How to Include More Protein into Your Diet

A healthy diet helps to support good health by providing essential nutrients that our bodies need to function optimally. By investing in your diet now, you can help avoid many long-term health issues later in life.

And you don’t have to make any dramatic changes to your eating habits! By simply consuming a variety of nutrient-rich foods, you can help prevent chronic diseases, improve mental health, and enhance your quality of life.

Protein, especially from meat, supplies us with essential nutrients such as iron, zinc, and B vitamins, and is one of the primary sources of vitamin B12 in our diet (as stated in NHS recommendations).

Protein also plays a crucial role in both weight loss and muscle growth. For weight loss, a high-protein diet can help reduce hunger and increase feelings of fullness, which can lead to reduced calorie intake. Protein also boosts metabolism, as the body expends more energy digesting protein compared to fats and carbohydrates.

For muscle growth, protein provides what is required to repair and build muscle tissue after exercise. Including a good amount of protein into your diet will help support muscle recovery, enhances strength, and promotes the development of lean muscle.

Ready to change up your diet? We’ve come up with some easy ways to incorporate more protein (and meat!) into your meals.

As we said above, the NHS supports incorporating fresh meats as part of a balanced diet. However, not all meats offer the same amount nutrients, and therefore it's important to select the right ones.

We recommend consuming only the recommended amounts of red meats or processed options like bacon or ham, while focusing on lean cuts or skinless poultry to reduce your intake of fat. You can still include unprocessed red meat in small portions, roughly 70g per day, and maintain a balanced diet.

For example:

• A grilled 8oz beef steak is roughly 163g, while a 5oz is 102g
• A quarter-pound beef burger is roughly 78g
• A slice of ham is a humble 23g

Fortunately, we cater to all tastes and diets with our varied meat packs, including excellent, unprocessed red meats and tasty white meat alternatives. View our lean meat packs and chicken packs for further details.

Healthy Ways to Cook Meat

There are many ways to prepare your meats for your meals, and while most recipe guides will talk about flavours and texture, we'd like to share the beneficial effect that different methods have on pursuing the goal of cooking more healthy meat for a balanced diet. Here is a list of our favourite options.

Baking Your Meat

Baking meat without adding fats such as oils or butter is a great alternative to frying. It reduces the calorie content of the meal to support weight management and cardiovascular health overall. It also helps the meat retain its nutrients better than grilling it at high temperatures, as minerals and proteins are generally retained.

Braising Meats

Braising cooks it with a gentle heat of simmering. This choice will bring out deep, powerful flavours and works great to make tougher cuts of meat more tender. Similar to baking, the slower cooking process helps the meat retain its goodness away from a high heat.

It is a great choice for tougher lean meats such as lamb shanks and beef brisket, which don't have the unnecessary fat content that would make other meats more tender whilst being cooked. Another advantage of braising is that they are cooked in a flavoured sauce, such as a broth, water, or wine, to add even more flavour. For thinner pieces, we recommend poaching to avoid drying out the cuts.

Roasting Meat Cuts

Roasting your meats creates excellent results, particularly for recreating that carvery feeling when hosting the family Sunday roast. Picking the right meat for the centrepiece of this meal will make a significant difference between a meal high in saturated fat and a more healthy alternative. Choosing chicken or turkey has far less saturated fat than beef or lamb, so by making this swap, you can save 15.5g of fat from the meal. With any of those meals, choosing lean cuts will support a balanced diet as the roasting process helps improve positive nutrient absorption when eaten.

Using an Air Fryer to Prepare Your Meats

Air fryers are an increasingly popular cooking appliance appearing in most kitchens to provide a healthy cooking choice for fried foods, including meats. They are essentially a countertop convection oven that frys the meat with intensely hot air instead of cooking oils that are harmful to our overall health when consumed regularly.

When cooking meats in an air fryer, you should start with the machine's individual instructions but also take the time to consider the size and thickness of the meat you're cooking. As with any cooking experience, the thickness of the piece will heavily impact your cooking times as you must reach the desired internal temperature. Here are some general examples of temperature settings and cooking durations for some popular meats; remember to check your specific machine's settings for increased accuracy and better cooking results:

• Steak: 204°C (400°F) for 6-10 minutes
• Burgers: 204°C (400°F) for 8-10 minutes
• Bone-in breasts: 190°C (375°F) for 25-35 minutes
• Boneless skinless chicken breasts: 176°C (350°F) 10-20 minutes
• Boneless chicken thighs: 190°C (375°F) 10-20 minutes

As the leading online butchers in the UK, you can browse our curated collection of various red and white meat packs online and get what you need delivered to your door and ready to be included in your healthy, balanced food lifestyle.