So, my family and I eat a lot of ground turkey and turkey sausage. My question is this: Ground Turkey is supposed to be better for you, as is turkey sausage. All of different brands of turkey sausage have just as much fat as regular sausage. How can this be better for you? And all of the "100 Calorie" snacks out there? They say 100 calories but some have 4 grams of fat in each serving too! SO, what are we supposed to think? I just get so confused!

Ground Turkey is way better for you than plain hamburger. Most of the 100 calorie pack stuff is a ripoff, they are 100 calories but they have the fat and other bad stuff i nthem. The 100 Calorie label is there to fool ya into thinking you need it, because it's only 100 calories.

A little while back on one of the PBS channels there was mini-series nutritional show on, and for the life of me I can't remember the name of it, where a dietician and nutritionist went into the grocery stores and really broke down the nutritional labels on foods. And then they went into the kitchen and made the "cleaner version" of what ever it was, you know like hamburger helper, etc. They were really focused on the the lack of nutrition in some of these things like the 100-calorie packs and one of the things I remember one the nutritionists saying was if it had more than 10 ingredients to leave on the shelf and that the reduced calorie, low-fat, things weren't any better for you the full versions but what they recommended was a lot of portion control. I wish I would written a lot of the info because it was a really good show.

Some ground turkey is made from mostly dark meat and various other left over parts of the turkey. That won't be any better for you. Ground turkey breast, however, would likely prove itself superior to the average ground beef.

Definitely, ground turkey is rarely better for you because yes, it is mixed with dark meat. It is hard to find GT that isn't, unless you specifically get ground turkey breast.

I guess I said nothing to add to what Solange said, other than to agree!


Personally I eat meat, dark or not. I don't do it daily, as I have mostly fish and chicken, but when I want a hamburger with whole wheat buns, I have it. Or a steak, etc. I even often make hamburger helper for my family, but I replace their noodles with whole wheat noodles. I use regular hamburger. If I had only myself to cook for I'd not be bothering with any Hamburger Helper stuff, but the family loves it and with whole wheat noodles it is not bad at all, and that simple replacement of noodles increases the nutrition 100%.

I'm of the opinion that the culprit is sugar, not red meat.

However... for those watching their color meats, be aware of what is written above regarding turkey. Most ground turkey is definitely a mix of dark and white and whatever else falls off the bird.

Everyone needs fat in their diet. You don't need to worry about fat as much as you do high glycemic carbs (sugars & refined white starchy foods). The low fat diet industry has been debunked as a bad way to lose weight. With that said if you feel that you are eating too much fat try finding ground turkey that is lower in fat. Where I live we have 2 choices, one is lean and the other is very lean. I use ground turkey a lot and I can tell you it doesn't make me overweight. The times that I do gain weight are when I eat a lot of sugary carbs.

If your diet is balanced then your fat intake isn't a big deal. If it weren't true then the Atkins diet wouldn't make you lose weight (I don't recommend this diet). At any rate most of the diet foods in stores is crap any ways. If you want to eat healthier you have to make it yourself.

I agree with everything you said. Although I think there are a lot of people who waaay overdo the saturated fat. I have recently lost a good amount of weight by completely eliminating the refined carbs and sugars from my diet, reducing my serving size of meats and main dish proteins, and tripling my consumption of veggies. I've lost my twice weekly terrible headaches, my blood pressure is now normal, and my prediabtes symptoms have disappeared. I'm loving olive oil now, and I didn't use to care for it.

I wish people could realize you don't need to deprive yourself of food to lose weight. You just need to make better choices. I've never eaten so much in my life as I have recently while "dieting," yet I'm steadily losing the pounds and inches. I read some peoples' daily food diaries on this website and just cringe at how little they are eating yet how nutritionally unsound their choices are. It doesn't have to be that way!

Dr. King, I'm not a fan of Atkins, even though I know you can lose weight on it. Just curious, what are your specific objections to it?

I guess I should have been more accurate on the fats. You're right about the saturated fats. I always try to get people to start eating more omega fatty acids in their diet. That alone can make a difference.

As far as the Atkins diet goes, I could write you a whole essay on why you shouldn't use it. To put it simply it's not healthy and easy to fail at. Don't get me wrong I'm not opposed to protein diets or carb cycling but that should be left to people who have a firm grasp on their diet i.e. body builders. The method is sound although under explained how to use properly in the Atkins book but the biggest problem with it is it doesn't teach you to change your lifestyle.

What happens when you lose the weight? Do you just stop? If that's all you know then chances are once you stop you will go back to a poor diet and gain the weight back again. I have used similar techniques when I was training 6 days a week to drop those last couple of percentage points of fat but it was tough to maintain and in the end I gave up and realized it was just not normal or healthy for me to do. Needless to say I was a bit obsessed then but I knew how to use it properly to get the results I wanted. It just wasn't realistic to maintain. And no I wasn't a body builder just obsessed with having 6 pack abs. I got 4 then gave up.

I much rather prefer diets like the zone diet or other similar diets that teach you how to eat healthier and the reasons why. I know from personal experience that the no carb diets are just to hard on you physically and mentally.