Are Ribs More Protein or More Fat?

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darreneatschicken
darreneatschicken Posts: 669 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I ate a half rack of baby back ribs from one of my favourite restaurants tonight and I was wondering: are ribs more protein or more fat?

According to another restaurant in my area, a half rack of baby back ribs is 610 calories, 33 fat, and 52 protein (more protein than fat).

But if you go onto the USDA database, 100 grams of "beef, rib, back ribs, bone-in, separable lean and fat, trimmed to 0" fat, choice, cooked, braised" is 372 calories, 31 fat, and 23 protein (more fat than protein).

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  • neugebauer52
    neugebauer52 Posts: 1,120 Member
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    On my body they are definitely more fat. :)
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,398 Member
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    asianambition wrote: »
    I ate a half rack of baby back ribs from one of my favourite restaurants tonight and I was wondering: are ribs more protein or more fat?

    According to another restaurant in my area, a half rack of baby back ribs is 610 calories, 33 fat, and 52 protein (more protein than fat).

    But if you go onto the USDA database, 100 grams of "beef, rib, back ribs, bone-in, separable lean and fat, trimmed to 0" fat, choice, cooked, braised" is 372 calories, 31 fat, and 23 protein (more fat than protein).

    Did they just put 100 calories worth of marinade/sauce on it? Seems slightly low to be honest.
  • darreneatschicken
    darreneatschicken Posts: 669 Member
    edited March 2020
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    yirara wrote: »
    asianambition wrote: »
    I ate a half rack of baby back ribs from one of my favourite restaurants tonight and I was wondering: are ribs more protein or more fat?

    According to another restaurant in my area, a half rack of baby back ribs is 610 calories, 33 fat, and 52 protein (more protein than fat).

    But if you go onto the USDA database, 100 grams of "beef, rib, back ribs, bone-in, separable lean and fat, trimmed to 0" fat, choice, cooked, braised" is 372 calories, 31 fat, and 23 protein (more fat than protein).

    Did they just put 100 calories worth of marinade/sauce on it? Seems slightly low to be honest.

    I'm not sure... The restaurant that I was referring to is called Swiss Chalet.

    There's another restaurant in my area called White Spot, and their half rack of ribs is 999 calories, 81 fat, and 65 protein (more fat than protein). So there's quite a lot of variation between those two restaurants.

    I might just go with the Swiss Chalet entry though, since the ribs that I ate were pretty lean (not much meat) and I'm bulking anyways ;)
  • darreneatschicken
    darreneatschicken Posts: 669 Member
    edited March 2020
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    Or I could probably also go with the USDA entry that I was referring to above, but instead of "choice," use "select," as the protein and fat are almost the same in that entry (100 grams = 341 calories, 27 fat, 26 protein).
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
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    You are not eating the bones so they don't matter. Both of your sources are giving you the same answer. Without sauce, pork ribs of any variety are about 2.5 to 3 calories per gram of what you eat. A half a slab here would be about 8oz of meat which would get you to about 600 or so calories. Plus, the sauce which cannot be ignored. My favorite BBQ place has a fairly low calories sauce. Not all do. Molasses and butter are sometimes major components and both are calorie dense.
  • darreneatschicken
    darreneatschicken Posts: 669 Member
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    How many grams of sauce do you think they put on a rack of ribs? My ribs today weighed 252 grams (just the meat). I'm trying to determine how much of that 252 grams was sauce.
  • aimeetu
    aimeetu Posts: 139 Member
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    Babyback ribs aren't beef they're pork which is the international symbol for fat :-) :)
  • Unicorn_Bacon
    Unicorn_Bacon Posts: 491 Member
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    aimeetu wrote: »
    Babyback ribs aren't beef they're pork which is the international symbol for fat :-) :)

    I was also thinking about that.

    "Why did they look up beef ribs in the usda databank when they were eating pork."

    If swiss chalet has a nutritional info list, just go with that, you're never going to be 100% exact when it comes to take out. Trying to figure out down to the gram how much of that weight was sauce is just making the whole process over complicated.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    asianambition wrote: »
    I ate a half rack of baby back ribs from one of my favourite restaurants tonight and I was wondering: are ribs more protein or more fat?

    According to another restaurant in my area, a half rack of baby back ribs is 610 calories, 33 fat, and 52 protein (more protein than fat).

    But if you go onto the USDA database, 100 grams of "beef, rib, back ribs, bone-in, separable lean and fat, trimmed to 0" fat, choice, cooked, braised" is 372 calories, 31 fat, and 23 protein (more fat than protein).

    If you're eating a half rack of babyback ribs, why are you comparing that to a USDA entry for beef ribs? Also, a half rack of babyback ribs is going to be more than 100 grams of meat...100 grams is around 3.5 ounces.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,962 Member
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    KrissCanDoThis wrote: »
    aimeetu wrote: »
    Babyback ribs aren't beef they're pork which is the international symbol for fat :-) :)

    I was also thinking about that.

    "Why did they look up beef ribs in the usda databank when they were eating pork."

    If swiss chalet has a nutritional info list, just go with that, you're never going to be 100% exact when it comes to take out. Trying to figure out down to the gram how much of that weight was sauce is just making the whole process over complicated.

    Waving at Kriss...! :kissing_heart:
  • darreneatschicken
    darreneatschicken Posts: 669 Member
    edited April 2020
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    Oh my god. You guys are right. I don't know what was going through my head. I just searched "cooked baby back ribs" in the USDA database, and it didn't come up with any pork entries, so I automatically thought that ribs were beef. Lol I feel so stupid now.

    There's an entry called: Pork, fresh, loin, country-style ribs, separable lean and fat, cooked, braised.

    Should I use that entry and then try to estimate how many grams of bbq sauce they used, or just use the Swiss Chalet entry?

    Restaurants only offer takeout and delivery now, so it's very easy to weigh the food.
  • Buff_Man
    Buff_Man Posts: 622 Member
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    Until you know all the ingredients and the pre-cooked weight it's going to be tough to accurately estimate the cals. If you're going to eat meat from outside then chicken or fish are your best bet as they're leaner
  • darreneatschicken
    darreneatschicken Posts: 669 Member
    edited April 2020
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    I'm just going to use the Swiss Chalet entry. I took a look, and country-style ribs are different from baby-back ribs. USDA doesn't have an entry for pork baby-back ribs :/
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    asianambition wrote: »
    Oh my god. You guys are right. I don't know what was going through my head. I just searched "cooked baby back ribs" in the USDA database, and it didn't come up with any pork entries, so I automatically thought that ribs were beef. Lol I feel so stupid now.

    There's an entry called: Pork, fresh, loin, country-style ribs, separable lean and fat, cooked, braised.

    Should I use that entry and then try to estimate how many grams of bbq sauce they used, or just use the Swiss Chalet entry?

    Restaurants only offer takeout and delivery now, so it's very easy to weigh the food.

    country style ribs are St. Louis Ribs and not the same thing as baby back at all...they're going to contain far more meat protein as well as fat. Just use the entry for BB ribs you found from a comp restaurant. None of this is an exact science. Don't overthink *kitten*...
  • Unicorn_Bacon
    Unicorn_Bacon Posts: 491 Member
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    cmriverside wrote: »
    KrissCanDoThis wrote: »
    aimeetu wrote: »
    Babyback ribs aren't beef they're pork which is the international symbol for fat :-) :)

    I was also thinking about that.

    "Why did they look up beef ribs in the usda databank when they were eating pork."

    If swiss chalet has a nutritional info list, just go with that, you're never going to be 100% exact when it comes to take out. Trying to figure out down to the gram how much of that weight was sauce is just making the whole process over complicated.

    Waving at Kriss...! :kissing_heart:

    Hello darling! I missed you 🥰
  • swirlybee
    swirlybee Posts: 497 Member
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    [quote="cwolfman13;c-44889299"]country style ribs are St. Louis Ribs and not the same thing as baby back at all...they're going to contain far more meat protein as well as fat. [/quote]
    Country style ribs are not the same as St. Louis ribs (as least not in my neck of the woods). St. Louis ribs are spareribs that are trimmed a lot more (see the pic below).

    classifying-pork-ribs-graphic.jpg


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