Tuesday, June 11, 2013

according to THIS body, the best fat is ... [drumroll...]

GRASSFED BEEF TALLOW.

Don't get me wrong, i love ALL the "good fats" -- they have personalities of their own and have particular applications which no other can usurp (in my kitchen, anyway).  Hell, i even like some bad fats!  Just compare the FLAVOR of corn versus soybean oil....

The much-vaunted coconut oil, which has the virtue of being tolerable by the bile-challenged among us, has been a wonderful addition to my culinary repertoire, though i never felt the energetic boost from it which other people report.  Virgin red palm oil is the fat i like to marinate my tenderloin steaks in, and it's even pretty.  Olive oil -- that goddess of the vegetable oil world -- is almost a sine qua non!  Avocado, sesame, goose/duck schmaltz = LOVE.

Naturally-occurring animal fat is a treat that most people in this country have forgotten.  Ya wanna know why?  I think it's because the universal 20th-century grain-fattening of meat animals made their fat NASTY.  It sits in the stomach like a rock and has an unpleasant mouth-feel.  One ends up feeling queasy instead of well-fed.

Of course we know that grassfed meats have a better fatty-acid profile.  There's a lot more omega-3 and conjugated linoleic acid, and it came from a less-stressed, healthier animal than CAFO meat.  Better for them, better for us....

We once did a side-by-side of grassfed and conventional (but very good quality) beef tenderloin steaks.  The latter were bland, and the texture was altogether different -- rather watery and spongey.  The GF steaks were denser but not less tender, richly-flavored, satisfying.  My husband repeated the experiment on our daughter and SIL, and the results were identical.

But it's grassfed GROUND BEEF which i like to eat on an almost-daily basis, and it's all about the fat.  The big difference between last week (original Atkins induction) and those weeks when i was sailing along on the Strong Medicine protocol, was the generous amount of beef and pork fat i was consuming (along with no lettuce) on the SMp.  My gut thanked me.

17 comments:

  1. I think the grass-fed early summer butter is the best fat imaginable.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello, fellow traveler. I eat grass-fed burgers almost daily. If you're ever in southern California, check out Burger Lounge. Best burgers ever.

    I love Kerrygold butter, too, and cocobutter my non-dairy chocolate is made of.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. yeah, i saw your post about your trip and the Lounge.... :-) to think of all the years we ate chicken breasts and lean fish and blotted our ground beef dry with paper towels! (i won't elaborate on "spray on" or ButterBuds either!)

      Delete
  3. Don't get me started on lean, dry, tough meat. Ninety percent lean hamburger is in edible. Literally. It gets stuck in my throat. I'd have to be starving to try to gag down another boneless, skinless chicken breast. Chicken at my house gets stewed in the pressure cooker until it's falling apart and then slathered with butter or mayonnaise.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i like chicken or turkey breast meat with lots of lovely added fat! :-) i control the omega-6 that way -- sauces made of cream or mayonnaise, or parmagiana'ed by rolling in "legal crumbs" and frying in coconut oil -- yum!

      Delete
  4. I loved Lori's comment about Kerrygold butter, it is one of the best but is always one of the more expensive makes here in the UK, I tend to wait and buy when on special offers which do come around quite frequently.

    Have to agree with you on taste of all meats if the animal hasn't been stressed the meat is always better, for which of course the price increases but it's worth it.

    All the best Jan

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. and being an animal-lover, it makes me feel better to know that most of their lives have been "as nature intended." :-)

      Delete
  5. I'd have to agree.
    Note - "grass fed" animals here are fed on swedes during the winter; and grain-feeding of dairy is an old practice in the UK where there isn't enough land for the population's dairy needs to be met from pasture. During both world wars the British were asked to eat potatoes instead of bread so that the imported (mostly US and Canadian) grain that got past the U boats could be used for milk production. I'm not sure exactly when the practice started but I think it was about 1/4 of dairy stock fed this way in WW2.
    See for example http://tiny.cc/wl0lyw

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. how very interesting about saving the grain for the dairy cattle! lots of places i guess they have to eat hay, silage and other forms of "vegetable waste" where there's no way for them to graze due to snow....

      Delete
    2. I think they concentrated on dairy on scientific advice, as better value use of their imported feed, and culled the rest of their herds - they also standardised all cheese making to one type.

      Delete
  6. I have grassfed ground beef mixed in with my spicy eggs every morning. The amalgam of high fat content plus texture is sensational.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. scrambled together? sounds like something we should try. what do you "spicify" them with?

      Delete
  7. Has no access to grassfed beef/pastured butter, but the regular kind is delicious regardless. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. absolutely! "don't let the best be the enemy of the good"....

      Delete