Not so fast. Just like many other issues in the health world (Remember how the cholesterol story changed?), modern research is showing that there is good fat and bad fat. We want our beef cuts to have marbled fat, but not outside fat. According to A&M University meat biologist Stephen Smith, who was quoted in this article,
There’s a health benefit to eating well-marbled beef.
The reason is that intramuscular fat, as opposed to the outer fat, contains oleic acid, which studies have shown reduce LDL, the bad artery-cloggin cholesterol. So, marbled fat can actually reduce the bad cholesterol!