Week 4 Prep: Animal protein II: red meat
A hands-on exercise comparing two ground-beef blends against lamb and goat, to see what a stated fat percentage actually means in grams.
15 March 2027
Choosing a fat percentage for ground beef is a preparation decision with a measurable nutritional consequence, made at the point of purchase rather than at the pan — the same reckoning this week’s lecture applies to whole cuts, applied here to the blends a recipe actually names by number.
Exercise#
Select the two ground-beef entries below in turn — 85% lean and 93% lean — at the same quantity, and compare their fat and calorie figures. Then check lamb leg and goat the same way: goat’s low fat content is easy to underestimate against the other three from appearance alone.
Macro calculator — Red meat
Choose an ingredient and a quantity in grams. Fat, protein and calories are computed from USDA FoodData Central figures given per 100 g of the raw ingredient.
- Fat
- 15.0 g
- Protein
- 18.6 g
- Calories
- 215 kcal
Per 100 g figures: Beef, ground, 85% lean meat / 15% fat, raw — USDA, Agricultural Research Service, FoodData Central, FDC ID 171796.
Rank all four by fat content. Goat’s smaller muscle groups and lower external fat, discussed in the lecture, should place it last; if it does not, check the quantity entered before assuming the figure is wrong.
The spec
What you bring to the session. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.
- you can compute the fat, protein and calorie content of a stated quantity of at least one red-meat item using this week's calculator
- you can compare 85%-lean and 93%-lean ground beef at the same quantity and state the difference in fat content
- you can name which of this week's four items is leanest and connect that to the anatomy the lecture described