A beef eye of round steak is a boneless cut of meat. Usually fairly tough, the steak is made more tender through cooking -- the meat is suitable for use in stews and is sometimes used to make cube steak. This cut of beef provides vitamins and minerals that improve your health, but red meat can contain too much fat for some diets.
Calories and Macronutrients
A 3-oz. serving of boneless beef eye of round steak contains 180 calories. For those on a 2,000-calorie diet, the quantity in this portion of red meat accounts for 9 percent of the daily allowable amount. This serving contains no carbohydrates, but it is a good source of protein, a macronutrient of which you require 50 to 175 g per day -- this amount is 10 to 35 percent of the calories you eat. You take in 24.2 g of protein in each portion of eye of round steak.
Fat
Boneless beef eye of round steak adds 8.5 g of fat to your diet. As a rule, you should keep your fat consumption to under 78 g per day if you stick to a 2,000-calorie meal plan -- maximum intake stands at 35 percent of your daily calories. The ideal amount of saturated fat in your diet is much lower: 22 g per day at most. You take in 3.2 g of saturated fat in a serving of eye of round steak, although the amount of total fat and saturated fat may vary depending on how well trimmed of fat your steak is. Note that grass-fed beef provides you with more good types of fat than traditionally fed cows; a study published in the January 2011 issue of "The British Journal of Nutrition" indicates that grass-fed beef increases polyunsaturated fat intake.
Selenium
One serving of boneless beef eye of round steak provides 25.2 mcg of selenium for your meal plan. Physicians recommend consuming 55 mcg of this mineral each day to regulate the function of your thyroid and immune system. The selenium in this meat may contribute to a healthy prostate in men -- research featured in the August 2011 "Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy" correlates the consumption of selenium with a possible preventative effect against prostate infections caused by bacteria.
Niacin
Eat a serving of boneless beef eye of round steak, and you take in 4.3 mg of niacin, or vitamin B-3. The vitamin B-3 available in this steak is important for your nervous system and hormone production; your meal plan requires 14 to 16 mg per day. Keep niacin intake to within recommended limits as eating too much may increase production of various prostaglandins, or hormones, according to a study in the July 2011 "Nutrition and Cancer"; despite this, the prostaglandins do not trigger tumors in mouse models. Human studies are needed to confirm this finding.
References
- Food.com: Beef Round Cuts
- "The British Journal of Nutrition"; Red Meat From Animals Offered a Grass-Fed Diet...; A.J. McAfee, et al.; January 2011
- MayoClinic.com; Healthy Diet: End the Guesswork With These Nutrition Guidelines; February 2011
- "Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy"; Preventive Effect of Selenium on Chronic Bacterial Prostatitis; H.W. Kim, et al.; August 2011
- University of Maryland Medical Center; Selenium; May 2009
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