Reducing fat, sugar and salt

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mkeatonmom4
mkeatonmom4 Posts: 36 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I have talked with a dietician and read articles that suggest you rinse all canned vegetables and fruits. Most of the salt and sugar by 75%. I also read that 90% lean beef is best. Them same article suggests that if you can only afford the 80% you can brown it and then rinse it to reduce the fat content. Has anyone tried to do this with their 80% ground beef?

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  • harper16
    harper16 Posts: 2,564 Member
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    I always rinse my ground hamburger. Not sure if it helps that much with fat content. It's just what I was raised seeing my mom do, so it's a cooking habit. No opinion on the canned vegetables I don't eat them, and what canned fruit I eat is always drained.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,897 Member
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    mkeatonmom4 wrote: »
    I have talked with a dietician and read articles that suggest you rinse all canned vegetables and fruits. Most of the salt and sugar by 75%. I also read that 90% lean beef is best. Them same article suggests that if you can only afford the 80% you can brown it and then rinse it to reduce the fat content. Has anyone tried to do this with their 80% ground beef?

    I rinsed my ground beef back in the 90s when Fat was The Devil.

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    Sure 80% has more calories, but also more flavor. I just eat less of it.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,953 Member
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    I rarely buy canned anything...but there is a lot of salt and sugar in canned stuff.

    I do buy 80% ground beef. I don't rinse it. I also never eat more than three ounces per week of any kind of beef, so it's probably a moot point for me.
  • nanastaci2020
    nanastaci2020 Posts: 1,072 Member
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    For meals that call for browned & crumbled ground beef: I drain and rinse. I refer to a Livestrong article that gives information on how much fat is removed from draining and then how much more from rinsing. Paying extra $ for 93/7 is pointless IMO. This is for meals like chili, taco meat and similar.

    https://www.livestrong.com/article/523419-nutrition-information-for-drained-ground-beef/

    About the only other meal that I use ground meat for would be meatloaf and for that I buy 85/15 ground turkey. Of course I'm not draining/rinsing that. I like the way it turns out, and for me the ground turkey is often a better price per pound than ground beef. Sometimes when it is a really good sale, I also use it for the chili, taco type meals. But I won't buy turkey leaner than 85/15 for those. I have tried the 93/7 and I don't think it 'crumbles' quite right.
  • foreverhealthy3
    foreverhealthy3 Posts: 107 Member
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    93% lean ground beef is getting expensive with coivid 19 influence this year. I see nothing wrong with sauteeing beef, rinse of fat whit hot tap water. I also do it with kidney beans for a casserole; and canned vegetables
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,520 Member
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    Go with FROZEN Vegetables. Much easier to prepare too. As for salt, sugar and fats, the more whole food you can eat, the easier it is to try to calculate those.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
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    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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  • gigius72
    gigius72 Posts: 183 Member
    edited February 2021
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    Many times I don't have time to cook lunch so I buy at work a can of beans, a bag of mixed salad and cans of other veggies to mix in. I wash everything before use.
    I throw away the cooking water of my fresh beans and I am the one cooking them, why should I use the water of the can?
    For beef? Cook it 5 minutes in a pan and throw away the fat it expelled if you want it with less fat.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,127 Member
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    mkeatonmom4 wrote: »
    I have talked with a dietician and read articles that suggest you rinse all canned vegetables and fruits. Most of the salt and sugar by 75%. I also read that 90% lean beef is best. Them same article suggests that if you can only afford the 80% you can brown it and then rinse it to reduce the fat content. Has anyone tried to do this with their 80% ground beef?

    If you want to use canned veg/fruit, maybe choose ones that don't have large amounts (or any) sugar and salt in the first place? They exist, in many cases. Label reading can be fun, and IMO more informative than a lot of stuff we can read out in the blogosphere.

    Personally, I don't think any one food is necessarily bad or good, it depends on context. Good overall nutrition is important. On a day where you haven't had enough fats, and your sat fats so far are reasonable, the 80% beef might be "better", in that context, for example. Sugary fruit might be ideal for a lunch midway through a very long recreational bike ride.

    IMO, trying to get good well-rounded overall nutrition from the totality of eating, on average over time, is a more useful way to spend time and energy than trying to make absolutist rules about rinsing canned stuff, or buying the leanest possible ground beef. (Black beans have less dramatically sat fat than 90% lean beef. Are they "better" than beef? If you put the canned veggies in a stew with a bunch of unsalted ingredients to the point that the salt/sodium per serving is reasonable, do you still need to rinse them to make it "better"? That stuff is a rabbit hole, really.)

    This was good advice:
    lemurcat2 wrote: »
    Rather than rinse things, I prefer just to buy lower fat cuts of meat, to the extent one is getting lots of fat from meat, and avoided canned or getting low sodium canned. Best way to reduce fat, sugar, and salt, if you think you need to, is to look at your diary to understand where it's coming from and then make reductions in portion size or substitute another food, if you prefer.

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