102 Part I: Eating Right with Every Bite
Other foods high in protein include dairy products, such as cheese and milk.
One 8-ounce glass of milk, for instance, may have as much as 13 grams of
protein. Eggs are also high in protein, with 6.5 grams. Eggs can be fried,
hard-boiled, poached, scrambled, or prepared as omelets or egg salad, but
you may find that certain preparation methods work better than others for
you. Everyone is different, so while a hard-boiled egg may work for you, it
may not work for your friend.
The following sections provide additional guidance and tips for enjoying
various kinds of meat safely while getting the most protein bang for your buck.
Beef
For easier consumption, beef should be cooked medium to rare. Medium is a
warm, pink center, and rare is a cool, red center. Refer to Table 6-1 for more
specific cooking instructions. When overcooked, beef loses its moisture and
becomes tough, chewy, and nearly impossible for the gastric bypass patient
to swallow. Ground beef also becomes difficult to digest if overcooked. As a
rule, ground beef should be cooked until it turns gray, not brown. Dry heat
cooking methods are recommended for all cuts of beef (see “Dry cooking
methods” earlier for more info). If moist cooking methods are used, such
as stewing or braising, expensive cuts of meat are necessary and should be
cooked at low temperatures for prolonged periods of time, up to eight hours,
to ensure tenderness.
Poultry
After surgery, you may find that when eating poultry, you prefer dark meat
(legs and thighs) to white pieces (breast and wings) because the darker
pieces contain more moisture and are easier to chew and swallow. However,
this doesn’t mean that white poultry can’t be eaten, only that it has to be
prepared and cooked differently to maintain moisture. When preparing white
poultry, thinner cuts are better, preferably only about a quarter of an inch
thick. The thickness of the meat can be adjusted by using a meat cleaver to
tenderize the piece. You can also ask the butcher to slice the raw breast meat
into^1 ⁄ 4 -inch slices.
Dry heat cooking methods are recommended for poultry. (Check out “Dry
cooking methods” earlier to find out more.) For thinner cuts of poultry (^1 ⁄ 4 -
inch thick), sautéing is best. To sauté poultry, meat should be cooked for a
minute and a half on each side in a preheated large skillet over medium-high
heat. If the poultry isn’t cooked through in 3 minutes, the pan wasn’t hot
enough or the meat was too thick. The number one reason why white-meat
poultry is often too dry to eat is because it’s overcooked.
