Photo cred - Mike

What if I told you that there was a simple solution to keep you happy and healthy all winter long and it was just around the corner from where you lived? You'd say guurrrl ( I'm too poor to afford plastic surgery and I'm too old too to donate my body to science ..sooo what am I supposed to do ? )... to which I would say you're in luck because the alternative is super dooper cheap! STEAK! but not any type of steak... a Montreal steak and even more precisely, a Medium Rare steak. The sight of blood(actually it's not even blood on your plate.. it's just water mixed with the protein myoglobin that is gushing straight out) may make you weak in the knees but trust me, when it comes to winter time it will give you so much iron and fiber and everything you need!

So to help you out on this new journey down meativore lane, let me provide you with all the benefits and locations so that by the end you'll be ordering like a Queen err or a King come your next date ! So before I get to the health benefits, let me just address the worries of the “hardcore steak arsons” ( aka. those who will only eat a steak whose  interior is a dry uniform gray and the outside is so tough & flavorless... regardless of all the well intentioned preparation done beforehand like selecting the best meat , seasoning it properly and prepping it to cook.

This isn't cooking, this is culinary arson and these taboo meat myths need to be put to bed.

What about food safety?

“ ...Isn't that a good reason to cook steaks all the way through? Actually, dangerous bacteria like E. coli don't live on the inside of a steak. They might live on the surface of a steak, but cooking the outside of the steak will kill them. Burgers are another story. To be safe, ground meats should be cooked well-done. But medium-rare or even rare steaks don't present any particular food safety hazard.” - Danilo Alfaro - Culinary Arts Expert (AboutFood )

5 Confirmed Health Benefits to eating a Medium Rare Steak :

1.  Enzymes

Digestibility

Cooked meat is harder to digest than raw meat, according to a 2006 report in the “Molecular Nutrition & Food Research” journal. This is due in part to salt, oil and other items added to the meat during the cooking process. In the study, cooked meat lost 6 percent of its amino acid content after cooking. The hotter the cooking process, the harder the meat is to digest.

3. Vitamin B12

Studies have demonstrated that Vitamin B-12 is heat sensitive and normal cooking can destroy as much as 89% of it.That says something important, don’t you think? If we are eating all our meat cooked, then how is our body getting enough vitamin B12? This is where eating raw meat comes into play! Vitamin B12 helps repair the DNA from radiation, so it protects us from cancer. Vitamin B12 deficiency is linked to Multiple sclerosis, depression, infertility, heart disease, and even asthma. Research has shown that taking vitamin B12 supplements can actually block vitamin B12 absorption. This means you need your vitamin B12 from food!

4. Vitamin B6

Although historically described as one of the most stable of the B vitamins, large amounts of vitamin B6 are lost during most forms of cooking and processing. (even more of a reason to eat raw meat!)

When food is heated in the context of simple home cooking, the acidity of the food often determines how much B6 is lost or retained. In general, the more acidic the food, the poorer the B6 retention.

Also, in the context of the home kitchen, the freezing of foods high in B6 can result in the loss of approximately 1/3 to 1/2 of the total B6 content. (fresh from your farmer to your plate is always best!)

Because foods high in B6 are typically not eaten raw, (you can change that! and you don’t need a lot to get the amount of B6 your body needs!) a good solution to these processing problems is to consume plentiful amounts of foods high in B6.

5. Energy

Myoglobin is a protein, that stores oxygen in muscle cells, very similar to its cousin, hemoglobin, that stores oxygen in red blood cells.  This is necessary for muscles which need immediate oxygen for energy during frequent, continual usage.  Myoglobin is highly pigmented, specifically red; so the more myoglobin, the redder the meat will look and the darker it will get when you cook it.

- source cred for health benefits : LiveStrong

3 Top Montreal Restaurants to Order Your Next Steak at :

1.  Main Deli Steak House

2. Moishes Steakhouse

3. Le Queue de Cheval

Happy Meat Hunting folks... for your deliciously juicy.. tender Grade A+ red meat !