The great ground beef deception: what's lean depends on where you are.

The Great Ground Beef Deception

When Ann Rust buys "lean" ground beef near her office in Washington, D.C., she can check a sign near the meat counter to find out how much fat it contains. But when she buys ground beef near her home in the Maryland suburbs, she has no idea whether "lean" on the package means "lean" in the package. In all likelihood, it doesn't.

Never mind that ground beef is the most commonly eaten meat in the U.S. Never mind that no other food contributes more fat to the average diet. Never mind that the Surgeon General and other health officials have been nagging consumers to "choose lean meat." The fact is that no state requires "lean" ground beef to be truly lean.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says "lean" meat can have no more than ten percent fat (by weight), and "extra lean" no more than five percent.

But these policies don't apply to ground beef. In fact, the average fat content of "lean" ground beef sold in supermarkets nationwide is not 10 percent, it's 21. The average "extra lean" is not 5 percent fat, it's 17.

And those are just averages. Here's the sad state-by-state story:

As far as 27 "No Fat Limit/No Fat Label" states are concerned, ground beef can be called "lean" even if it has as much fat as "regular" ground beef (which can weigh in at a hefty 30 percent). What's more, the label needn't even tell shoppers how much fat the meat contains.

Another 22 "Fat Limit" states (including Washington D.C.) do restrict the fat content of "lean" ground beef. But in some of them, those limits are a joke. Florida, for example, has an "informal policy" that "lean" should have 13.3 percent less fat than "regular." And while that sounds like a healthy reduction, it simply means that "lean" Florida ground beef can't be more than 26 percent fat. Big deal.

And even in the rest of the "Fat Limit" states, "lean" can mean anything from 20 to 30 percent fat, and "extra lean" can range from 10 percent to 20.

If you live in a "Fat Limit" state, how easy is it to uncover the fat content of the ground beef you use? In 12 "Fat Limit/Fat Label" states iths a snap: just check the label or sign. But in ten "Fat Limit/No Fat Label" states, labels aren't required to provide so much as a clue.

DOUBLE STANDARD

This crazy quilt of definitions exists because most ground beef is labeled in supermarkets--after it crosses state lines. In other words: the federal government is unlikely to have any authority over the fat content of what goes into your hamburgers, meat loaves, or sloppy joes.

Still, the USDA could make a difference; seven states simply follow the Fed's lead, by adopting its policies as their own. But the USDA has a weaker definition of "lean" ground beef than any other kind of meat. "There was a desire to let states do their own thing," says Ron Brewington, of the USDA's Standards and Labeling Division.

"A few states had definitions for lean ground beef, and Department officials didn't want to uproot them. It was a compromise," he explains.

So the government changed definitions. Instead of its tough, 10 percent fat limit, the USDA decided that "lean" on a ground beef label should mean the same as "light" on other meat labels. And since "light" translates into "25 percent less fat than usual," you "lean" ground beef now can contain as much as 22.5 percent fat--assuming you buy it in one of the seven states that follow the USDA guidelines. Got that?

ENFORCEMENT ARITHMETIC:

WHO'S CHECKING ANYHOW?

As if consumers like Ann Rust don't have it hard enough, the search for lean ground beef is fraught with another uncertainty: the meat may not be as lean as the label claims.

In 1986, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs analyzed the fat content of ground beef sold in 49 supermarkets. Among meats with percentage labeling, it found:

PRODUCTS LABELED ACTUALLY WERE "75 percent lean" 73 to 86 percent lean "80 percent lean" 75 to 86 percent lean "85 percent lean" 79 to 89 percent lean

The Department also discovered that consumers often paid more for packages of "lean" ground beef that turned out to be no learner than cheaper meats.

WHAT TO DO

If you eat ground beef, check the chart on page 8 to see how your state defines "lean." Also, keep these tips in mind:

* If you're broiling burgers or following a recipe that lets you drain off the excess fat after cooking, it doesn't much matter whether you buy "regular" or "extra lean." The difference between 27 vs. 21 percent raw gets whittled down to 20 vs. 17 percent when cooked.

* If you're making chili, lasagna, or some other recipe in which you can't drain off the fat after cooking, buy top round steak (which should be less than ten percent fat by weight), and have the butcher grind it.

* Ground turkey, which is usually about half as fatty as lean ground beef, is still around eight percent fat. That's because it contains fatty turkey skin as well as meat.

* Your best bet is to buy boneless, skinless turkey breast or chicken breast. Both are in the one-percent-fat range, and that's about as low as a meat can go. Just ask the butcher to grind it, or grind it at home with a food processor, and you've got an excellent low-fat alternative.