Beef and lamb eaters are consuming much less fat with their meat than in the 1990s, helping to reduce heart disease.
Forty per cent of deaths are from cardiovascular disease, mainly heart disease and strokes.
One of the risk factors is high cholesterol, which is linked to consumption of saturated
fat such as found in butter and most meat fat.
Research published in today's New Zealand Medical Journal shows that trimming of red meat before sale to comply with the industry's Quality Mark since 1997 has reduced the fat content of the meat, including mince and sausages, by 30 per cent.
When coupled with a reduction in the supply of red meat, this has led to a 65 per cent drop in the average person's saturated fat intake from red meat, says the author, public health physician Dr Murray Laugesen.
This translates into a 27 per cent reduction in the amount of saturated fat in the total food supply.
In 1995, New Zealand had the highest per capita supply of butter and meat fats among 24 Western countries.
In the following five years, the death rate for heart disease and stroke decreased by a third for men and one-fifth for women. The reduction in smoking could not explain all of the reduction, the paper says.
Asked last night if the reduction in meat fat played a role, Dr Laugesen said, "I think it's contributed to it".
Heart Foundation medical director Dr Norman Sharpe agreed, adding that it was one of a range of lifestyle and treatment factors that had helped.
The paper says that while the two main suppliers sold almost all their beef and lamb cuts under the Quality Mark, most mince sold in the shops inspected made no claims under that or the Heart Foundation Pick the Tick scheme, which both required less than 10 per cent fat.
The samples tested at 20 per cent fat. Sausages, under the 2002 Food Standards Code, can have a maximum of 33 per cent fat.
Auckland University researchers Cliona Ni Mhurchu and Carlene Lawless, commenting in the journal, questioned where the meat fat went.
"It seems likely that much of it re-enters the food supply in the form of mince, sausages, processed meats, pies and other processed foods, all of which are significant sources of saturated fat intake in New Zealand."
