Consuming too much cholesterol and the wrong types of fats raises your risk for heart disease. That's why health professionals advise reducing your dietary cholesterol, cutting saturated fat and virtually eliminating trans fatty acids. Choosing organic, grass-fed beef over conventional grain-fed beef may help you cut your cholesterol.
Dietary Cholesterol
Grass-fed beef has lower levels of dietary cholesterol than conventional grain-fed beef. That's because the grass-fed beef is lower in overall fat, particularly when it comes to intramuscular fat, commonly called marbling. Data on how much lower that cholesterol is remains limited as of 2011; however, a study published in 2008 in the journal "Meat Science" reported that grass-fed beef has 40.3 grams of cholesterol per 100 g of tissue versus 45.8 g of cholesterol per 100 g of grain-feed beef tissue. That 100 g roughly translates to a 3.5-ounce serving size.
Saturated Fat
If you want to cut cholesterol, you also need to reduce your intake of saturated fats. For every 1-percent increase in dietary calories from saturated fats, cholesterol levels rise by 1.3 to 1.7 milligrams per deciliter, study results published in "Nutrition Journal" in 2010 found. Not all saturated fats are actually the same when it comes to affecting your cholesterol levels. Myristic and lauric acid pose a greater risk of raising total cholesterol than palmitic acid, which still raises cholesterol, lead study author Cynthia A. Daley and her team explain. Stearic acid has a neutral effect on total cholesterol. Whether fed grain or grass, cows don't consume different overall amounts of saturated fatty acid, but grass-fed beef consumes and passes along the food chain to you a higher proportion of the neutral stearic fatty acids and less cholesterol-elevating palmitic and myristic saturated fatty acids, Daley writes. Grass-fed beef, when it hits your dinner plate, also has a lower overall fat content than grain-fed beef.
Conjugated Linoleic Acid
The conjugated linoleic acid --- CLA for short --- in grass-fed beef may help lower your levels of LDL --- or "bad" --- cholesterol, according to a scientific review on nutrition in grass-fed beef published in 2002 by California State University-Chico. CLA, a polyunsaturated fatty acid, also reduces your accumulation of body fat, Amber Abbott and her team found. Though conventional grain-fed beef also contains CLA, grass-fed animals produce two to three times more CLA than the conventionally fed animals. To gain cholesterol-lowering and fat-deposit-fighting benefits from CLA, you need to take in 5 g daily. A 3.5-oz. serving of grass-fed beef has about 25 percent of this daily requirement, at 1.23 g of CLA. Conventional beef has 0.48 g of CLA in a 3.5-oz. serving, or 9.6 percent of the amount needed to produce a positive effect.
Considerations
Read labels carefully when you buy your beef. You can find beef that is certified organic as well as grain-fed. This beef qualifies for the organic label as long as it is raised and processed within organic standards. However, such organic beef may not have the same benefits as organic beef that is grass-fed, notes Bonnie Taub-Dix, author of "Read It Before You Eat It." You can also find beef that is grass-fed but not organic. That means the pastures it eats from may be maintained with pesticides and other chemicals, and the beef may have antibiotics and hormones in it.
References
- California State University-Chico: Enhanced nutrient content of Grass Fed Beef: Justification for Health Benefit Label Claim; A. Abbott. et al.; 2002
- "New York Times"; Switching to Grass-Fed Beef; Tara Parker-Pope; March 11, 2010
- "Nutrition Journal"; A review of fatty acid profiles and antioxidant content in grass-fed and grain-fed beef; Cynthia A. Daley, et al.; 2010
- "Meat Science"; Beef lipids in relation to animal breed and nutrition in Argentina; P.T. Garcia, et al.; 2007
- "Read it Before You Eat It"; Bonnie Taub-Dix; 2010
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