Healthy Food Choices: Meat

Meat is a good and complete source of protein loaded with healthy amino acids. Learn some tips for selecting healthier meat in this video.

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Meat is a good source of protein
Contains healthy amino acids
Try chicken, turkey or fish

About this Author

Alice Merritt is currently the Campus Dietitian at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. She has a masters degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in public health with a concentration on nutrition. Alice has worked as a registered dietician for four years, and believes that helping people reach their nutritional goals will lead to a long and healthy life.

ALICE MERRITT: Now I'm going to talk to you about meat. Meat is a very good source of protein and it's actually a complete protein, which means it contains all the amino acids that we need for building blocks for our muscles and cells, and other bodily functions. Healthy choices for meat are things like chicken, turkey, fish. You also want to look for lean, ground beefs, 90% to 95% lean is a better choice. If you're looking for steaks, beef steaks, looking for sirloin, a round are going to be better choices. You really want to limit your highly processed meats, which are things like hotdogs, baloney. They don't really have a lot of nutrition value and they have a high sodium content. Contrary to what most Americans think, we don't really need a whole lot of meat in our diet for protein sources. Actually, high meat consumption is actually been associated with increased risk for heart disease. So important things to remember about meat is you really want to look at the portion size. You only need about 3 ounces, which is a serving or about the size of the palm of your hand, or a deck of cards. Another important thing to remember about meat is choose your leaner sources more often. Chicken, turkey, fish are better sources. Limit your amount of red meats to about 2 to 3 times a week. When you're having meats, have that be a little bit of a side dish and incorporate a lot of other foods in there, vegetables, fruits, carbohydrates to get a variety in your meals. All of these things are healthy choices when selecting meats.

Healthy Food Choices: Meat Video

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