In this article, I will talk a little about one of the oldest food source in the world - meat! Meat has been eaten by mankind for centuries, but today more and more people are becoming vegetarians. Meat is still a very important food source as it mostly consist of proteins - nearly 80% of any sort of meat is pure protein. Any function in the body needs protein - people simple cannot live without it!

Almost 28% of the protein people ingest today comes from meat products. Meat is also one of the best sources of vitamin A, D and several B-vitamins as well as the minerals zinc, selenium and iron. Meat speeds up the metabolism which makes it easier to lose fat and if you eat meat, you will feel full for longer than if you eat carbohydrates. That is why meat is a very important food source in a fat loss program!

Another good argument for eating meat/protein is that it will stabilise blood sugar which means that the craving for sugar will be kept down to a minimum! Almost all the food we pull up from the ground has all the nutrition we need - but vegetables contain far less protein and some of those have not nutritional value to the body and therefore will not be absorbed. Vegetarian food sources are also missing a very important vitamin - B12 - because only meat, milk, cheese and eggs contains that vitamin!

Protein consist of twenty amino acids, and for your body to function optimally, it needs all those twenty amino acids every single day! Every single movement in your body depends on protein - from a simple eye blink to complex hormone production and water balance! The body itself can make a few amino acids but the rest has to come from the food we eat every day - these are what we call "the essential amino acids". A full protein - which mean a protein that consists of all the twenty amino acids, is a complex protein, and will be absorbed 100% by the body! Always go for the lean meat like chicken, turkey and lean steak and always cut away the fat surrounding any piece of meat, as animal fat is very bad for the body. As a matter of fact, all fat from animals is bad and all fat from almost any vegetable source is good - but that's another story and more on that issue in another article!

The bottom line is: Do not avoid meat - lean meat is very healthy - always has been and always will be - period!

Michael Russell

Your Independent guide to Food