Meat Dishes



RED MEAT - We are encouraged to eat more fruits and vegetables, but that doesn't mean we have to give up meat. Red meat is a concentrated source of essential nutrients like vitamins B-12, protein, iron and zinc and most of the lean cuts have basically the same calories as fish.

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Meat Facts:
  • Meat in general has a more stimulating effect upon our body system and is more strengthening than vegetable food.
  • The object in cooking meat is to kill any germs which may exist and to soften and loosen the tissue, which renders it more easily digested and make it more palatable.
  • The value of meat as food is due chiefly to the nitrogenous compound it contains, the most valuable being the albuminoids.
  • Albuminous¹ foods can be eaten longer alone without exciting loathing than can fats, sugars or starches.
  • Meat is composed of muscular tissue, connective tissue or gristle, fatty tissue, blood-vessels, nerves, bone, etc.
  • The digestibility of meat is influenced by the age of the animal killed and the feeding. Meat from old animals is usually tough. Veal and lamb are more tender than beef and mutton.
  • The muscles that are used most are toughest, because they are developed to a greater extent and contain more connective tissue.
  • Muscles that are constantly used contain more extractives, hence tough cuts of meat have more flavor than tender cuts.
  • This is not always appreciated, however, since all the flavor of tough meat is rarely extracted because it is so hard to chew.
  • Although meat contains some materials which are better slightly cooked, tough cuts of meat contain so much connective tissue that long cooking is necessary to make them palatable.
  • Meat extracts or meat extractives are meat bases, or rather meat which has been dissolved by water, such as soup stock and beef tea.
  • The gelatinoid of meat is easily changed into gelatin by the action of hot water. Gelatin when combined with the albuminoids and extractives has considerable nutritive value.
  • Dry heat cooking method usually applied to tender cuts tends to develop flavor in meat.
¹ Albuminous means food containing albumin. Albumin is simple water-soluble protein found in many animal tissues and liquids.

Cooking Glossary


Did You Know?
A mixed diet is the only rational one for man.

Animal food requires a considerable quantity of oxygen for its complete combustion.

Meat is not necessary to life. Nitrogenous food we must have, but it need not be in the form of meat. The estimate commonly given is, that meat should occupy one-fourth and vegetable food three-fourths of a mixed diet, but in many cases the meat eaten is much in excess of this allowance.

There is, however, a tendency to eat too much meat, and when its effects are not counter balanced by enough exercise, it causes gastric distress caused by a disorder of the liver or gall bladder and sometimes gout (a disease hallmarked by elevated levels of uric acid in the bloodstream that causes joint pains) and many other troubles.

The proper association of different foods always keeps healthy people in better condition; there are times, however, when it may be necessary to abstain from certain articles of diet.

A carbonaceous diet taxes the excretory organs less than animal food.

It may be well to bear in mind, that the protein compounds can do the work of the carbohydrates and fats in being consumed for fuel, but the carbohydrates and fats cannot do the work of protein in building and repairing the tissues of the body.

An exclusively vegetable diet, low in proteins and nitrogenous compounds, while it may maintain a condition of health for a time, eventually results in a loss of strength and power to resist disease. Therefore it is necessary to understand the approximate value of each class of food in arranging the daily dietary.

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