SubscribeDark Meat vs White Meat: What's the Difference?
Misinformation, half truths, and misleading data abound both online, off-line, and sadly often from experts' mouths.
I always thought white verses dark or red meat was sort of a strange beast, and one where a few ivory-tower experts were able to confuse a nation.
The primary reason dark meat has been labeled bad - besides a large contingency of political agenda - is saturated fat content. Unfortunately, the general public was considered too dumb to understand the difference between saturated verses other fats. I cannot accept that.
Dark Meats
Dark meats simply have more myoglobin proteins, the magic stuff that ships oxygen to the muscle cells.
Dark meats must use myoglobins as they transfer oxygen more efficiently to the muscles than glycogen. Muscles used more frequently, get to be dark. This is why non-flying poultry drumsticks are dark meat, while breast meat is white.
When dark meat is cooked it turns the myoglobins to metmyoglobins, which is brown/gray. Metmyoglobins are very high in iron (albeit there is not that much in dark meat in the first place).
White Meat
White meat gets the 'juice' through glycogen. Glycogen is a polysaccharide of glucose, an animal starch. Animal starch is stored primarily in the liver and broken down into glucose when needed by the white muscle.
Nutritional Comparison
Dark meats tend to contain more zinc, riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, vitamins B6 and B12, amino acids, iron than white meat. Dark beef meat contains about 11 times more zinc than tuna, and about 3 times as much iron than raw spinach. Chicken dark meat contain vitamins A, K, B6, B12, niacin, folate, pantothenic acid, minerals as selenium, phosphorus and zinc.
Even the fats in most of the dark meats have healthy parts. They contain Omega-3, and Omega-6 fatty acids, and other ‘healthy’ fats.
It is the saturated fat content which lowers the true quality of dark meat.
USDA Choice
Understanding USDA Gradings
When selecting beef the simplest way is choosing "USDA Select" cuts. Although "USDA Standard" has even less fat, it is rare for a consumer to be able get this grade.
The USDA Prime, Choice, and Select grading is mostly about the marbling (the fat between the muscle tissue), not the nutritional value of the meat. The other qualifiers of USDA beef ratings are maturity, texture, firmness, and color. The full range of classification of beef meat is prime, choice, select, standard, commercial, utility, cutter and canner.
Pick "USDA Select" steaks and you just reduced the fat content from above 8% to down to 3 to 4% of the steak.
The percentage of fat content of beef is as follows per USDA standards:
- Kobe beef : 20%-25%
- USDA Prime : above 8%
- USDA Choice: 4%-8%
- USDA Select: 3%-4%
- USDA Standard: below 3%
To reduce the saturated fat content of chicken dark meat, simply remove the skin.
Now take a look at that bowl of morning cereal twigs with a cup of organic milk, and the fat content.
I will take my steak on a grill with some wood chips, thank you.
This controversial blurb comes from www.tincap.com, a community to get healthy, get fit, and live happy.
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.
ReplyI 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.
ReplyI 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
ReplyI 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.
ReplyI 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.
ReplyIt 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.
ReplyI 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.
ReplyI 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. :(
ReplyI 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.
ReplyGreat 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.
ReplyWhy 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?
ReplyI 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.
ReplyIt 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.
ReplyGood post here. Choosing dark meat is better than white meat. Dark meat do always taste better besides the nutritional content.
ReplyI 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.
ReplyI will go into the cereal twigs and organic milk, again despite my concern the primary point will be lost int he background noise.
We have heard horror stories on the meat industry for decades. We are aware of the serious concerns.
The organic milk industry concerns, and I think to the whole organic industry concerns, are blows to a shiny new armor.
Most people presume organic to be healthy, and expect (rightfully so) to be organic.
Cereal twig to steak, as quiche to steak, but quiches are rarely mentioned nowadays in the food/diet/health news.
Next time I will come up with a more apt corny parallel.
ReplySaturated fats are essential, healthy nutrients:
And, contrary to uneducated opinion:
This is just all from the Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat#Controversy
Basically, avoid saturated fats if you don't like to have healthy hormonal levels, or strong cell membranes. But listen to the "government" if you want to do what's best for Big Ag's bottom line (suck grains).
ReplyJust about any diet will advise white meat over dark meat. Always the skinless chicken breast over the leg. Always turkey over the steak. Can you blame people for avoiding dark meat? It's been drilled and drilled that it is more fatty, more caloric, and it will clog the arteries faster than Elmer's Glue.
I'm so sick and tired of trying to figure out what is "good" and what is "bad". If you listen to the latest "news", you'll end up not eating anything. Either it will kill you because the nutritionals are bad or because it is contaminated with e coli. Sigh...
ReplyGround beef is only bad when you add it to a box of Hamberger Helper. But dam it is good. Stay away from the processed stuff and its all good.
ReplyI'm a dark meat kinda girl; I generally find turkey and chicken breast to be on the dry side (though I roasted my Thanksgiving turkey breast-side DOWN yesterday, and it was nice and moist) and just eat what I like rather than what I "should" be eating.
ReplyYeah, I roast a chicken a week, breast-side down, and it's still too dry.
So then I drizzle the drippings on it (a combination of chicken fat and stock), to get in some more flavor and savory-chickenness.
And of course, I eat the skin too. I also craft the bones into fishhooks and sewing needles.
Just kidding on that last one.
ReplyHigh saturated fat diets work wonderfully to me. More performance in the gym, lower blood pressure, better sense of well-being, etc. Wouldn't trade it for anything. Eat the white meat if you like retinol deficiency.
Replyi just have to say i love how the community helps me understand things more. thx guys.
ReplyUh, so you're recommending we eat sub-prime beef because of its lower fat content? Anyone who knows anything about food will realise that fat marbling is an indicator of flavour and quality in beef, which is why the "Prime" grade has more. Maybe it's because I'm European but I'll always go for a small well-marbled, well-hung steak over a big slab of poorer quality meat. Most Americans simply over-consume and a better way to "get healthy, get fit and live happy" would be to learn to appreciate quality more than quantity.
ReplyWell, don't forget that most people in America are eating corn-fattened beef. Yeah, that's right - we feed our cows an unnatural diet of corn and soy, rather than allowing them the grass and hay to which they have adapted and feel best eating upon.
So maybe it's good for most Americans to avoid beef fat, and the associated omega-6 superfluousness. However, savvy folk like myself find grass-fed beef, even in the land of the stupid, and chew the fat like a good 'ole boy.
You can't beat that for real health. And good taste.
ReplyThank you so much for this post. I agree the the dangers of dark meat have been blown way out of proportion. My Chinese family never understood the American obsession with white meat! Everything in moderation, eat a little of both and get the best of both worlds. Just don't gorge yourself.
I appreciate that this article sheds light on the fact that the benefits of eating only white meat aren't clear cut black and white!
I allow myself to eat pretty much anything. I just eat smaller amounts of the high calorie foods. And if I accidentally overeat I don't beat myself up over it, I just spend a little more time at the gym and maybe eat a little less the next day :)
ReplyRegardless of what this post says, I have a very hard time believing this spin that dark meat is healthier than white meat.
Reply