If you are watching what you eat and keeping an eye on the amount of saturated fat you are consuming, it might be worth noting that the levels in meat can vary widely too depending on what the animals have eaten.
Published in the journal Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, a group from New Zealand have been looking at the quality of meat from lambs reared on pastures compared to grain.
What they found was quite a complicated story but there are some take home messages. Levels of poly unsaturated fat can be increased by feeding the lambs certain plant species that grow in pastures as opposed to grain. This, however, can shorten the shelf life of the meat due to oxidation which in turn can be treated with the antioxidants present in certain plants.
As I said, it’s complicated.