturated fat, usually between 4.5% and 5.5%. It has a good balance of omega-6s and omega-3s.
- Pork: Can have anywhere from 10% to 20% polyunsaturated fat, with omega-6s being the main type.
- Chicken: Even higher, with 15% to 30% polyunsaturated fat. Again, omega-6s dominate.
- Salmon: This is where it gets interesting. Wild salmon has a lot of polyunsaturated fat, 35% to 45%, and it’s one of the few foods where omega-3s are much higher than omega-6s. Farmed salmon has even more polyunsaturated fat, but the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio isn’t as good as wild salmon.
The Omega-6 to Omega-3 Ratio
This ratio is super important. For grass-fed beef, the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is about 2:1 to 4:1, which is considered very healthy. But for beef from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO), where animals are fed grain and kept in crowded conditions, the ratio can be 10:1 to 20:1. This means the extra fat is almost all omega-6.
For pastured pork, the ratio is around 10:1. But for CAFO pork, it can be 20:1 to 30:1, even worse than CAFO beef. With pastured chicken, the ratio is 5:1 to 8:1. For CAFO chicken, it’s 15:1 to 20:1. So, just like pork, the extra polyunsaturated fat in CAFO chicken is mostly omega-6. These CAFO meats can actually have as much omega-6 as some seed oils, which is not good.
Wild salmon is different. It has more omega-3s than omega-6s, with a ratio of about 1:4 (meaning four times more omega-3). This is the kind of fat, EPA and DHA, that helps build healthy brains and membranes. Farmed salmon, however, has a much lower omega-3 content, with a ratio closer to 1:1 or 1:2. This just goes to show how much healthier animals are when they live a natural life.
TMAO: What You Need To Know
Some people worry about red meat because of something called TMAO (trimethylamine oxide). Here’s how it works: certain gut bacteria, especially if your gut isn’t balanced, make TMA (trimethylamine) from things found in animal products like choline, carnitine, and lecithin. Then, your liver naturally turns TMA into TMAO. Higher levels of TMAO have been linked to heart and kidney disease.
So, people are told to avoid red meat, eggs, fish, and dairy because they contain these components. But this is a big oversimplification. TMAO levels are usually higher in people who have insulin resistance, metabolic problems, or an imbalanced gut. It’s a correlation, not necessarily a cause. We don’t know if TMAO causes these problems, or if people with these problems just make more TMAO or don’t break it down as well.
Here’s the kicker: red meat doesn’t significantly raise TMAO in healthy people with good metabolic health and a balanced gut. And here’s something most people don’t know: fish, which is considered super healthy and good for your heart, can have 10 to 50 times more TMAO than what you get from other animal products. So, it’s more about the health of your gut and the balance of your bacteria than just avoiding certain foods.
Ranking The Meats: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
Let’s break down the different meats and fish we’ve talked about and see how they stack up.
Key Takeaways
- The “most dangerous meat” isn’t a type of meat, but rather how it’s raised and processed.
- Naturally raised meats are generally healthier.
- Processed meats with lots of additives are the worst.
The Best Meats
- Grass-Fed Beef: This is a top choice. When it’s organic, pastured, and naturally raised, it’s a very clean food. It also has conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which is good for you and helps with inflammation. The fat in grass-fed beef has a healthy balance of omega-3 and omega-6, so it doesn’t cause inflammation.
- Wild Salmon: Also tied for first place. It’s the best source of healthy omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA). While salmon has less mercury than some other fish, you probably don’t want to eat it every single day. A few times a week is good. There’s still a small concern about toxins from the ocean, but it’s generally a great choice.
Good Choices
- Pastured Chicken: If chickens are raised properly, walking outside and eating bugs and grass, it’s a clean food. The fat ratio isn’t as good as beef or salmon, with more omega-6s, but it’s still a decent choice.
- Pastured Pork: This has a slightly better omega-6 to omega-3 ratio than pastured chicken, around 10% polyunsaturated fat. However, it can be harder to know for sure how pastured pork was raised. Some cultures also avoid pork for religious or spiritual reasons.
The Worst Meats
- Farmed Salmon: While it still has some omega-3s, farmed salmon is often fed artificial dyes to make it look red, and the conditions they’re raised in are not good. They often get antibiotics, and the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is much worse than wild salmon.
- CAFO Beef: This is beef from factory farms. The conditions are terrible for the animals and the environment. The omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is very unbalanced.
- CAFO Pork: Similar to CAFO beef, this pork comes from unhealthy conditions and has a very high omega-6 content.
- CAFO Chicken: This is, in my opinion, the absolute worst. It’s mass-produced chicken from factory farms, often with a very high omega-6 content. Despite what some fast-food ads might suggest, it’s not a health food.
The Real Danger: Processed Meats
It’s clear now that the most dangerous meat isn’t about whether it’s red or white. It’s about where it comes from, what the animal ate, how it lived, and what’s been done to it after it was raised. The real problem is when meat is turned into a chemistry experiment.
Think about processed meats. These are often made from the worst kind of CAFO meat, and then they add a bunch of other stuff:
- Artificial flavors and colors
- Sugar and high-fructose corn syrup
- Preservatives and additives (hundreds of them!)
- Modified food starch
- Soy protein isolate
- Binders and fillers
Take chicken nuggets, for example. You might think you’re feeding your kids chicken, but it’s usually the worst kind of CAFO chicken, and it might be less than 50% actual chicken. The rest is chemicals, wheat in the breading, soy, and high omega-6 oils. Plus, it’s often deep-fried in more omega-6 oils. This goes for all sorts of canned foods, cheap processed deli meats, fish sticks, Vienna sausages, spam, and corned beef.
Unless you go out of your way to find good quality processed meats that use grass-fed or naturally raised animals and natural additives (like nitrites from celery powder), you’re likely getting a lot of unhealthy stuff. Organic is even better.
So, the worst meat isn’t red meat. It’s the CAFO meat that’s been turned into a chemistry experiment. If you can, choose naturally raised meats and wild-caught fish. And be very careful with processed meats and what you find in most restaurants, as they usually use mass-produced, unhealthy animal products. It’s funny how the common idea is that red meat is bad and chicken is good, when based on what we’ve discussed, it’s often the exact opposite, especially when it comes to factory-farmed chicken.