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Less Processed Meat, More Plant-Based Foods May Boost Longevity

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31–40 of 129 posts

Re: Less Processed Meat, More Plant-Based Foods May Boost Longevity

#31

Regarding processed meat, what part of the processing makes the meat unhealthy? Or is it something related to how processed meat is often consumed vs unprocessed meat?

It's all the additional steps and products added. A lot of processed meat are juste a slime of bones, skin, organs, ligaments whatever was left on the carcass of the animal. On top of that it comes from low quality (cheap) animals in the first place which doesn't help.

It's like eating a fruit vs drinking a juice, or eating raw veggies vs a broth. The original material is the same but it doesn't mean it holds the same benefits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9il0DVhT86E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NzUm7UEEIY

Re: Less Processed Meat, More Plant-Based Foods May Boost Longevity

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also cause way less suffering in the world, which is something I believe is very much worth striving for.

Eating far less meat, but meat that is produced to far higher standards of animal welfare would seem a reasonable compromise to me.

[deleted]

Re: Less Processed Meat, More Plant-Based Foods May Boost Longevity

#33

I think the longevity of dietary advice is pretty low. Remember when eggs were the enemy, when fat was the enemy, when carbs were the enemy? Meat had to have it's turn sometime.

Huge sums are being spent to confuse consumers. Reliable research has actually been pretty consistent for decades and repeatedly implicates dietary cholesterol and saturated fat in a variety of diseases.

Re: Less Processed Meat, More Plant-Based Foods May Boost Longevity

#34

I think the longevity of dietary advice is pretty low. Remember when eggs were the enemy, when fat was the enemy, when carbs were the enemy? Meat had to have it's turn sometime.

Research and science advance and find new evidences that invalidates the past belief.

Re: Less Processed Meat, More Plant-Based Foods May Boost Longevity

#35
post #24
post #3

With more and more people switching to vegetarian and vegan fake meats, I'd be interested in understanding what is the wisdom on highly processed vegetable-based foods.

Processing foods is what likely helped Homo to get enough energy to evolve big brains. So, processing foods isn’t all that bad, and it may even be hard-wired in many of us. But, Humans tend to take things too far, and inventing new ways of processing is really fun! So, most food today is over-processed. It’s acceptable to grind, dice, tear, smash, smush, squeeze, ferment, spice, salt, and cook veggies, lightly. Any m…

I think that is slight miss-use of term processed food. Process food (at least to me) is anything that has been artificially adjusted by factory processing, like injecting meat with some solutions in order to 'make' more meat.

I would hardly qualified lets say smoked bacon as processed food in that sense. But all of those microwave ready meals et al. large content of it is cheap filler masqueraded as actual product.

Re: Less Processed Meat, More Plant-Based Foods May Boost Longevity

#36

I think the longevity of dietary advice is pretty low. Remember when eggs were the enemy, when fat was the enemy, when carbs were the enemy? Meat had to have it's turn sometime.

Eating processed meat has been consistently "bad for you" since at least the late 60's, when I remember being told that bologna and hot dogs weren't healthy but ok as a treat.

Re: Less Processed Meat, More Plant-Based Foods May Boost Longevity

#37
post #8
post #6

I wonder how true this is. I have been trying to switch to a more carnivore diet - more red meat eg steak - for rumored benefits of lowering inflammation and boosting immune system. This is stating the reverse.

It's nutritional science, so the error bars are big, the effect sizes are small and the confounding variables numerous. At least a plant-based diet reduces your GHG footprint, so there's that. If you want to switch to a more carnivorous diet, I'd suggest chicken instead of beef. The evidence for mammalian meat being slightly carcinogenic seems to be pretty solid, and the climate impact of beef is about ten times that…

Chicken is one of the most inflammatory things you can eat. It’s loaded with arachidonic acid.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6428879/

Re: Less Processed Meat, More Plant-Based Foods May Boost Longevity

#38

I think the longevity of dietary advice is pretty low. Remember when eggs were the enemy, when fat was the enemy, when carbs were the enemy? Meat had to have it's turn sometime.

Perhaps we can judge the statements on the evidence behind them?

The reason that processed meat (that is meats which are smoked, salted, etc.) is recommended to not be eaten is because it has been shown to be carcinogenic.

The egg thing is based on the idea (I actually don't know enough to know if this is correct or not) that dietary cholesterol intake affects blood cholesterol levels, and eggs have a bit of dietary cholesterol in them.

I get that we're not very educated within this area but perhaps we should stay quiet then? What's the point in writing comments on HN about things we know very little about?

Re: Less Processed Meat, More Plant-Based Foods May Boost Longevity

#39
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also cause way less suffering in the world, which is something I believe is very much worth striving for.

Animals eating other animals is natural evolutionary behavior. If carnivore animals had the same concerns and turned to tofu, they'd be dead. Let's concentrate of the suffering of our fellow human beings...

Humans are not carnivores, and lions don't have grocery stores.

If ducks stopped raping other ducks, they'd go extinct too. Not really sure if that's an argument in favor of human rapists, though.

Re: Less Processed Meat, More Plant-Based Foods May Boost Longevity

#40
post #6

I wonder how true this is. I have been trying to switch to a more carnivore diet - more red meat eg steak - for rumored benefits of lowering inflammation and boosting immune system. This is stating the reverse.

Animal protein is highly inflammatory. This is about the worst thing you can do if you are concerned about inflammation. Load up on fresh vegetables and fruits instead.
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