Meat
Moderate evidenceTurkey
Fifty grams more poultry a day tracked with 11% lower colorectal cancer incidence in observational studies — but not lower mortality. And the tryptophan story does not survive the arithmetic.
Turkey and pepper stir-fry
Turkey breast holds only 1.48 g of fat. Slice it thin, cook it hot and briefly — overcooking cannot be undone.
2 servings20 min
Ingredients
- Turkey breast300 g
- Bell peppers2 (300 g)
- Garlic4 cloves
- Olive oil2 tbsp
- Onion1/2 (100 g)
- Soy sauce1 tbsp
- Lemon juice1 tbsp
- Peppera little
Method
Slice the turkey breast across the grain, 5 mm thick. Cut with the grain and it turns stringy.
Season with the soy sauce and pepper and leave 10 minutes.
Cut the peppers into large pieces and the onion coarsely. Cut small and they weep.
Heat the pan until it is smoking and add 1 tbsp of the olive oil.
Lay the turkey in a single layer and leave it untouched for 90 seconds. Turn and give it 60 more — then stop. The outside is cooked and the inside just done. Take it out.
Add the remaining oil to the same pan, cook the onion 1 minute, then the peppers for just 2 minutes over high heat. The peppers should still snap.
Add the sliced garlic and cook 30 seconds. Put it in at the start and it burns.
Return the turkey, toss for 30 seconds and turn off the heat. Finish with the lemon juice.
Cooking note
This whole dish comes down to not overcooking the turkey. Turkey breast carries 1.48 g of fat per 100 g — about the level of chicken breast, and nowhere near pork belly. With no fat there is nothing to hold the moisture as it leaves. Pull it at 74°C internal and do not let it sit in the pan.
Slice across the grain. Cutting the muscle fibres short leaves it tender; cutting along them leaves long fibres and a chewy bite.
Two minutes for the peppers is about vitamin C. Red bell pepper holds 128 mg per 100 g — more than an orange. But vitamin C is sensitive to heat and water, and a long stir-fry loses a good share of it. Stopping while they still snap serves both flavour and nutrient.
The garlic goes in last because of allicin, which is heat-sensitive and turns bitter when it scorches over high heat. Thirty seconds is plenty for the aroma.
Add the lemon juice off the heat. The acid flashes off in a hot pan, and the vitamin C goes with it.
At 150 g of turkey each, that is 35 g of protein. With the peppers and onion the plate passes 400 g while staying under 300 kcal.
Ingredients used here
Vegetables
Moderate evidenceBell pepper
128 mg of vitamin C per 100 g of red pepper. The Cochrane review, though, found no reduction in colds.
Vegetables
Moderate evidenceGarlic
The evidence for garlic points to a modest drop in blood pressure and cholesterol. The trick is to crush it and wait ten minutes before it hits the heat.
Oils & fats
Strong evidenceOlive oil
Cardiovascular events were 31 % lower in a randomised trial of 7,447 people. Against other vegetable oils, though, there was no difference.