About Nine years ago, my husband and I stopped eating red meat and pork completely.   Today we eat a diet of primarily chicken along with turkey and fish as our meat source.  Most people would agree that it makes sense to eliminate the fatty meats from our diet.  The reasons for our decision may seem a little extreme and odd but I should explain.

Both my husband and I had elevated cholesterol levels, so cutting out red meat was an easy solution that would help both of us in the long run. The biggest reason for the decision was a trip my husband took to the slaughter house/processing plant.  His tour at the plant convinced him and me that we didn’t care to eat red meat any longer.

Making the transition was difficult at first, especially since I grew up on a farm and eating hamburger, roast beef and steak was a way of life not to mention cured meats like tangy summer sausage and ham.  These meats seemed to be at the center of every table no matter where we went. It appeared at every restaurant and at every family gathering.  Telling family and friends about our new “way of life” did not go over very well.  Most of them felt that this was just a “phase” and that it would pass.  As time went on, we became more familiar with these  healthy meat options and learned a great deal about preparing delicious meals by just basically substituting ground beef or pork  (in most cases) with ground turkey or chicken. 

You would be surprised how many recipes taste just as good or better with very lean ground chicken or turkey.  We tend to use a lot more spices now when preparing our meals but everyone seems to enjoy our recipes, even our family and friends who once thought it was a phase that would “pass.”

We try to be sure that the smallest portion of our meal is meat and the largest portions are fruits and vegetables.  My family grew up having most of our plate filled with meat and the rest with potatoes and a carrot stick.  We knew things had to change.

 I read about it everyday, your meat portion should be no larger than the palm of your hand.  Since we’ve made the switch to chicken, turkey and fish; we’ve also increased the variety of fruits and vegetables that we eat and try very hard to incorporate several options at every meal. Many meals for our family are even “meatless.”

A few of my favorite recipes include: 

• ground chicken or turkey burgers
• manicotti with ricotta, spinach and ground chicken
• ground chicken chili
• chicken tacos. 

These are all recipes that I have just adapted from my recipe books and have made them taste great through trial and error. You can make all of the above recipes with either ground chicken or turkey. We used to cook with ground turkey all the time.  Then one day I found fresh ground chicken at my local grocery store and we  tested the product.  We liked it so much that we now usually prefer the chicken over the turkey.  It has a little more fat in it but a lot more taste. Some of the ground turkey is so lean (98-99%) that it tends to get too dry and rubbery in a lot of recipes.  You may find frozen ground chicken or turkey in your freezer isle in plastic tubes. These usually have a lot of fat in them, sometimes more than ground beef, so I wouldn’t recommend purchasing this type as it contains brown and white meat along with too much fat. I buy the ground chicken that has about 12 grams of fat per 4 oz. of  raw chicken. This seems like quite a bit, but compare this to about 30 grams of fat for the regular ground beef.

Here is just one recipe that our family really enjoys (except for our daughter-she is now a vegetarian- and a subject for another article).

I have not mentioned fish. This is one of the meats that we do incorporate into our diet.  We generally only eat fresh fish.  My husband grew up fishing with his Father on almost a daily basis.  Unfortunately, he doesn’t care for frozen or even fresh (or not so fresh) store bought fish.  We eat more fish in the summertime and this tends to be Lake Trout or Walleye.  I usually bake the fish and add some spices like dill and lemon pepper. The recipes don’t have to be fancy and the fish doesn’t need to be covered in sauce to taste great.  We also like to grill our fish too with a little lemon/pepper.