Friday 21 August 2009

Flesh For Hearts


By Fabian Odum
There is every need to watch the heart; it is the livewire of life and the blood pump station. The type of meat you eat determines the amount of care you give your heart – white or red.
Consuming tons of flesh is just appropriate for a nation that is behind in the recommended daily protein intake. However, there are cities and towns where more meat is eaten than others; the same goes for individuals.
In an age when people are becoming conscious of their diets and the impact of saturated fats on the arteries and overall cardiac health, there has been a shift from eating more red meat to eating white variety.
Nutritionists have shown that red meat with its attendant higher fat is not as healthy as white meat. Chicken, turkey, rabbit and fish are sources of white meat. The component myoglobin is a storehouse of iron atoms, which reacts with oxygen to provide a whole lot of energy to the muscular structures as well as provide energy to the animal for its activities. Chickens and turkeys as also rabbits, do not require so much of energy as such and are able to do with short bursts of energy from the stored glycogen in the muscles.
Other bigger animals that come under ‘red meat’ need more energy and support and thus have more of inbuilt myoglobin. The difference in the proportion of myoglobin is what sets the two meats apart.
With chicken, care should be taken to skin the animal as this part contains a heavy amount of fat; this is not nutritionally healthy. Deep-frying the meat will cause you to return to what you were trying to eliminate; the meat will pick up.
Saturated fat taken into the body do clog the arteries on the long run, impeding blood flow and raising blood pressure consequently.

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