Beef back in favour

Lean beef  could gain a place as an acceptable ingredient in a low cholesterol diet, after a study at the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Pennsylvania State University.

People using a diet centered on fruits and vegetables to lower their cholesterol may be able to introduce lean beef and get similar results, suggests a new study.

The findings, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, are similar to those of past research that found red meat may be fine in moderation.

Lean and  moderation appear to be the key words.  That’s not always easy to achieve when dining out but isn’t too difficult to do at home.

Apropos of this, the Listener’s cover story (not yet online) on the secret to weight loss discusses the importance of protein for satisfying hunger.

The protein-leverage hypothesis of Massey University nutritional ecology professor David Raubenheimer and colleagues suggests a lean beef steak for lunch might not be a bad thing. their theory is that humans have a dominant appetite for protein and when our food supply has a lot ratio of protein to fat and carbod=hydrate we tend to overeat, and this consumption of excess energy promotes obesity. . . 

Raubenheimer . . . said studies . . .  suggest that when faced with nutritionally unbalanced diets, we prioritise our protein intake. In other words we keep on eating until we’ve ingested enough protein.  . . 

Raubenheimer’s calculations suggest if the amount of protein in our food supply drops by just 1.5% and our carbohydrate and fat intake rise accordingly by 1.5% we are likely to over consumer carbohydrates and fats – eating about 14% more – to maintain our protein intake.

When we’re on holiday my farmer often has a cooked breakfast which isn’t usually low in fat but is higher in protein than the toast and fruit I usually eat. By late morning I’m usually hungry again but he can go a lot longer before wanting to eat.

Last July when we were in the  USA and Canada I decided to try having more for breakfast and ordered an omlette most days. It worked – keeping me satisfied until at least early afternoon and sometimes longer.

It wasn’t as easy to eat healthily and be satisfied in the evening. Servings of meat in most restaurants might have been lean but were  anything but moderate and the Presbyterian in me objected to paying for a lot more than I could eat.

However, a Holiday Inn in Vancouver offered a healthy option with a small portion of lean meat and very generous serving of lightly steamed and deliciously seasoned vegetables.

The waitress told me it was one of their most popular meals which makes me wonder why more restaurants and cafes don’t offer something similar.

February 22 in history

On February 22:

1495 King Charles VIII of France entered Naples to claim the city’s throne.

1632 Galileo‘s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was published.

 

1732 George Washington, First President of the United States, was born.

1744 War of the Austrian Succession: The Battle of Toulon started.

1797 The Last Invasion of Britain started near Fishguard, Wales.

1819 James Russell Lowell, American poet and essayist (, was born.

1819 By the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain sold Florida to the United States for $US5m.

 

1847 Mexican-American War: The Battle of Buena Vista – 5,000 American troops drive off 15,000 Mexicans.

1855 Pennsylvania State University was founded as the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania.

1856 The Republican Party opened its first national meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1857 Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, English founder of the Scout movement (, was born.

1862 Jefferson Davis was officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia.

1879 Frank Woolworth opened the first of many of 5 and 10-cent Woolworth stores.

1882 The Serbian kingdom was refounded.

1889 Olave Baden-Powell, English founder of the Girl Guide, was born.

1902 The Kelburn cable car opened.

1904 The United Kingdom sold  a meteorological station on the South Orkney Islands to Argentina.

 

1908  Sir John Mills, English actor, was born.

1915 Germany instituted unrestricted submarine warfare.

1918 Robert Wadlow, American tallest ever-human, was born.

Robert Wadlow compared to his father, Harold Franklin Wadlow

1922 Britain unilaterally declared the independence of Egypt.

1924 U.S. President Calvin Coolidge was the first President to deliver a radio broadcast from the White House.

1926 Kenneth Williams, English actor, was born.

1943  Members of White Rose were executed in Nazi Germany.

 Members of the White Rose, Munich 1942. From left: Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst. Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

1928 Bruce Forsyth, British entertainer, was born.

1944 American aircraft bombard the Dutch towns of Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede and Deventer by mistake, resulting in 800 dead in Nijmegen alone.

1948 Communist coup in Czechoslovakia.

1950  Julie Walters, English actress, was born.

1958 Egypt and Syria joined to form the United Arab Republic.

1959 Lee Petty won the first Daytona 500.

 

1962  Steve Irwin, Australian herpetologist, was born.

197 An  Irish Republican Army car bomb was detonated at Aldershot barracks, killing seven and injuring nineteen others.

1974 Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) summit conference started in Lahore.

1979 Independence of Saint Lucia from the United Kingdom.

1980 Miracle on Ice: the United States hockey team defeated the Soviet Union hockey team 4-3, in what is considered to be one of the greatest upsets in sports history.

 

1983 The Broadway flop Moose Murders opened and closed on the same night at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre.

 

1986 Start of the People Power Revolution in the Philippines.

 

1994 Aldrich Ames and his wife Maria del Rosario Casas Dupuy, were charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union.

1995 The Corona reconnaissance satellite program, was declassified.

 

1997 Scottish scientists announced that an adult sheep named Dolly had been successfully cloned.

 

2002 Angolan political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi was killed in a military ambush.

 

2006 At least six men staged Britain’s biggest robbery ever, stealing £53m (about $92.5 million or 78€ million) from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent.

 Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia