Beef Mince (Regular Fat)
Food · Protein · Food, Typed Supps
The fat percentage on the label is raw. What you eat depends on how you cook it.
Stage by stage
- Cooked, not raw (The pan): The label describes raw mince; cooking concentrates protein and renders fat out.
- The drainage step (Stomach): Whether the rendered fat stays in the dish is the biggest single variable.
- Haem iron (Circulation): 2.55 mg per 100 g, absorbed several times better than plant iron.
- Zinc and B12 (Systemic): 5.97 mg and 3.6 mcg per 100 g, both above a day’s requirement in a serve.
Timing
Nothing to time. The one action that matters is draining the pan after browning, before anything else goes in.
Time to effect
- Weeks: Zinc and B12 status respond to consistent intake.
- Per serve: A 150 g cooked serve supplies around 9 mg zinc and 5.4 mcg B12.
Allergens
None of the fourteen major allergens. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.
Eating patterns
Fits: Low-FODMAP, Gluten-free. Depends on the product: Halal, Kosher, Keto.
Satiety
133 on the satiety index, where white bread is 100 — moderate. Modelled from the Holt et al. (1995) measurements.
Environmental footprint
99.5 kg CO2e and 1451 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Beef (beef herd)" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.
Cost band
Pricey — roughly £14 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.
Key nutrients
Nutrition per 100g
- Calories: 265
- Protein: 29.5g
- Fat: 16.4g
- of which saturated: 7.5g
- Sodium: 82mg
Food vs. supplement
Zinc supplements exist partly because plant zinc is bound up by phytate. Meat has no phytate, which is why the zinc in mince is absorbed several times better than the same milligrams from beans.
Kitchen tip
Brown first, then tip the pan and pour the fat off before anything else goes in. It changes the meal more than the mince grade did.
Common myth
“I buy lean mince, so the fat is handled.” In reality: Lean describes the raw product, and what you actually eat depends on a step the label knows nothing about. Browning renders a good share of the fat into the pan, and pouring it off removes it from the meal — a bigger change than moving between mince grades. Doing both is better than either.
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