Secret 7: Prepare your meat right

For a change of pace, I am going to try to keep this entry short.

I consider secret 7 a 'stuffer' secret. What do I mean by this? In Sally Beare's original 2003 U.K. edition with Piatkus, 'the live-longer diet', she only listed 15 secrets. The book I am trying to live one week at a time is her 2006 U.S. edition with Da Capo Press. My guess is that her US publisher suggested that the book would have more appeal if the 15 secrets could be expanded to 50 secrets and '50 secrets' be incorporated in the title. Expanding 15 into 50 secrets requires some ingenuity and creativity and not each of the new secrets is focused and entirely convincing. Thus the term 'stuffer' secret. So let's have a closer look at 'stuffer' secret 7:

Just like 'stuffer' secret 1, secret 7 consists of a hodge-podge of different ideas:

i. Saturated fat causes cancer, asthma, PMS and many degenerative diseases

I would argue that it's the quality of the saturated fat, rather than saturated fat per se that is the culprit.

ii. Your average meat at the supermarket is meat from confined, feedlot animals rather than the better-quality grass-fed meat from free-roaming animals

I agree. And don't always trust the manager of the supermarket to be knowledgeable about the life of the animal prior to landing on the supermarket cooler shelf

iii. "Reduce fat by stewing and boiling and skimming off fat from the surface of soup"

My gut feeling tells me that when I make chicken soup from scratch for any family member suffering from flu, one reason they regain their health relatively quickly lies in the fat floating on the surface of the soup.....maybe one day we will discover some beneficial nutrient in that fat?

iv. Choose chicken over beef and lamb

I consider lamb just as good as chicken because a lot of the chicken in the U.S. is overbreed, overfed, never gets to see natural light nor forages outdoors. If you want visual examples of chicken that are so fat they topple over and cannot get back on their own two feet, watch Food Inc. This is your average chicken sold in your local supermarket.

Lamb, despite being 'red' meat tends to be free-roaming and grass-fed since it is not produced in huge quantities like chicken or beef (this is just a hunch on my part and needs further research). Also, lamb has a reputation for enhancing fertility and stabilizing moods. Warning:  this too is based on hearsay and would require some supporting scientific evidence.

v. "Fiber helps keep intestines free and clear of toxins and excess fats"

Fiber probably helps remove some undesirables from the intestines but I would not go as far as to presume "free and clear"

vi. "Hot dogs and other cured meats are treated with nitrites and nitrates."

Fortunately in the U.S. ingredients tend to be listed on the food package. Also, hot dogs sans nitrites/nitrates are readily available. Our favorite hot dogs are 'all natural uncured buffalo hot dogs' by the Buffalo Guys. In Denver you can buy them at Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers. The dog is made of buffalo meat (American bison), water, spices (red pepper, black pepper, coriander, nutmeg, allspice, turbinado sugar, garlic, onion powder), salt and organic beet powder.   One dog consists of 1 g of saturated fat, 160 mg of salt, 0 g of sugar and 7 g of protein. Why would you want to eat dogs that consist of fillers, nitrates, nitrites or MSG when the Buffalo Guys make a much healthier alternative?

vii. Non-organic vegetables are treated with nitrate-containing fertilizers

We try to buy organic vegetables and fruit especially those kinds that are more prone to concentrated pesticide uptake. Still, fruit and vegetable with pesticides are healthier than processed food. Also, pesticides tend to be water-soluble so washing vegetables and fruit before consumption will at least reduce the surface pesticides. For slow-growing vegetables such as tubers i.e. carrots you are probably better off choosing organic. For other produce at least try to go local. Since that produce tends to travel less distances, it contains a higher percentage of nutrients (these degrade with shelf life) and require less pesticides as they do not have to keep fresh for long distances (or so I try to convince myself).

viii. "Cooking meat at high heat such as frying or BBQing creates v. dangerous carcinogenic heterocyclic aromatic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons."

So much for the popular summer activity in the U.S. that peaks with 4th of July festivities! Another thought: when Stone Age people cooked their mammoth prime cuts over a hand-built fire, were they aware that they were simultaneously poisoning themselves with HHAs and PAHs?

viii. "Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower aid the liver in converting these toxins into less toxic substances. So do green tea, onions, garlic or a salad."

Mother was right when she urged you to eat your vegetables! I generally use a lot of onions and/or garlic when cooking meat

ix. "Better sources of fat are oily fish, nuts, seeds and their cold-pressed oils, and olive oil"

If you live far from the coast and fresh fish is not readily available, try a daily teaspoon of cod liver oil 

To keep you titillated, stuffer secret 7 also functions as a sneak preview for other secrets (such as 14 and 16).

So much for keeping this blog entry short!

Take-home lesson: eat less meat; choose lean over fatty cuts; boil, stew or poach rather than fry or BBQ your meat; favor free-range, grass-fed over feed-lot, grain-fed animals.