Fatty Meat vs. Lean Meat

There is clear science behind why fatty meats are better for you than lean meats; however, fatty meats have been so demonized that people, even on a low carb high fat diet, still gravitate toward lean meats. If you want optimal health and to not feel hungry on this WOE, then you must must must get “lean meat is good and fatty meat is bad” out of you head.

Here’s the scoop:

1. Fat plays many important roles in the body: it allows vitamins and minerals into your cells, it keeps you full as it is very satiating, and most importantly, it has a very mild and delayed insulin release. So no huge spikes of insulin.
2. Fatty meats have the protective barrier of fat so it slows down insulin release and since it is satiating, you won’t eat as much protein.
3. Lean meats have no fat protective barriers. They are almost 100% protein. Protein breaks down as glucose in the body ( a process called Glucogenesis in which animal starch is turned into glycogen – what is not needed for the muscles will stay in the blood stream as glucose) just like carbs do. This causes almost as rapid an insulin release as carbs.
4. For most of us on this WOE, we are insulin resistant. This means our bodies make insulin, but our insulin receptors are resistant, do not open up to let the glucose in and therefore most of our glucose gets stored as fat.
5. If you eat lean cuts of meat, you make too much glucose, insulin cannot push through the glucose into the cells because of resistant receptors and you store the glucose as fat. This is the opposite of what we want our bodies to do on this WOE. We want to be fat burners, not store fat.

So the next time you are grocery shopping, do not fear those fatty cuts of meat. Buy fatty steaks, fatty hamburger, fatty pork, real bacon, dark meat poultry with the skin, and fatty fish. Your body will thank you!