Healthier / Cheaper Ground Beef in a Few Easy Steps

Many students embrace vegetarianism whilst at university. For the rest of you, here’s a recipe that’s sure to please. The best part of it is it’s abstraction (can you guess what program of study I’m in?) – you can use this recipe to enhance the quality or reduce the cost of your ground beef no matter what meal you are aiming to prepare.

How? Put simply, most beef that we buy is loaded with bad kinds of fat (on average, 24% fat, according to Kansas State University). Thus, people are left with two options to optimize their beef: optimize for cost at the expense of nutition by buying fat-laden beef, or optimizing for nutrition at the expense of cost by buying leaner beef with a lower fat content.

In this meta-recipe, we’ll show you a third option; by investing a little of your time, you can make your beef more nutritious and/or less costly by extracting the fat from the beef yourself. Here’s how:

Key facts:

• Estimated Time:  15 minutes. 
  
• Estimated Cost: 3-8$, depending on quantity of beef
  
• Number of meals: 3-6, depending on what you like to eat it with
• Storage: Can be frozen until exam time, when needed most
  
• Health benefits: Beef that’s lower in fat, and in calories!

Ingredients:
Required:

• 1-2 lbs. ground beef

If desired:

• Onions
• Seasoning

Cookware:
Required:

• Skillet / Frying Pan
• Plastic or wooden slitted spoon or spatula (i.e., has holes in the middle).
• 5 sheets Paper towel
• Colander / Sifter/ Strainer
• Large (2-4 cup) measuring cup. 
  

Optional:

• PAM

Preparation:

1. Boil 2-4 cups of water in the measuring cup using your trusty microwave. 
   Optional: Use PAM on your skillet / frying pan prior to beginning for easier cooking / post-cooking cleaning.
   
   
2. Put ground beef into skillet on medium heat.  If necessary, use a wooden spoon to separate the ground beef into ¼ inch cubes. Cook on medium heat for 5-10 minutes, or until meat is no longer pink (160 F).  Turn and stir beef so that it browns evenly.  At 5, 8 and 10 minutes, drain liquid fat from pan into a disposable container (an empty yogourt container is ideal).  
   
   
3. Using your spatula, transfer the cooked beef onto several sheets of paper towel.  Pull paper towel together so that it forms a ball, then squeeze meat (careful, it’s hot).  This will help extract the fat.  If your hands feel particularly greasy while doing this, repeat this procedure with a second set of paper towels. 
   
   
4. Transfer meat to colander.  Pour previously boiled water onto meat to remove even more fat!
   Allow water to drain from meat for 3 minutes.
   
   
5. Enjoy meat as is, or move on to your favorite  chili, taco, sloppy joe, pasta, lasagna, or other recipe! 

Variants:
Want to try a different flavor of meat?  Cook the meat with some diced onions or other spices.  The meat will soak them up and hardly any flavor is lost when you wash off the fat at the end.

Recommended sides:
The world is your oyster.  You can enjoy this meat in any of your favorite ground-beef meals! 

Health Facts:

According to Iowa State University [PDF], the procedure outlined above can yield up to a 66% reduction in the overall fat in your ground beef.  This means that typical ground beef, as reported by http://www.calorie-count.com/calories/item/23502.html.

Calories

• 200 (300 if you didn’t follow our guide)
• Calories from Fat: 50
  

Total Fat

• 5 g  (16g if you didn’t follow our instructions)
  

Cholesterol

• 89mg (30% daily value)
  

Sodium

• 95mg (4% daily value)

Total Carbohydrates

• 0.0g

Protein

• 26.1g

Iron: 17%

For added health benefits and a little more cash, you can also use this procedure on lean ground beef.  Studies have shown that even though the total fat you can extract is less, this optimized lean ground beef is even healthier than regular ground beef which has been subject to this procedure. 

Storage:
The cooked meat can be stored for a month or two in your freezer.  Prepare those meals during those early weeks of the semester, and save time during mid-term season, when you usually wouldn’t have time for a meal that has been optimized for nutrition, time, and price.

UniversityAdvice.com Bottom Line:

Pros: Reduced Fat!  Reduced Calories!

Cons:  The fat you extract contains a portion of the vitamins and minerals in the beef.  Thus, you do take a little hit with regards to these elements.  Some studies have shown that this is particularly true for Iron and other water soluble minerals.  However, as we’ve discussed in some of our other articles (such as Do It Yourself Oatmeal), many people can get the bulk of their daily recommended dose of these elements from other fortified food products, like cereal.  Thus, although you might not want to do eat this enhanced ground beef every single day, it can certainly play a part in a cheap, fast, and healthy university diet. 

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