Fat Content of Beef

Overview

Two major concerns in households today are living a healthy lifestyle and saving money. Beef is a highly consumed product in the United States, and in order to make it healthier, the leaner meat should be consumed. However, the leaner cuts of meat are much more expensive than the fatter ones, so many people compromise fat content for price. As beef cooks, the fat that is in the beef drains out into the pan. Knowing this, it would be assumed that buying the fattier meat would still suffice. If the fat drains as it cooks, would it be logical to still by the more expensive meat? This experiment compared the fat content of ground beef with higher and lower ratios of lean meat to fat after they are cooked by the use of soxhlet extractor. The data collected reveals that the 90% lean beef contains the least amount of fat, the 80% lean beef contain the most amount of fat, and the 80% grass fed lies somewhere in the middle. This suggests that after the extraction, the percentage will remain proportionally the same as the label states. This data would not support the hypothesis made. The difference in percentage of the fat extracted from each of the types of beef is significant enough that the data supports the claim that the type of beef that is bought still matters regarding fat content, even after cooked.

Competition history

• ISEF 2014 Mathematics · Entry ME014

Resources

• ISEF abstract page ↗

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