Turkey: benefits and harms, recipes

What is use­ful turkey meat and why you should include it in your menu.

It is very dif­fi­cult now to imag­ine a diet menu with­out turkey meat. And in some coun­tries, impor­tant hol­i­days, such as Christ­mas or Thanks­giv­ing, are not rep­re­sent­ed with­out it.

Many nutri­tion­ists believe that prop­er nutri­tion is not com­plete with­out turkey. It is also a fair­ly pop­u­lar meat for bak­ing, as well as var­i­ous healthy sand­wich­es. More­over, many peo­ple replace minced beef with minced turkey.

Calorie turkey and its nutritional value

Accord­ing to sci­en­tists, one serv­ing (100 g) of fried turkey breast with­out addi­tion­al prod­ucts con­tains:

• 3.26 g fat
• 0 g carbs
• 24.7 g pro­tein

Turkey calo­ries (100 g): 135 calo­ries

Dark turkey meat is much more nutri­tious and high in calo­ries at the same time. It (100 g) con­tains:

• 5.13 g fat
• 0 g carbs
• 23.5 g pro­tein

Calo­rie dark turkey meat (100 g): 173 calo­ries

Nutritional value of turkey

Turkey meat also con­tains nutri­ents such as:

• vit­a­mins B6
• vit­a­min B12
• niacin
• choline
• sele­ni­um
• zinc

As a rule, dark turkey meat con­tains more vit­a­mins and min­er­als, it is con­sid­ered health­i­er.

Turkey is also not­ed for tryp­to­phan. An amino acid that often caus­es drowsi­ness. How­ev­er, all meat con­tains it.

health benefits of turkey

Turkey, like all meats, is high in pro­tein. When eat­en, it helps to increase the feel­ing of sati­ety. Ide­al for a healthy break­fast. Get­ting enough pro­tein helps main­tain lean mus­cle mass and keep insulin lev­els sta­ble after meals. Pro­tein, how­ev­er, is the only nutri­ent that most meat eaters already get enough of.

Turkey also con­tains fat. It is use­ful, but in some cas­es it is bet­ter to remove the skin, depriv­ing the meat of fat con­tent.

The tryp­to­phan found in turkey helps main­tain healthy lev­els of sero­tonin in the body. It pro­motes cheer­ful­ness and good mood. This amount, of course, is small, but it is a pos­si­ble advan­tage of eat­ing turkey.

The turkey breast is con­sid­ered to be the health­i­est part of the diet: it is low­er in fat and calo­ries.

Turkey on a diet

Do not assume that all turkey meat is good for dietary nutri­tion. Choose fresh, lean and pas­ture-raised turkey. With­out antibi­otics. The fact is that meat of turkeys grown on fac­to­ry and tra­di­tion­al farms is often inject­ed with salt, water and oth­er preser­v­a­tives dur­ing pro­cess­ing to extend the shelf life and reduce costs.

Home­made turkey is the most deli­cious and healthy for those who are on a diet.

And, of course, remove the greasy skin.

Health risks of turkey: who should not have a turkey

Processed turkey foods — sausages, sausages, snacks — are high in sodi­um and can be unhealthy, espe­cial­ly for the core. Many processed foods are smoked or cooked with sodi­um nitrite, so they are also high in car­cino­gens. They are asso­ci­at­ed with the devel­op­ment of can­cer.

Also, processed turkey prod­ucts, like any oth­er meat, are asso­ci­at­ed with a risk of obe­si­ty, heart dis­ease, high blood pres­sure, and cho­les­terol.

Turkey while breastfeeding

When breast­feed­ing, doc­tors rec­om­mend that moth­ers eat fil­lets and oth­er por­tioned pieces. Grad­u­al­ly, it is worth intro­duc­ing foods such as thighs, drum­sticks and wings, offal into the diet. The skin is best removed before cook­ing.

Turkey during pregnancy

Preg­nant women can and should eat turkey, as it con­tains lit­tle cho­les­terol and fat, and is also quick­ly absorbed. So don’t be afraid and eat turkey while preg­nant.

Turkey in baby food

Steamed turkey is the per­fect meal for kids. You can intro­duce into the diet lit­tle by lit­tle from sev­en to eight months. Ide­al for the first acquain­tance of the baby with meat prod­ucts.

Turkey Recipes

What dish­es can be cooked from turkey?

American roasted turkey

A huge plus of this baked turkey recipe is that the whole fam­i­ly is ready to eat it all week, both hot and cold. Well, of course, if he doesn’t gob­ble up every­thing in one sit­ting … 🙂

Baked turkey. Step by step recipe

You will need thighs (you can drum­sticks) of a turkey — about 2.5 kg.

For the mari­nade and “accom­pa­ni­ment” you will need:

• 1 st. l.. hon­ey
• 1 st. l. mus­tard
• 1 st. l. salt (I have sea iodized, but it does­n’t mat­ter)
• 2–3 gar­lic cloves
• 1/4 tsp dry ground gin­ger
• ground black pep­per
• 100 ml veg­etable oil
• dried rose­mary
• a cou­ple sprigs of thyme
• 3 bay leaves

Cook­ing process:

Wash the turkey and put it in a large refrac­to­ry dish.

For the mari­nade, first care­ful­ly rub the mus­tard and hon­ey with salt and pep­per. Add crushed gar­lic and gin­ger, some oth­er sea­son­ings if desired.

Now slow­ly, in small por­tions, add veg­etable oil, each time light­ly whisk­ing the mari­nade with a fork or spoon. By the way, you can exper­i­ment with oil. The most com­mon refined sun­flower will do, but you can also exper­i­ment with fla­vors, up to wal­nut oil. The result should be a mass sim­i­lar to liq­uidish opaque hon­ey.

Here we care­ful­ly smear our bird with this fra­grant sub­stance from all sides. From above, you can sprin­kle with rose­mary nee­dles, put a few sprigs of thyme and bay leaves.

Cov­er with foil and place in oven over medi­um heat. Such a turkey will be baked for two hours. Be pre­pared for the fact that a mon­strous­ly beau­ti­ful aro­ma will spill around the house.

At the end of bak­ing, you can remove the foil so that the crust seizes and becomes rud­dy. But here we warn you: do not over­do it! It is enough to remove the foil even at the moment when you have already turned off the oven — just let the bird stand inside for anoth­er 20 min­utes.

Every­thing! Enjoy your meal!

Turkey in curd dough

Turkey is not only a dietary prod­uct, but also very tasty. With prop­er pro­cess­ing and prepa­ra­tion, turkey fil­let can give you an inde­scrib­able plea­sure with its taste and aro­ma.

You will need:

• 800 g turkey fil­let
• 200 g cot­tage cheese
• 100 g chopped wal­nuts
• 1 stack flour
• 25 ml milk
• 150 ml growth. oils
• leek feath­ers
• salt pep­per
• 1 egg
• let­tuce

Cook­ing:

Squeeze out the curd for the test. Grind 2/3 of the nuts into a pow­der and mix with flour. Com­bine flour, milk, cot­tage cheese, 100 ml rast. but­ter and knead into a soft dough. Let it stand for 30–40 min­utes.

Cut the turkey fil­let into long strips, salt, pep­per and fry on both sides on the remain­ing rast. oil.

Blanch the leeks for 1–2 min­utes in boil­ing water. Cut wide feath­ers in half length­wise.

Roll out the dough into a thin lay­er, cut into long strips 4 cm wide.

Wrap each piece of turkey first with a strip of leek, then with a strip of dough. Put the result­ing rolls on a greased rast. but­ter bak­ing sheet. Top with beat­en egg and sprin­kle with nuts.

Bake the rolls in the oven at 180 ° C for 30–40 min­utes.

Put the fin­ished rolls on a dish lined with let­tuce leaves, dec­o­rate to taste.

More interesting turkey facts:

• Dark turkey meat is much high­er in min­er­als, vit­a­mins, fats and calo­ries.
• If you roast a whole turkey, check its inter­nal tem­per­a­ture. If it is above 75 degrees Cel­sius, you need to get it out of the oven.
• A wild-range turkey is much health­i­er than a farm-raised one.
• If you want to eat less fat, remove the skin from the turkey.

The opin­ion of the edi­tors may not coin­cide with the opin­ion of the author of the arti­cle.