🦍Beef or Chicken: Which Food Boosts Testosterone The Most?
❓INTRODUCTION
You found out that nutrition is the key to maximizing natural testosterone levels. You found out that although all other vitamins & minerals are important for androgen production, Zinc is the single most POWERFUL mineral when it comes to boosting testosterone, as it can boost testosterone up to ~300% (study) if you’re deficient in it. You also found out that the safest, more efficient, and richest food sources of bio-available zinc are animal foods, NOT supplements (study).
The problem, is that you are slammed with TOO MANY food options to choose from, are on a tight budget, or simply want to get the best bang for your buck. Two popular foods that you want to compare, for their ability to boost testosterone, are beef (steak) and chicken, especially when it comes to Zinc content. Fortunately, I’ve already done the analysis for you.
📊ANALYSIS
Let’s compare their zinc content (mg of zinc per 100 g of the food item itself), zinc cost (how much you’re paying for each mg of zinc that the food item has), and zinc bioavailability (how much of the zinc from that food item are you ACTUALLY absorbing).
🔬Zinc content (mg of zinc per 100 g of the food item)
Let’s start with zinc content.
🥩Beef, depending on the cut, contains around 6 mg of zinc per 100 g of beef (and up to 12 mg for some cuts).
🍗Chicken breast on the other hand, contains only roughly 1 mg of zinc per 100 g.
Beef therefore has about 6 TIMES more zinc than chicken breast, on a pound for pound basis.
🥇Winner for this round: Beef
💵Zinc cost (Price per mg of zinc)
Some might object and say “but beef is way too expensive compared to chicken breast”. Well again, if your goal is to increase testosterone, you shouldn’t just look at the overall price per pound, but rather the price per NUTRIENT that you’re purchasing the food item for in the first place. In this specific case, we’re focusing on zinc, so let’s look at the price you pay per milligram of zinc:
Beef costs about $1.50 per mg of zinc. Chicken breast on the other hand, costs about $4.50 per mg of zinc (using the current average USA prices for beef and chicken breast which are $9.50 and $4.50 per pound, respectively). So by purchasing chicken breast, although you’re paying less per pound of total “meat”, you are actually paying nearly THREE TIMES more for zinc.
🥇Winner for this round: Beef
💵Zinc bio-availability
when it comes to zinc bio-availability, both chicken and beef have roughly equal numbers (around 20-40% each, on average). So this means that if you ingest 10 mg of zinc from chicken or beef, you’ll absorb about 2-4 mg of zinc, assuming that there are no anti-nutrients in that meal such as phytate aka phytic acid, which can lower that number by up to -60% (study).
🥇Winner for this round: Tie
👩⚖️FINAL VERDICT
Beef is the clear winner here, by a massive landslide. It has more zinc per 100 g, is cheaper on a “cost per mg of zinc” basis, and is tied with chicken breast for bio-availability. so if your goal is to increase testosterone in the most efficient and cost friendly way, allocate more of your grocery budget towards beef and red meat (steak, ground beef, lamb etc.) instead of chicken.
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