We all know meat contains a high amount of nutrients and a good way to get in a lot of calories but what else does the meat contain that may be harmful for the body and what meats are better than others?
There has been concern about saturated fat in red and processed meat. The American Heart Association and medical authorities such as Mayo Clinic recommend limiting it.
Interestingly, recent studies in the news have, for a change, looked separately at red and processed meats and point to the issue really being nitrites in processed meat. News stories about nutrition studies come out all the time and flip-flop upon further study, so medical advice has not changed.
At the very least, the conclusion that processed meat is associated with CVD seems solid. Yet, many people would rather die happy than give up bacon …
All of the studies that are cited to say that red meat consumption is harmful have a lot of flaws. The biggest and most common issue with these studies being that theyre epidemiology, meaning that they arent well controlled. Epidemiology research was not created to show cause, but that got lost somewhere along the way.
Another issue is that a lot of studies put red meat and processed red meat in the same catagory. Processed food in general has many negatice effects on health.
I have also read studies, that were cited by the AHA to show red meat causes cancer, where the conclusion will say it does but the results section shows no statistical difference.
I always welcome new research that people have to show me, but so far I have not seen a convincing ammount of well controlled research to show that red meat is unhealthy in any way.
Processed red meat is bad, just like anything else processed.
Cholesterol, IGF-1, saturated fat, Trans fat, heme iron, flame retardants, heavy metals, PCBs, and other pollutants that concentrate up the food chain. It’s smart to limit meat consumption especially meat that’s high in fat.
The Safety of Heme vs. Non-heme iron https://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-safety-of-heme-vs-non-heme-iron/
Heart attacks and cholesterol levelshttps://www.uclahealth.org/news/most-heart-attack-patients-cholesterol-levels-did-not-indicate-cardiac-risk#:~:text=Media%20Contact&text=A%20new%20national%20study%20has,on%20current%20national%20cholesterol%20guidelines.
Flame Retardants in US Foodhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18040989/
Meat consumption and increased diabetes risk https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22983636/
IGF-1 and cancer riskhttps://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/1999/04/growth-factor-raises-cancer-risk/