The American Meat Institute (AMI) and American Meat Science Association (AMSA) have unveiled the latest video in their Meat MythCrusher series. The video takes on the argument that simply cutting meat from the diet will make it healthier.

Anna Dilger, Ph.D., assistant professor at the University of Illinois, discusses the variety of nutrition benefits of meat and poultry products and their role in an overall diet.

“Eliminating meat from your diet and not making any other changes really isn’t a recipe for a healthy diet,” Dr. Dilger says. “Meat provides several essential nutrients to your diet that are pretty hard to make up with lots of different vegetable or fruit sources.”

Dr. Dilger notes that protein is a necessary part of the diet and meat and poultry are considered complete proteins, meaning they provide all the essential amino acids needed for health. People would have to eat a wide variety of plant protein sources over the course of a day or several days to get all the amino acids available from meat in one meal. Meat and poultry are also uniquely rich sources of iron, zinc, and vitamin B₁₂ as well as selenium, choline, vitamin B₆, thiamine, niacin, and riboflavin. Vitamins like iron and zinc are more easily absorbed from meat than they are from vegetable sources.

While many people believe Americans eat too much meat, the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans report shows that the protein group is the only food group consumed in the proper amount. “The recommendation is that we consume between five and seven ounces from the protein group, and the average American eats about six ounces, so they are right on where they are supposed to be,” Dr. Dilger says.

The video also discusses the benefits of protein for young children as well as for weight loss.

The Meat MythCrusher video series is now in its fourth year and seeks to bust some of the most common myths surrounding meat and poultry production, processing, safety and nutrition. It includes more than 25 videos which have been viewed more than 50,000 times. Other video topics include myths surrounding “Superbugs” in meat, Meatless Monday, hormone use in animals, ammonia in ground beef, grass-fed beef and more.

All of the videos and more are available at http://www.meatmythcrushers.com/.

Source: AMI