How much red meat should you eat at most per week?
By now, many people know that red meat may be harmful to you (not to mention the effects of factory farming on the environment), and that processed meat and cold cuts are too. For die-hard meat lovers, that knowledge may be difficult to digest, but fortunately, the selection in stores and the range of recipes are becoming increasingly varied and interesting. For many people, it is therefore fortunately not difficult to eat less meat. And suppose you still eat red meat occasionally—how much of it is too much?
Because if you eat vegetarian or vegan five days a week, but have one big juicy hamburger one day and a steak another, were those five veggie days completely pointless? It is a little more nuanced than that, but we can already tell you that, when it comes to your health, the maximum amount of meat you should eat in a week is definitely not a lot…
Flexi is sexy
If you’re not particularly enamored with a perfectly cooked steak for dinner anyway, fortunately there are plenty of plant-based dishes as alternatives. Vegan ramen, pumpkin risotto, wraps, bowls and stews, telo with peanut sambal (!); there are enough recipes to find, including on FavorFlav! But if you occasionally have an irresistible craving for red meat, here’s what the Netherlands Nutrition Centre has to say about it:
Red versus white
Red meat includes beef, pork, lamb and goat meat. White meat is chicken or other poultry. There is also a distinction between unprocessed and processed meat, and fatty and lean meat. Processed meat is all meat that has been processed before being sold and can also be white meat: minced chicken or sliced chicken cold cuts, for example. Sausages and hamburgers also fall into this category. Fatty meat contains a lot of saturated fat, such as minced meat, pork belly slices, spareribs and lamb chops. Processed and fatty meat fall outside the category that the Netherlands Nutrition Centre recommends eating at all: the well-known Wheel of Five. But they also know that not everyone follows those recommendations, so they offer guidelines on how best to handle the consumption of those kinds of products.
Final verdict
Unprocessed lean meat is included in the Wheel of Five. This category includes chicken breast, as well as chicken drumsticks and chicken thigh fillet, along with lean beef stewing cuts (fortunately, there’s no total ban on stewed meat), steak and lean pork. For a healthy lifestyle, they recommend eating no more than 500 grams of meat per week, of which a maximum of 300 grams should be red meat. Per week, that is.
Does that feel like too much or just right to you? Are you happy to cut back a little when it comes to eating red meat? To treat yourself at the weekend with, for example, slow-cooker rendang, and bake a tasty piece of fish during the week or try out a vegetarian recipe? Either way, we’ll always make sure you can find plenty of inspiration here!
Also read:
- Cooking school: how to make the perfect pan sauce
- How to prepare the tastiest, truly tender chicken breast
- Super-fast pasta sauce with just two (!!!) ingredients
Source: Netherlands Nutrition Centre
