Dark Meat vs White Meat: What's the Difference?

Good post. I am having the hardest time convincing this girl that my 4% extra lean ground beef patty is not worse than her ground turkey patty (not ground turkey breast, mind you-- the cheaper 15% fat stuff) because she has white meat good red bad so fully engrained. Yech.

I personally think that the "dangers" of saturated fat are blown out of proportion. The additives and preservatives added to already overly-processed food (not to mention HFCS, copious amounts of soybean oil, and trans fats) are much higher on my list of concerns. Would I live solely on cheese and drumsticks? Of course not. But dark meat chicken has more nutrients, is juicier AND tastes better (to me), so when I'm eating straight chicken, I'll choose the dark meat. White meat works better for chicken salads (of which I eat a lot). It's all about balance.

I hate ground turkey. Won't eat it. Blah. Much prefer ground beef, preferably sirloin.

I've never liked dark meat. Even as a kid, I wanted the breast. I still only really eat breast and wing. The only time I can eat dark meat is if the sauce overpowers the taste of the meat, like Bourbon sauce or a strong Teriyaki. Interestingly, my mom and dad and elder sis and brother are dark meat eaters. But my middle sis and I have a sensitivity to the flavor of dark meat. We gag. Actually gag to a plain bit of dark poultry. I have no idea why that is, cause the example we got from home was that dark was BETTER...moister. Maybe it is all the extra nutrients somehow giving it a flavor that we're sensitive to? I also sometimes gag at steak, and definitely often gag at turkey, especially reheated turkey and chicken.

My hubby, who is a supertaster, can't abide dark meat either. So, we just buy chicken breats here. Not for the diet purposes. Just for taste preferences.

The Princess

I think dark chicken got a bad rep when we were children. I could eat a drumstick but the thigh was a difficult piece to eat.
I think the ease of eating and appearance had more to do with it.

It's good to know dark meat contains all those nutrients, but I eat it because it just tastes better.

It is hard to believe how much dark meat fat there is compared to light meat. When always eating turkey white meat is the healthiest choice by far. Eating leaner and less fat content meats and proteins will aid in your decreasing of calories more than most people think. Choosing light meat is always the smart way to go.

I don't eat meat now, but when I was a kid, I LOOOOVED dark meat. As I got older, however, the strong taste started to get to me, and I'd gag when biting into something like a chicken thigh. I had to switched to white meat for reasons of taste even though I'd always loved dark meat.

I love the darker meat poultry but my husband does not. So I cook a whole chicken and he gets the breast meat and I eat the succulent dark meats. I am also more overweight than he is. :(

I am sorry, but turkey can be as bad as a fatty steak or worse. According to the Department of Agriculture, a (Beef, ground, 90% lean meat / 10% fat, raw) compared to (Poultry food products, ground turkey, raw) are almost identical in calories, beef being a bit higher, but turkey has more cholesterol & sodium.

As a matter of fact, there is even leaner (95%/5%) ground beef, which is definitely healthier.

Beef also beats turkey when it comes to essential amino acids and vitamins.

nutritiondata.com is a simple place to compare the two.

top weight loss site said:
It is hard to believe how much dark meat fat there is compared to light meat. When always eating turkey white meat is the healthiest choice by far. Eating leaner and less fat content meats and proteins will aid in your decreasing of calories more than most people think. Choosing light meat is always the smart way to go.[...]

Great article. I love it when people say I'm on a diet and they avoid eating the dark meat or lean beef. Sometimes I wonder where they get this stuff.

Why the gratuitous slam on organic milk at the end?

By the way, folks, dietary fat is good for you. Have you read Good Calories, Bad Calories yet?

I eat either skinless breasts or thighs, depending on what's on sale. They aren't that different in calorie content, but I do think the thighs taste a little better. It's the skin that'll do you in on poultry. Just take the skin off and most poultry meat is pretty identical. As for beef, I rarely eat it, but when I do, I like mine VERY lean and I don't eat a lot of it.

And THANK YOU for backing me up on my ground turkey debate! My husband INSISTS that ground turkey is "healthier" than ground beef because it's turkey. But it's 15% fat, whereas the ground sirloin I buy is something like 7% fat or less.

weasel! said:
Why the gratuitous slam on organic milk at the end?[...]

It is actually a slam on the organic milk farm industry (a la Vander Eyk, Aurora Organic Dairy), and it is an inside joke for ... well, me on the organic industry.

Don't ever forget - it is an industry.

Good post here. Choosing dark meat is better than white meat. Dark meat do always taste better besides the nutritional content.

I still think white tastes better anyhow, heh.
I would also take a bowl of "cereal twigs" over a wood-chipped (??) steak. Only I don't like cow's milk, organic or otherwise.

Confusion still abounds in me over the "cereal twigs and organic milk" comment, however.
Organic milk is an industry, yes.

So is meat.