Is your waistband feeling snug after months of hunkering down during the winter lockdown? Rather than moving the button on your jeans, you could always make a few adjustments to your diet instead. Here at Lakings, we offer a fantastic choice of lean meat cuts, perfect for kick-starting your drive to eat more healthily this summer.
Why eat lean meat?
All meats are a natural source of protein, vitamins – including B12 – and minerals such as zinc, iron and phosphorous but only some are classed as ‘lean’ thanks to their lower fat content. When combined with a good mix of vegetables, starchy foods, dairy products and pulses and lentils, meat helps to provide our bodies with a range of nutrients to keep us healthy.
So, what counts as lean meat?
Skinless chicken breasts and turkey steaks or mince are great lean options and can be used in many dishes, as can cuts of trimmed pork. Certain cuts of red meat such as beef fillet or lean rump steak and trimmed lamb rump are other healthy options as trimming off visible fat can significantly reduce the fat levels found in these meats.
Herb Fed Chicken
A family favourite, and one with a unique story, the Herb Fed free-range whole chickens we stock here at Lakings are reared on a farm owned by chartered surveyor-turned-farmer Edward Wilkinson.
One of very few things to come from outside our county, these birds are traditionally farmed, hand-fed and kept in small flocks, free to roam their Yorkshire pasture foraging for food. They are also fed on a unique diet that includes more than 10 varieties of fresh herbs, alongside their natural cereal-based feed which is free from additives and growth promoters.
This natural approach means an end-product with a greater depth of flavour and unique taste that is hard to beat. Available from both the Lakings shop or online, why not treat the family to a roast dinner and then make a healthy herb fed chicken bone broth from the carcass? You can even add noodles to the broth and, voila, you have chicken ramen.
Lakings Recommends: Beef
Lakings beef is sourced locally from John Needham’s farm at Gayton-Le-Wold – located a little over four miles outside of Louth. Rough grazing, in a traditional environment, John only uses Lincoln Red heifers, bred with a continental bull – which Lakings know results in the finest cuts.
For a quick, mid-week meal, use Lakings ready-sliced beef strips to create a healthy mid-week stir fry. Alternatively, rustle up a delicious open sandwich using lean rump steak and griddled slices of granary bread topped with onion chutney. In this recipe, the steaks are seasoned and pan-fried, then arranged on the bread and topped with fresh pea shoot leaves. Simple, delicious.
Lakings Recommends: Pork
Lakings’ pork is produced in Lincolnshire on an innovative Red Tractor farm, where welfare standards are rigorously upheld to produce meat that is superior in both flavour and texture. Flexible to use in recipes, cuts such as fillet and loin contain less than 3% fat and less than 1.5% saturated fat. For a simple lunchtime meal, marinade pork in curry powder for 30 minutes, then cook on a griddle until the juices run clear (this may only take a few minutes). Serve in a soft flour wrap with a homemade chutney relish or mango chutney, diced fresh mango, baby spinach leaves and natural yoghurt.
All of these lean cuts of meat also work well on the barbecue – think marinated, diced chicken threaded on skewers with halloumi cheese and cherry tomatoes washed down with an ice-cold glass of beer. Ah, the taste of the summer… it is not so far away, is it? And, with that in mind, we will be bringing you more barbecuing inspiration in our next blog post.
