How to Cook a Healthy and Tender Beef Stew for Kids

Where's the beef?  If you've been following my blog, you probably have noticed that I haven't featured a lot of beef recipes.  Don't misunderstand.  I love beef.  However, some studies indicate that a higher consumption of red meat is associated with a higher risk of heart disease, cancer, and even death.  It isn't clear why red meat consumption is associated with higher mortality, but one study found that the association was moderately attenuated when adjusted for saturated fat and cholesterol.

Based on such studies, I prefer to limit the quantity of red meat that my kids eat and substitute red meat with other sources of protein such as fish, poultry, and plant based protein.  When I do serve my kids red meat, I prefer to select lean cuts of beef such as eye round steak.

You might think that lean beef is inevitably dry.  However, you can serve up deliciously tender and moist lean beef by cooking it the right way.  Stewing your meat in a liquid medium and cooking it low and slow by using a slow cooker, breaks down the protein and tenderizes the meat.  My kids were especially fond of the soft consistency of the beef stew featured in the following video:

References

Pan A. et al.  Red Meat Consumption and Mortality.  Arch Intern Med.  2012;172(7):555-563.

Pollan, Michael.  Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation.  New York: Penguin Press.  2013.