Nutrition

Piedmontese cattle yield beef with less fat and cholesterol than skinless chicken breast

By: Brett Martin; Photograph: Plamen Petkov
[ Updated: Oct 17, 2008 - 6:37:06 PM ]

When we think of eating a steak, we imagine it thick, juicy, and marbled with rich, glistening (and here's the tragedy), artery-clogging fat. That's why the very concept of Piedmontese beef sounds so miraculous. It comes from a type of steer, bred for centuries in Italy and recently imported to the United States, that yields steaks and burgers containing less fat and cholesterol than even skinless chicken breast.

Piedmontese cattle yield steaks and burgers with less fat and cholesterol than even skinless chicken breast. Here's how a 3.5-ounce serving of Piedmontese strip steak stacks up against the same cut of USDA Prime and the same amount of chicken, according to an independent lab:







And Piedmontese beef is also rich in conjugated linolenic acid (CLA), a heart-healthy fatty acid that preliminary studies suggest may burn belly fat and reduce your risk of cancers of the colon, lung, and prostate.

But how does the steak taste? Grilled medium-rare, our Piedmontese porterhouse was excellent, not dry as one might expect from a leaner cut. You won't give up much for this heart-healthy miracle meat, except for some green: Piedmontese cattle graze twice as long as traditional steers do before reaching slaughter weight, and they are hormone- and antibiotic-free, so the meat costs double what you'd pay for regular beef at the supermarket. A Piedmontese porterhouse will set you back $27 a pound. But that's a lot cheaper than, say, angioplasty. To order, visit fairwaypacking.com.