Now a recent study from Texas A&M University reports that brisket is healthier than all other cuts of beef, including sirloin and ribs.
“It kind of gives brisket a whole new image,” said Dr. Stephen Smith, a Texas AgriLife professor of meat science at Texas A&M.
Smith chaired a master’s thesis for graduate student Stacey Turk. Turk said to perform the comparison, she ground up 1 gram of fat from each of the eight cuts of beef.
“Of the eight different locations we compared, brisket was by far the healthiest part of the beef carcass. None of the other parts were close,” said Ms. Turk, an animal science graduate student at Texas A&M in College Station.
Turk said brisket is the healthiest cut because “statistically” it is higher in the good fat - called monounsaturated. She said comparing fat in brisket to fat in other beef cuts is like comparing olive oil to vegetable oil.
But that doesn’t mean brisket will be appearing on the salad bar next to the spinach and broccoli any time soon.
“It is still full of calories. We don’t recommend you eat it every day,” Smith said.
Sliced brisket is the No. 1 seller at Schoepf’s Old Time Pit B-B-Q in Belton. Owner Ronnie Schoepf said he was surprised by the new study.
“I never realized it was the healthiest part of the cow. We sell a lot of chopped beef sandwiches made from brisket,” Schoepf said.
Like most barbecue restaurants, Schoepf uses some trimmings in those sandwiches because it adds flavor and texture. And, according to the study, that fat is healthier than what’s on round steak, ribs, even chuck.
Eighth Street Meat Market in Temple cooks about 15 briskets all night long, every night. It serves it sliced, chopped or whole.
“I am surprised by the study because we have a lot of people that say ‘trim that fat off.’ We leave on just a little bit for the flavor,” manager John Rutherford said.
But not all brisket fat makes it to the barbecue pit. Meat packers typically trim and discard some at their packing facilities. The A&M researchers said this study provides an opportunity for the packers to use more of the beef carcass by changing the way they trim beef.
“At the stage where most of the fat gets cut off, put this into a ground product before it goes to retail,” Ms. Turk said.
Turk collected samples for three months at the Texas A&M meat science center experiment station. The thesis study took six months to complete.
