A guide to making meat part of a healthy, balanced diet. Meat is a good example of how information about food and health can get confusing. There are advertisements on television saying how important meat is for health, but there are also stories in the media saying that eating meat can be unhealthy. The facts are that meat is good as long as it's lean and eaten in moderation, along with a wide range of other healthy foods.
Meat contains nutrients including protein, iron, zinc and B vitamins which are important to health.
But although some lean meats are very low in fat, others contain a lot of animal fat and this contributes to heart disease, overweight and other health problems. The healthiest way to eat meat is to choose the leanest cuts and remove all visible fat. Although leaner meat is more expensive, you only need a little - about 100g is enough for one serving. But with some other meats fat is less easy to see. This includes some cheaper types of minced meat - this is why it's better to buy smaller amounts of more expensive, but leaner mince, or to ask your butcher to mince a piece of lean meat for you.