SPREADING THE WORD about beef's nutritional value, a new industry campaign includes the graphic above, comparing beef's attributes to those of other popular but less nutritious foods.

Beef Industry Working Harder
To Get Nutrition Message Out

By Colleen Schreiber

SAN ANGELO — It's no secret that the beef industry for many years has gotten a bad rap about nutrition — and for all the wrong reasons, experts say.

Because of that, the industry is putting more emphasis than ever before on nutrition. The Texas Beef Council, as mandated by their board of directors, has made it one of their top priorities. And rather than focus primarily on health industry professionals, the beef council is going direct to consumers with their health and nutrition message.

Iron, zinc, and protein are the new buzzwords, says TBC communications director Lisa Williams.

"Other industries are selling nutrition supplements, and here we are with a food commodity that has those nutrients that many consumers won’t touch because they can’t get over the fat barrier," Williams says.

To get a positive nutrition message about beef out to consumers, TBC is partnering with credible health organizations such as the American Heart Association. It's not a new partnership, Williams notes; the two have been teamed up for several years.

The Beef Council also works with the American Cancer Society, Texas Academy of Family Physicians, and the Texas Medical Association, to name a few.

This year TBC is partnering with the American Heart Association in four "Women in Heart" health conferences across the state. TBC has participated in these conferences in the past, but this year they have a more direct role. That's because for the first time TBC has a registered dietitian and Ph.D. in nutrition on staff. Dr. Shalene McNeill understands what dietitians and health-concerned people are looking for. She can talk their language, so she is an invited speaker at these conferences.

McNeill says consumers are led astray by many "ingrained" biases, and those ingrained biases perpetuate themselves by being passed from one generation to the next.

The biggest misconception about beef today continues to be the concern over fat.

"It's especially prevalent in teenage and college age women," McNeill says. "Young women believe that beef makes them fat, and the 30-plus women believe beef causes heart disease and cancer."

"People have an outdated image of beef," she continues. "Many consumers haven't caught on to the fact that we have a product in the meat case that is 30 percent leaner. It doesn't have that half-inch of fat around it. You can get that same product today with an eighth-inch trim."

Society in general, the dietician notes, has been successful in cutting fat from the diet, but in doing so some consumers who cut out red meat created other problems for themselves. Many of the nutrients readily found in red meat, McNeill explains, aren't as readily replaced by other foods.

"The problem is that many are filling in with foods that don't have as many nutrients. They are decreasing foods from the diet that, though they may have been contributing some fat, they were also contributing a lot of other nutrients that they aren’t getting otherwise."

McNeill says beef's best attribute from a nutritional standpoint is the quality of nutrients and the density of those nutrients.

"If you choose a lean cut, a woman can get all the B12, most of the zinc and most of the iron she needs in a day and only consume 180 calories," McNeill points out. "These are nutrients that aren’t found readily in other foods. Iron, for example, is the number one deficiency in the U.S. You can get iron from other foods but not in such a readily absorbable form as in beef.

A heart-healthy diet for the average person allows for 2000 calories per day and up to 65 grams of fat. Beef products with round and loin in the name indicate leanness, McNeill says. These cuts, she notes, have less than 10 grams of fat and 180 calories. The eye of round, for example, only has about 140 calories.

"That's the same number of calories as in a soda water."

Tenderloin has only eight grams of fat and 180 calories.

"That’s less than a bagel, and how many of us pick up a big hunky bagel in the morning and think we’re doing so great? Yet we’re not getting many other nutrients from that bagel besides calories.

"That big blueberry muffin that we ate for breakfast has about 400 calories," Williams adds, "and that salad with ranch dressing that we had for lunch has 200 calories and the dressing alone has about 20 grams of fat.

"Yet a three-ounce portion of sirloin has six grams of fat, 180 calories, and it's power-packed with zinc, iron and protein. Which was the best nutritional investment in that day? You got the best investment for your health that day with the beef meal. Those are the kinds of things that we’ve got to get consumers to understand."

McNeill says consumers often aren't given all the facts when it comes to research studies.

"Research does show that consumers' diets high in animal fat tend to have an increased risk for certain types of disease, but that’s not saying necessarily that it's a diet high in beef," McNeill says. "What we usually find out is that these people's diets are usually low in some other food group, like fruits and vegetables. That's why it's important for consumers to be able to critically evaluate the research and understand it."

"We’re not trying to say that beef is the only food you should eat," she continues. "We're just letting people know that beef does fit into one's diet and you don’t have to be scared of it, and this is how and this is why."

Doctors, McNeill says, are slowly coming around to the benefits of beef.

"For so long, cardiologists have tried to control their patients’ diets as a way to control heart disease, but they've found that system doesn't work all that well," the dietician says. "Not everyone complies. Many are going to eat beef regardless, and we're trying to show doctors how they can do it responsibly.

"Continuing education for the medical community is really never-ending," she continues. "Doctors never have to take any classes in nutrition. Yet we go to doctors every day and ask them to tell us how to eat a balanced diet. Through funds from the beef checkoff we've been able to keep them updated on the facts."

How much do these misconceptions affect beef demand? NCBA, through the Beef Board, funded a study to determine what drives demand. Over time two basic camps, Williams says, have emerged within NCBA. One group believes convenience drives demand and another group says nutrition drives demand.

The study, Williams says, came back inconclusive, an indication that both concerns impact demand.

"I'm a health-concerned person," Williams says. "I make food choices during my day that are healthy. However, when I get home at night I look for something easy and convenient. We can’t say it’s only nutrition or only convenience. We have to attack it from several different angles. And it depends on what group of people you’re talking to and at what time of their life you’re talking to them."

The Beef Council is using several different approaches to get their nutrition message out. This past year they distributed 750,000 book covers carrying a nutrition message to schools in the major metropolitan areas.

"In the state of Texas, every school book has to have a book cover on it. Every day these kids see great nutrition messages about beef. Beef, they learn, is full of 'ZIP' — zinc, iron and protein."

Another valuable addition to the nutrition campaign is a new brochure developed by TBC which highlights the facts about beef and nutrition. The "Why Beef?" brochure is not just another promotional piece aimed at selling more beef. It has been endorsed by the Texas Dietetic Association, and that in itself, Williams says, gives the brochure credibility in the health community and in turn among consumers. This brochure, she adds, allows the beef industry to go direct to the consumer with their nutrition message.

Most recently, TBC test-piloted their first cooking school at the University of Texas. The target audience was young college females.

"We know that more and more females don’t know how to cook, and we also know there is a barrier to nutrition information," Williams explains. "We thought that a short cooking school would be an ideal way to begin breaking down some of those barriers."

The two-hour class, she says, was a hit. Participants were taught the essentials of cooking. They were also schooled in how to cook healthy meals as well as easy and convenient beef meals. TBC hopes to do more of these cooking schools for universities across the state.

The Beef Council hopes the beef checkoff will be around for many more years to come so that projects such as this nutrition project and the hundreds of others can continue.

"If the checkoff wasn’t here we would never have the opportunity to work on things like nutrition," Williams stresses. "We would never have the opportunity to work on a statewide nutrition campaign with the American Heart Assn.

"We haven’t always done all things right," she continues, "but we sure have done some things that have worked. The H.E.B. partnership is a great example of something that has worked.

"We worked with them to educate their employees, and they in turn have come up with a new beef product. Not only are they selling more beef, they’re growing rapidly. Their new 10-minute microwavable potroast, which they just put into stores, has sold out. They can’t even meet the demand, and that’s a great partner for the beef industry to have. That’s how we sell more beef — by partnering with people like that, to break the demand barriers.

"Those microwavable potroasts are a pretty darn nutritional product," she continues. "If we don’t have the checkoff dollars, then we won’t get projects like this done, and that’s a message that producers need to understand."

Williams says the beef industry is making some headway and seeing some positive changes.

"Ten years ago, if the Beef Council had asked to be a speaker at an American Heart Association function and said we wanted to serve a beef dinner, we would have been laughed

out of the facility," Williams said. "Today they come to us asking us how we can partner on new things."

Consumer education, Williams says, particularly changing a consumer’s mind, is a difficult task.

"We have to keep pushing our message until we break through these barriers," she explains. "The key is for consumers to hear a consistent message, one that comes not only from us but also from their dietician and their doctor."

Responding to the beef checkoff-funded demand study which indicated that consumers' concerns about health and nutrition continue to have a substantial negative impact on beef demand, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association this month responded by launching its first-ever comprehensive nutrition program, "Beef. It’s Got What You Need.," which will serve as the foundation for all checkoff-funded nutrition programs for at least the next three to five years.

"Consumers love beef. They just need permission to eat it. If we are going to help stabilize beef demand by the year 2001, we need to give them what they need. ‘Beef. It’s Got What You Need.’ will do just that," says Dave Bateman, a cow-calf producer and feeder from Elburn, Illinois, and chairman of the NCBA Nutrition and Health Committee.

Bateman says the timing of the launch couldn’t be more right.

"Research tells us that 44 percent of consumers would eat more beef if they believed it was as healthy as chicken. If we can demonstrate beef’s nutritional value, we can change consumption to help us meet our long-term goals," states Bateman.