Draining the Fat from Ground Beef

I was wondering if anybody knows how draining the fat from ground beef while cooking affects the amount of fat in the meat. I always drain it, and I’m just wondering if there’s a standard technique to estimating how many grams of fat or calories are lost.

I know that much of what is drained is water, but I’m curious as to whether the fat that drains is substantial enough to adjust the total calories in the meal.

Actually, that’s given me an idea. I’ve been wondering how much fat the George Foreman grill I have is removing/draining:

1 How about weighing the grill and the drip tray together.
2 Cook up a known quantity of Mince/ground beef. Clean off any “bits”.
3 Weigh the grill and drip tray afterward.
The difference between 3 and 1 is mostly fat.

Even worse, if you have a George Foreman grill and you wanted to get really careful (where careful = anal retentive) you could cook up a large quantity of mince and catch the fat in a water filled container. Then just weight whatever floats. Disturbing huh?

It depends on how lean the meat is. I get extra lean beef and don’t really need to drain much, unless it’s mixed with lamb mince which is another story.

Does anyone know if the Calorie content on Fitday for gorund/minced products includes the fat or does it assume you drain the crap off?

[quote]mt006 wrote:
Does anyone know if the Calorie content on Fitday for gorund/minced products includes the fat or does it assume you drain the crap off?[/quote]

It probably doesn’t assume anything unless the description says something like “ground beef with crap drained off.”