The health benefits of eating meat are much than you ever expected. Meat, which in other words can be called beef, is an essential food ready-made for human consumption. It forms part of a healthy balanced diet which is necessary for overall growth of the bones, and other parts of the human body system.
A healthy balanced diet can include protein from meat, as well as from fish and eggs or non-animal sources such as beans and pulses. Meats such as chicken, pork, lamb and beef are all rich in protein. Red meat provides us with iron, zinc and B vitamins. Meat is one of the main sources of vitamin B12 in the diet.
The Health Benefits of Eating Meat
These days it’s much different, and opinion is split between whether beef is healthful or harms our health. Whatever our opinion of meat might be, here are the health benefits of eating meat, and we mean the very different kinds of it.
Helps Prevent Iron Deficiency Anemia
We touched on mineral deficiencies in the last point, but iron deficiency anemia deserves a mention of its own. Sadly, iron deficiency anemia is a growing epidemic around the world. In a developed country such as the United States, nutrient deficiencies shouldn’t be a cause of death, yet anemia kills thousands every year. To be exact, the latest release of statistics showed that Anemia hospitalized 146,000 Americans in one year. 5,219 of these people died.
Globally it’s even worse, and according to the World Health Organization, 1.62 billion people suffer from iron deficiency anemia. One of the best health benefits of beef meat is that it contains a substantial amount of heme iron.
Large Source of L-Carnitine Provision
L-carnitine is an amino acid that occurs naturally in meat products. Among other functions, L-carnitine plays a part in fat metabolism. As part of this, L-Carnitine does the job of transporting fats into our mitochondria for burning. It’s important to clarify that our body can synthesize sufficient amounts of L-carnitine for general needs; this makes it a non-essential amino acid.
Heart Health
A meta-analysis of randomized trials suggests that L-carnitine improves patient outcomes. Specifically, it exerts an effect on hypertension, oxidative stress, nitric oxide, and inflammation.
A further systematic review found that L-carnitine is associated with a 27% reduction in all-cause mortality in heart failure patients.
Diabetes
A systematic review shows that higher L-carnitine intake in type 2 diabetes patients improves fasting glucose levels and the overall cholesterol profile.
READ ALSO: Dreams About Eating Raw Meat
Weight Loss
According to a systematic review and meta-analysis of nine randomized controlled trials, subjects using L-carnitine supplementation lost “significantly more weight” than the control group. It’s worth noting that while there are many L-carnitine supplements around, the absorption rate is poor in comparison to beef.
It is Master Antioxidant
Meat is commonly known as the ‘master antioxidant,’ glutathione has a score of research linking it. It helps protect every cell in our body from cellular damage, which can lead to many chronic diseases. On the other hand, a deficiency in glutathione contributes to oxidative stress and inflammation. As a result, keeping glutathione levels high is important for our overall health. Some of the benefits of glutathione are:
- Anti-aging benefits
- Increasing longevity
- Preventing illness
- Reducing the risk of chronic disease
- Strengthening the immune system
Rich in Minerals
If you’re looking to increase your intake of various minerals, then beef is one of the best options to consider. First of all, beef is relatively nutrient-dense in minerals. Here we can see the mineral content of 80% lean beef. As shown in the table, beef provides more than half of the day’s recommended amount of selenium and zinc. Many people have deficiency issues with some of these minerals. So, the nutritional value of beef can help fight prevalent global deficiencies in iron, magnesium, and zinc
