Lipid extraction from ground beef via normal cooking procedures

[paulinkansas]

Summary: This experiment is to try and determine the amount of fat removed from ground beef through cooking.

Procedure: A 4 ounce (112 gram) serving of 85/15 ground beef has 17 grams of fat and 21 grams of protein. Subtracting the mass of the fat and protein from the total mass leaves 74 grams, which we assume is water. The 4 ounces of ground beef will be boiled in water until cooked. This will also melt a portion of the fat and it will be above the water. The meat, water and fat will be refridgerated until the fat is fully congealed. The fat will be removed and weighed on a scale that goes down to 1/100 of a gram. The meat will be removed from the water, then placed on a foil covered tray and placed in a toaster over to remove any moisture. The dry hamburger will be weighed. This will determine how much fat can be removed from the hamburger through normal cooking methods.

Feedback: This is where you come in. Tell me anything else I should or should not be doing with this experiment.

[cmacken]

"Beef boiled in water"

"Normal cooking methods"

Pick one

[paulinkansas]

"Beef boiled in water"

"Normal cooking methods"

Pick one

It's what my wife does when she cooks a big pot ground beef for chili. There is a 1" layer of fat sitting on top of the water after it is refridgerated. The fat is removed, the beef goes into the chili mix.

[EliKoehn]

Thanks again for doing this!

I normally brown it on a stove top until there is no visible pink inside the separated pieces. I assume this would be comparable enough to boiled for calorie counting purposes but am not 100% sure.

[Heisman2]

This study has been actually done; if you ground it up and rinse/blot out all the fat you can convert 70% ground beef to 90+%.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1430722/

[paulinkansas]

108.5 grams (~4.0 oz.) of 85/15 hamburger ready for water and boiling. Boiling time was about 7 minutes. I placed it in an ice bath until the fat was congealing and starting to turn white. Then I placed it in the fridge overnight. I removed probably 98% of the congealed fat and weighed it. 17.5 grams. The weight of the foil and the weight of any water on the fat was probably offset by the smaller globules of fat that I couldn't remove from the cold water solution. 17.5 gram yield is consistent with the 17.0 grams per serving based on the label.

Next step is to desiccate the meat and weigh it.



meat1.jpg


meat2.jpg


meat3.jpg

[paulinkansas]

I spread the water saturated burger on an improvised foil crucible and baked it at 225 degrees for 60 minutes. It weighed about 50 grams. Did another 30 minutes at 225 degrees and it came down to 30 grams.

Taste: It's slightly crunchy, with a little bit of moisture in the larger pieces. It does taste pretty bland. I did not add any seasoning. This would probably go good with Greek yogurt, or mixed into an omelette. It's virtually fat free. If someone was going to prepare something like this, I would do at least 2 pounds at a time. Not just a 4 ounce experiment.

Conclusion: Boiling hamburger then lowering the temp to fridge temperature allows the fat to congeal at the top for removal.

Epilogue: I had a few bites and gave the rest to my dog.

[EliKoehn]

^^ Appreciate you going to the trouble to do that. I wonder if skillet cooking and rinsing would do the same?

I made spaghetti last night, and didn't realize that the meat I'd bought was actually 96/4. There were 10 total grams of fat in the sauce and I ate the whole 1.2 pounds of meat, along with 800 calories of spaghetti. So this was like 5 bowls of spaghetti for 1900 calories; lean protein and carbs! Fuel for the brutal squats today...

If I could buy the much cheaper 85/15 and simply rinse off 10% of that, I certainly would. Might just boil it anyway, though.

[JustinP72]

Pan frying 85/15 removes ~5% fat. The attachment (notably rows 17-28) may be helpful in your endeavor.