Last night, I went out
on a man-date with a friend to celebrate his recent promotion and eat some
big-ass, extra rare steaks.
Firstly, let me just
say that I'm in full favor of a weekly man-date.
As we’ve gotten older,
the drive to go out to bars on weekends has kind of died down. Instead, I find
myself at more tame dinners with my boys during the week, and because we all
have such busy schedules, we end up pairing off more and more often.
For some reason, this
seems to draw some looks from other people at the restaurant.
Can’t two young,
exceptionally well-dressed, exceptionally good looking guys with meticulously
styled hair go out for a nice dinner without everyone assuming they’re getting
naked together? Just because a guy dresses in the latest fashions, wears a lot
of purple, and has an impressive shoe collection, does that automatically
make him a homosexual? I submit that it does not.
Anyway, as I am wont
to do, I ordered the largest steak on the menu, cooked as rare as
possible.
“Must be nice to be
able to eat that without worrying about getting fat," my buddy said.
Sigh. This argument
again.
He wasn't trying to be
an ass; he just honestly believed that red meat was bad for your diet - a
pretty common misconception.
So let me draw the
line in the sand and say definitively: red meat is one of the world's
healthiest sources of protein -- hell, one of the world’s healthiest
foods. Here's why:
1. Arachidonic Acid
Yes, turkey and
chicken have much less fat and, consequently, fewer calories than red meat, but
a lot of the newer dietary research has shown that white meat pales in
comparison (oh you better believe that pun was intended).
But not only does the
higher fat content slow the rate of digestion (keeping you fuller for longer),
but there are slightly less well-known benefits of red meat – and I’m not
talking about the satisfaction of tearing zombie-style into an extra rare
steak.
Red meat is rich with
an Essential Fatty Acid (EFA) known as arachidonic acid. This particular EFA is
a building block for dienolic prostaglandins, a class of hormones
with profound physiological effects: specifically, an increase protein turnover
and synthesis.
Of particular interest
to weight lifters, studies have shown prostaglandin concentrations to increase
following resistance training; researchers believe that the eccentric component
is the most important stimulus to the muscles, as the stretch appears to free
arachidonic acid from muscle cells for synthesis of prostaglandins.
In short, higher
levels of prostaglandins will allow you to maintain and possibly build more
muscle while dieting – which is why a steak can be one of the most potent
anabolic weapons in your arsenal.
2. Stearic Acid
The main saturate
found in beef in particular is stearic acid—the consumption of
which has been shown to decrease plasma and liver cholesterol by reducing
intestinal cholesterol absorption.
That’s right, steak
can be good for your cholesterol levels.
On top of that,
stearic acid may protect against type 2 diabetes, and it helps to prevent
arterial clotting and the formation of fatty deposits within the arteries to
fight off heart disease.
3. Testosterone
For one thing, less
than half the fat in red meat is saturated fat. But most importantly, not all
fat is bad – in fact, saturated fat falls squarely in the “good” column.
Saturated fat is
easily the most unfairly vilified nutrient of all time.
The reasons are
complex, but the problem with saturated fat is mostly the fault of a dude
called Ancel Keys, who devised an extraordinarily malformed study in the 1950s
that saw a correlation in saturated fat intake and heart disease.
The globe-spanning
study was very flawed, cherrypicking seven countries and ignoring those with
moderate to high saturated fat intake and a low incidence of heart disease,
like Germany and Norway, as well as smaller communities like the Kenyan Masai
and the Tokelau in Polynesia. The misinformation snowballed for decades,
culminating in the god-awful food pyramid of the 1990s. You know, the one that
prescribed up to 11 daily servings of rice and pasta and basically as little
saturated fat as possible.
Happily, more recent
studies are showing that saturated fat almost certainly doesn’t cause heart
disease, including a 2010 evaluation of 21 studies and nearly 350,000 people.
Plus, there’s evidence that the stuff encourages the liver to dump its
fat cells, helping it to function more effectively.
But the icing on the
steak cake is that eating saturated fat, especially when combined with regular
weight lifting, creates a perfect storm of manliness and prompts the body to
produce more of everybody’s favorite muscle-building, fat-burning elixir
of youth, testosterone. That’s right, you always knew how macho steak was—and
now the science backs it up.
I love red
meat with my belly and my heart and my intestines and anything else it
might cause damage to do.
Even if you told me
that you could 100% GUARANTEE that eating red meat was going to take 10 years
off my life, I wouldn’t stop.
Seriously.
If you said I had to
live till the ripe old age of 105, in perfect health, and die blissfully in my
sleep, but I could never eat red meat again, I’d pass. That sounds truly
miserable. I don’t want to live another 70 years without eating steak. It would
make me all kinds of sad. Good thing that doesn't have to happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment