It’s time to put red meat back on the menu!

Enough already of those horrible soy “burgers,” wiggly tofu squares and any other fake food that’s masquerading as meat.

So, if some vegetarian friend or family member has been on your back about how dangerous meat is, well, you can tell them that meat is back on the menu!

A new study out of Purdue University has found that red meat is “a nutrient-rich food.” And despite what we’ve been hearing for some time now, it does not contribute to heart disease.

That’s the good news. But there are still a handful of important things you need to know about the meat you select that will make all the difference in whether you’re choosing meat that’s truly healthy…or not.

Where’s the beef?

For a long time, red meat has been the poster child of unhealthy eating.

Eating more than tidbits of things like steaks, burgers and ribs, we’ve been repeatedly warned, was almost as bad for our health as smoking.

Until now.

When the researchers from Purdue first started to take another look at how red meat was linked to heart disease, they discovered something very important. It seems most of the findings that eating meat is bad for your heart came from studies that weren’t even designed to answer that question.

In other words, while past research efforts may have analyzed the food that people with heart disease ate, they weren’t the kind of “cause and effect” studies that could uncover if eating meat was related to their condition.

The Purdue team took another approach. It gathered hundreds of studies that looked at various types of red meat – mostly unprocessed beef and pork – and its direct effect on heart health.

And what they found was that there were no short-term cardiovascular risk factors, such as higher blood pressure or cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations associated with eating more than half a serving of red meat a day. (A full serving is considered to be 3 ounces).

But while the Purdue scientists may have done for meat what other research has done in taking eggs and butter out of the dietary broom closet, not all meat is created equal.

So before you start putting more meat dishes back on your family’s menu, here are the top three things to remember:

• Go for grass-fed beef: It has a whole bunch of heart-healthy benefits such as more omega-3 fatty acids, high amounts of conjugated linoleic acid (that has been found to lower your risk of cancer and heart disease), and excellent amounts of antioxidants.
• Grind to order: Pre-ground meat patties often contain mysterious fillers and additives. Plus that, what you get in that Styrofoam tray, if it comes from a big processing plant, can be from hundreds, if not thousands, of different animals. That can make it much more likely that some of that some of that meat is contaminated with dangerous bacteria such as E. coli. A better option is to select a cut and have the butcher grind it for you.
• Cook it thoroughly: No matter if you’re buying organic, grass-fed or conventional beef, all meat contains bacteria and needs to be cooked thoroughly and to the right temperature. And the only way to know if you’re doing that is by using a meat thermometer. Yes, even on hamburgers. According to the USDA, ground beef and pork should be cooked to a minimum of 160º F.

And despite this, and any other good news that comes out about the health benefits of meat, remember, the burgers served at your favorite fast-food place don’t count!

“Red meat may be heart OK after all” Charlotte Libov, December 20, 2016, Newsmax, newsmax.com