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Beef Does a Body Good?

By Karen Deutsch
Beef Does a Body Good?

Photography by Nat Rea

Unable to polish off a sixteen-pound steak, Homer Simpson yells, “What’s happening to me? There’s still food, and I don’t want to eat it! I’ve become everything I’ve ever hated!” Ah, the American diet. So how much beef is too much beef? Check it out. We’ve adjusted the government’s three-ounce serving size. (Sissies.)

9-ounce filet mignon
540 calories, 26 grams fat, 240 milligrams cholesterol, 72 grams protein

12-ounce sirloin
680 calories, 25 grams fat, 300 milligrams cholesterol, 104 grams protein

40-ounce porterhouse   
2,330 calories, 96 grams fat, 998 milligrams cholesterol, 333 grams protein   

Downside: Government agencies advise against consuming more than 200 milligrams of cholesterol a day.
You’ve ruined your diet in one meal.

Upside: Steak is heavy on iron. A 9-ounce filet provides 42 percent of your daily iron needs. (You’d have to eat nine cups of raw spinach to match it.)

This article appears in the February 2008 issue of Rhode Island Monthly.

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