Lamb — Average of Trimmed Retail Cuts
Lamb Nutrition at a Glance: Understanding Average Lamb Cut Data
This entry presents the USDA composite nutritional data for lamb averaged across all commonly available trimmed retail cuts — a reference figure used when the specific lamb cut consumed is not defined. Sheep have been farmed for meat, wool, and milk for more than ten thousand years, making them among humanity's oldest domesticated food animals. The first domestication is believed to have occurred in Mesopotamia — modern-day Iraq and Syria — around 8000 BCE, and sheep farming spread from there to the rest of the Near East, North Africa, Europe, and beyond. Today, lamb and mutton are eaten in virtually every inhabited region of the world, with particularly strong traditions in the United Kingdom, the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and South Asia.
What the Nutritional Data Shows
Average trimmed lamb retail cuts provide 267 kcal and 16.9 g of protein per 100 g, with 21.6 g of fat of which 9.5 g is saturated. This composite reflects a weighted average across all cuts — from the lean leg (125 kcal) to the fatty shoulder (264 kcal) and breast. The figure is most useful for general dietary reference rather than specific meal planning. All lamb cuts provide complete protein with all essential amino acids, haem iron, zinc, B12, and selenium.
Choosing Leaner Lamb
Consumers wanting to reduce fat intake while eating lamb should choose leg, loin, and diced lean cuts over shoulder, breast, and mince. Trimming visible fat before cooking further reduces fat content. The lean cuts of lamb are nutritionally comparable to many beef and pork cuts and provide an excellent protein and micronutrient package at moderate caloric cost.
Lamb in a Balanced Diet
Lamb is one of the richest dietary sources of haem iron — the form absorbed most efficiently by the body — alongside meaningful amounts of zinc, B12, and selenium. These nutrients support immune function, neurological health, oxygen transport, and antioxidant defence. Moderate consumption of unprocessed lamb, as part of a diet rich in vegetables, fruit, wholegrains, and other protein sources, is consistent with good nutritional practice and widely enjoyed food traditions across the world.
Lamb — Average of Trimmed Retail Cuts in more detail
This entry is an average rather than a cut. “Composite of trimmed retail cuts” is a food-composition convention: a weighted average across the joints a butcher actually sells, trimmed to the fat level typical at retail. It is useful for diet modelling and misleading if read as a description of a specific piece of meat.
The spread behind that 267 kcal average is wide. A trimmed leg steak sits well below it; shoulder, breast and rib sit well above. If you are trying to place a particular piece of lamb, the cut pages are the better guide — see Lamb Leg, Lamb Loin, Lamb Shoulder and Lamb Foreshank.
Two things distinguish lamb from other red meat in practice. It is the most seasonal of British meats: spring lamb is a young animal with mild, pale, tender meat; hogget (one to two years) and mutton (over two) are progressively darker, fattier and far more strongly flavoured, and they need slow cooking rather than a hot grill. And lamb fat is harder and higher-melting than beef or pork fat, which is why lamb dishes congeal unappetisingly as they cool and why lamb is traditionally served hot on hot plates.
Most British lamb is genuinely pasture-raised for most of its life, which is unusual among the meats in this section — a fact worth knowing when comparing environmental or welfare claims across species.
Nutrients worth knowing about
At 267 kcal, 16.88 g protein, 21.59 g fat and 9.47 g saturated fat per 100 g, this average is a fattier profile than the corresponding beef or pork figures — largely a consequence of what “trimmed at retail” means for lamb.
Lamb is a strong source of Vitamin B12 (Cobalamin), Zinc, Selenium, Vitamin B3 (Niacin) and Phosphorus, and supplies well-absorbed haem Iron.
Two points of context. UK guidance advises people eating more than 90 g of red and processed meat a day to cut down to around 70 g. And the saturated fat figure here is high enough to matter within the 20 g/day (women) and 30 g/day (men) UK reference amounts — trimming visible fat, and choosing leg over shoulder, both make a measurable difference.