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Good Question: How's Fat Content Determined In Ground Beef?

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Grilling season is here, and that means shoppers will be deciding between 80-percent and 90-percent-lean ground beef. But you can actually buy ground beef as low as 70-percent lean.

There are a couple different ways the "lean and fat" content is figured out, and tests show it is pretty accurate.

"As long as you have a 70-30 mix, legally you can call it ground beef," said butcher Charlie Cory.

Cory is the owner of Big Steer Meats in St. Paul, and he has been a butcher most of his life. He and his crew make ground beef every morning.

"Atypically, ground beef is made with muscles that are less desirable, the muscles that are tougher to eat," he said.

Cory uses a certain part of the cow to make ground beef.

"We take the chuck roast there, that's an 80-percent to 85-percent lean piece. We cut those up and that gets us our lean ground beef," he said.

Cory grounds up boneless arms along with the tip roast to make it even leaner, and that equals about 90-percent to 92-percent-lean beef. But how do you test for this?

"They'll take some of them off the line and they have a test kitchen where they will cook it," Cory said.

In the testing lab after cooking, the moisture that is left over is a combination of water and grease. When it solidifies, it is run through a digital fat tester to find out if it is lean or extra lean.

Cory says while lean burgers have more fat than extra lean, they hold together a little better.

"Typically when you go to a restaurant, 80-20 is what the mix is on that," he said.

Cory says 80-20 hamburgers are also harder to burn. He says he still runs tests about twice a year to make sure his fat tester stays accurate.

According to Cargill, extra lean is actually 96 percent and lean is 92 percent.

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