Bison Meat vs. Beef – Burgers and Steaks

Buffalo Nutritional Values, Health and Taste

Aug 20, 2009 James Clausen

Find out the nutritional value of bison compared to beef and other meat products. What does bison taste like compared to beef? What are the health benefits of bison?

Bison is considered gourmet meat and the price of bison products is certainly an indication of the gourmet classification. Even though bison meats may be a bit pricey, they’re still comparable in price to select high quality beef products. Bison is naturally leaner compared to beef and has a lot of nutritional values that exceed the nutritional values of beef.

Grass Fed Bison Meat Taste Compared to Beef

There’s a bit of a miss conception that bison meats have a gamey taste. Bison that’s raised for the purpose of meat production do not have a gamey taste. Bison meats have a similar taste to select choice beef, but bison has a slightly sweeter flavor than beef. Bison, like beef is full of flavor and just as tender as most cuts of good select beef.

Health Benefits of Grass Fed Bison

Bison meat products are naturally leaner than beef. In fact bison, ounce per ounce, has less total fat than most meat products including pork, chicken and most fish. Bison also has less calories and higher amounts of iron than most meat products. Always look for bison that’s grass fed for the healthiest cut of meats. Grass fed bison also has a good Omega 3 to Omega 6 percentage of fatty acids.

Ground Bison Nutritional Values vs. Ground Beef

Bison, ground, grass-fed, cooked 3 oz.

• Calories 152, Total Fat 7 grams (3 grams saturated fat)
• Excellent protein with 40 grams, which is 84% of the daily value (DV) in a 2,000-calorie diet.
• The biggest negative is that bison is high in cholesterol with 82 milligrams or 27% of the daily value.
• Ground bison is high in vitamin B6 17% DV, B12 35% DV and niacin 25% DV

Beef,ground, cooked 3 oz. 85% lean, 15% fat

• Calories 210 Total Fat 12 grams (6 grams saturated fat)
• Good protein with 21 grams, which is 43% of the daily value (DV) in a 2,000-calorie diet.
• The two biggest negatives are that beef is high in cholesterol with 75 milligrams or 24% of the daily value. Beef is also high in saturated fats with 6 grams, which is double the amount found in grass fed bison.
• Ground beef is high in vitamin B6 15% DV, B12 36% DV and niacin 24% DV.

To be fair, ground beef can be purchased with lower amounts of fat. Naturally the nutritional values of the ground beef would change favorably with lower fat content.

Nutritional Value for Roasted Bison vs. Roasted Beef

The following nutritional values are meats with fat trimmed to 0% and total weight of 3.5 ounces (100 grams). The beef nutritional values are for select beef.

• Calories – Bison 143, Beef 201
• Total Fat – Bison 2.4 grams, Beef 8.1 gram
• Protein – Bison 28.4 grams, Beef 29.9 grams
• Iron – Bison 3.4 milligrams, Beef 3.0 milligrams
• Cholesterol – Bison 82 milligrams, Beef 86 milligrams

Bison can be cooked or grilled just like beef. When cooking burgers, bison should be cooked rare or medium rare because of the low fat content. Bison burgers that are cooked well done will become dry and loose a lot of the sweet rich flavor of the meat. Always look for bison that is grass fed and free of chemicals and hormones.

Sources:

Bisoncentral.com

Nutritiondata.com

The copyright of the article Bison Meat vs. Beef – Burgers and Steaks in Healthy Cooking is owned by James Clausen. Permission to republish Bison Meat vs. Beef – Burgers and Steaks in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Bison Nutritional Value, Health and Taste

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