Nutrition and healthy eating guidelines often say: Choose leaner cuts of meat. Now, we all know the story about skinless chicken being lower in fat than its skin-on counterpart, but when it comes to red meat, it’s not that clear and there are so many different cuts to choose from.

Meat provides good-quality protein (contains all the essential amino acids) as well as iron (in a very absorbable form), vitamin B12 and zinc. But, meat has a bad name in terms of heart health, linked mainly to its saturated fat (unhealthy) content. The truth is that meat can be part of healthy, nourishing and balanced diet – just watch your portions and go for the leaner cuts. If you eat meat, the guideline is to have a moderate portion of lean red meat about two to three times a week and have legumes, soya, ostrich, lean poultry or fish on the other days.

When it comes to red meat, beef, lamb and pork have a higher fat content and even more so when you don’t trim the visible fat before you cook the meat. So it makes sense to trim off the fat you can see as far as possible and prepare your meat using as little as possible or no added fat.

So here are the leaner cuts in each meat type, to help you choose:

Lamb - foreshank (leanest), loin cut is leaner than rib cut

Beef – extra lean mince, fillet (bit leaner than other steaks) sirloin, rump, topside (excess fat trimmed)

Pork – tenderloin (leanest), also boneless sirloin chops, loin roast and ham (watch the salt here)

Ostrich – all cuts are lean since ostrich contains less fat than lamb, beef or pork. Mince, steak and fillet are tasty options

Venison or Game Meat – loin chop (trimmed of excess fat), leg, blade and shoulder steak and rib roast