White meat being stuff like chicken, turkey, seafood, poultry. Red meat being beef, pork, lamb, etc.
Please be thorough, including info about nutritional content or risks of mortality, etc. If they’re equal, then would meat eaters feel no need to choose between them?
Red meat tends to be higher in nutrients than poultry, more iron, zinc, b12, etc.. I wouldn’t lump poultry and seafood into the same category however. Seafood is typically more nutritious than poultry.
Research suggests that eating a lot of red meat (particularly when charred) and processed meat has links to the development of cancer. So far there is no research that links white meat and cancer development.
(American Institute for Cancer Research)
https://www.wcrf.org/dietandcancer/meat-fish-and-dairy/
https://www.wcrf.org/dietandcancer/limit-red-and-processed-meat/
(From the Australian Cancer Council)
(Journal article)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4698595/
Sure in some ways, white meat is definitely healthier. But red meat has it’s benefits too such as more nutrients and such like Iron, which a lot of people become easily deficient of. I think it’s a good thing to have red meat in your diet about once a week.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Carnitine. Red meat is way higher in Carnitine and Carnitine is bad for you, or rather, Carnitine is an important protein, but the bacteria in your gut that breaks it down releases some bad biproducts into your blood stream.
If you look on page 513 of this PDF Scientific Report to the 2020 Dietary Guidelines you’ll see that a review of the dietary patterns showed increase risk in several factors for Red Meat, but lower risk in several factors for Seafood and Lean Meat
they’re pretty much the same. studies showing any difference between them are always observational ones with data statistically polluted from decades of medical advice against fat consumption in general, especially from meat
the wiser approach to this “choice” is to prefer variety when possible (not only from the animals themselves, but between different cuts from the same animal - eating only beef is fine as long as you’re willing to try a dozen different cuts and the liver, kidneys, heart, lungs…) but in general sticking to what’s sourced as locally and sustainably as posible
factory-farmed food (from either land or water) is best avoided and if you know there’s a local producer whose food doesn’t need to travel far to reach you, that should be a good bet (it’s probably going to be cheaper anyway). as an example, I live in a reasonably big city (>1 million inhabitants) around 100km from the closest seashore so seafood and saltwater fish are not my main choices; on the other hand, the metropolitan area around the city contains plenty of semi-rural regions with suitable conditions for free-range beef, pork and chickens, which I consume more regularly
I struggle with red meat so much. The WHO says it’s a grade 2A carcinogen and my family has a history of cancer. I don’t like red meat in general enough to eat it if it is carcinogenic but I would love to add a night of grass fed ground beef to my diet once a week just for the nutritional variety.
Red meat is the only source of every amino acid. White meat is lower in calories and used for fat loss. Depending on your diet and your own personal beliefs, either can be considered healthy! For example: if you are following a ketogenic diet and depend on fats to keep you satiated, I would recommend red meats. If you are counting calories then I would recommend white meats. :)
white meat is healthier for muscle building, losing weight and keeping it down since you could eat it every day if cooked right. Organic or grass fed red meat is healthy too. Mongolians eat grass fed red meat everyday and they’re pretty healthy.
Red meat is generally less healthy than other meats; eaten too often, red meat causes diabetes, cancer, and strokes, among other issues.
Which would mean that yup, other meats are more healthy than red meats.
You are what you eat and that is true of what we eat.It all starts with the diet of the animal. Cows digestive system are not designed for things like, GMO corn & scraps , therefore the byproduct is no longer beneficial- the meat, cheese etc is void of enzymes produced in the gut. Hence the believe that , meat ,butter & milk is bad; pasteurization futher destroys any benefit. That’s why Grass fed beef is best. Same is for chickens which are worse for us, because they live in horrible conditions and are given much more, antibodies and steroids. We keep looking for a scientific explanation when its nutritional data that should be followed.
I will say what I tell all of my clients - IT DEPENDS. It depends on the current status of the person eating the meats. There may be someone who can benefit from red meats, say someone who is dealing with low minerals, like iron for example.
When eating poultry, there may be someone who can benefit from eating that as well - say someone who is trying to cut weight or reduce the state of high blood pressure/high cholesterol.
There are many variables that play a role in deciding what is right for someone in terms of “what is healthy”. The real question we should be answering your question with should be “what is you current health status ? And what is to it goal”
If you keep all things constant - organic, unprocessed, no antibiotics and no hormones out of this..
The biggest difference between the two is fat content. White meat is a leaner source of protein, with a lower fat content. Red meat contains higher levels of fat, but also contains higher levels of vitamins like iron, zinc and B vitamins, esp B12. And the fat always varies tremendously in red meat, depending on animal and type of cut.
Seafood isn’t the same as poultry as (quality) seafood has much higher levels essential omega 3 fatty acids, especially the EPA and DHA content.
In short…
No.
The evidence to support the idea that red meat in any way contributes to heart disease or cancer is so absurdly weak as to not exist. Professor Gordon Guyatt (one of the lead founders of “evidence-based medicine”), who somewhat recently contributed to a massive review of the evidence re: red meat and cancer (IIRC), says the evidence is so weak as to be irrelevant. He likens the recommendations on limiting red meat to be akin to flying a plane with one engine and one wing because it’s “all we have”.
How epidemiology has treated this subject:Observation rife with confounding variables > Weak correlation > Mechanistic proposals
I don’t think there is a single study that has appropriately isolated red meat eating from other relevant lifestyle variables and contexts. The issue is that people who expressly don’t eat red meat tend to make more health-conscious decisions than the hordes of people who eat at McDonald’s every day.
The way to test this would be to put people on a red-meat only diet and see what their outcomes are like, which has yet to be formalized. I think the most telling observations come from people who go on carnivore diets to improve GI issues or autoimmune health (the vast majority of whom eat exclusively red meat). I must stress that bioindividuality is hugely important, but it’s safe to say a large majority of these people not only find huge relief from symptoms (issues from IBS to Chron’s to chronic inflammation), they usually lean out (calorie control is very easy), put on muscle and report life-changing subjective improvements in mood, sleep quality, etc. None of these people to my knowledge get gout, scurvy, kidney stones, or raise inflammation (most lower it dramatically). I recall reading a number of cases where people found drastic improvement to cancer treatment response as well as one MD reporting long-term remission of a typically very fatal cancer (will see if I can find a link). Many see improvements in their bloodwork (reduction of triglycerides and apo B in some cases). Even for those that don’t have obvious bloodwork improvements, CACs and fluoroscopies they’ve publicly posted are clean. Now this doesn’t mean it’s a magical, be-all-end-all diet, but I think it points heavily to the health benefits of red meat and discredits much of the naysaying, at the very least demanding more robust evidence for common claims against it.
Saturated fat is an interesting one and one I’m still somewhat agnostic about, bioindividuality aside. Most studies rely heavily on epidemiology and some of the better RCT’s we have rely on absurd metrics like whether a muffin has palm (saturated) or polyunsaturated fat in it. A research team in the BMJ criticized this evidence for not attending to the source of the fats and the surrounding context, since this does make a dramatic difference in many cases. I even experimented on myself and despite eating \~20-25% cal saturated fat a day for about a year and a half, my apoB ended up in optimal range, my TGs were impressively low (42) and my HDL was quite high (at age 31).
Long story short: If you already eat little processed food (bread, store-bought baked and packaged goods, etc), don’t smoke, exercise regularly, and sleep well, the evidence we do have suggests red meat is still very low on your list of priorities. While not a popular opinion per se, I buy the argument that red meat is one of the most nutrient-dense, healthy foods available to us.
Relevant articles:
https://peterattiamd.com/is-red-meat-killing-us/
https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2012/03/red-meat-mortality-the-usual-bad-science/