Live data from Hacker News

New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

nytimes.com

51–60 of 314 posts

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#51

It's complicated. Telling people who have been abstaining from eating red meat that it's ok to eat it might also be a bad idea. Humans lost the enzyme that converts Neu5Ac to Neu5Gc. Other animals have Neu5Gc, which can be incorporated into your own tissues and potentially be recognized as foreign. So if you haven't been exposed to animal products and you suddenly are, that could trigger auto-immunity. Oh and of cour…

As an anecdote, my wife gave up vegetarianism after ten years and suffered no consequences coming back onto meat. She started with a tiny bit of pork and the next day was eating chicken, pork, etc. The fact is humans are omnivores.

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#52
post #4

I just figured out a weird trick to read the page on Firefox without the sign-in/register popover: open the page in reader mode and refresh. It seems the popover appears only after page loading has finished, before which the full article is available. Reader mode ignores JavaScript, so this works.

It's also possible to force reader mode, for sites where Firefox doesn't want to display the icon. Append this to the beginning of the url: about:reader?url=

Wow - great tip! I'm always annoyed when sites disable it.

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to see lower carbon cost become an important goal of keto dieters. Eggs, fish, etc count for keto as I understand it. I don’t like the fetishisation of red meat.

Ruminant grass-fed meat is the best thing for the environment. It requires no pesticides, no herbicides, and the manure their bodies produce act as fertilizer and cause grasslands to expand and sequester carbon. Meanwhile, wildlife can actually live on a pasture. Rabbits, squirrels, birds, tons of insects, snakes, even coyotes. Wheat, corn and soy fields by contrast require artificial fertilization, insecticide appli…

How much keto/carno red meat is raised in such an idyllic settings?

Most red meat is factory-raised and fed tons of those artificially fertilized/pest-controlled grains, belching massive amounts of methane before getting trucked around the country - toxic for the environment.

Environmentally friendly meat does exist, by some definitions, but those locally-raised antibiotic-free grass-fed pasture-raised free-range sustainable meats are expensive.

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cocaine is also a natural compound. So's cyanide. Pretty sure the 'invisible hand' demonized animal fats and promoted sugar, and now people are are starting to come to their senses.

Do you have a source showing that Cocaine is a natural compound? Perhaps the invisible hand did demonize animal fats and promote sugar but how is that in any way related to my argument?

Cocaine is found in coca leaves.

"The pharmacologically active ingredient of coca is the cocaine alkaloid, which is found in the amount of about 0.3 to 1.5%, averaging 0.8%" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca

Can you clarify what your argument is?

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#55

Wasn't there a Woody Allen movie about this? People in the future were cramming Twinkies into their mouths and living longer because everything we thought we knew about nutrition was wrong?

Sleeper. He wakes up hundreds of years in the future, and starts asking for health foods. From the early 70s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2fYguIX17Q

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like people to stop pitching diets as a way to fix climate change. It makes people take global warming less seriously and it won't help enough to matter.

What would?

Fewer children.

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#57
post #2

I agree that dietary research needs to continue but I think the back and forth about what to eat (saturated vs non saturated, no salt vs salt ok etc) needs to slow down. I think the best advice is that by Michael Pollan "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

"Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

Even this seemingly simple advice can change depending on metabolism and exercise habits. As someone with a fast metabolism who exercises a lot, it's difficult to impossible for me to each too much whole/non-processed food. The more I eat (including meat/proteins, vegetables/fruit, carbs, fat, and non-junk food calories in general), the better and stronger I feel, both physically and mentally. My challenge is the opposite: if I'm not fairly disciplined about eating nutritionally dense foods every few hours during the day, I won't be at my best.

So for me it's more like "Eat food, as much as you can, with as much nutritional density and variety as possible".

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#58
post #43

How about "eat no meat regardless of nutritional value (unless absolutely necessary) because it's unethical to do so"?

Unethical for whom? It's not like ethics is universal.

I'd say unethical for everyone.

This isn't even just an "animal rights" debate. It's also a debate about the impact that eating meat has on the environment.

There's way too many "eat less meat" articles to list, but here's one: https://time.com/5648082/un-climate-report-less-meat/

Sure, it's a bit of a jump from "eat less meat" to "eat no meat", but the trend is there.

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to see lower carbon cost become an important goal of keto dieters. Eggs, fish, etc count for keto as I understand it. I don’t like the fetishisation of red meat.

Ruminant grass-fed meat is the best thing for the environment. It requires no pesticides, no herbicides, and the manure their bodies produce act as fertilizer and cause grasslands to expand and sequester carbon. Meanwhile, wildlife can actually live on a pasture. Rabbits, squirrels, birds, tons of insects, snakes, even coyotes. Wheat, corn and soy fields by contrast require artificial fertilization, insecticide appli…

The best thing for the environment is not cutting down forests to replace them with grasslands. I just got back from Maui where this was standard practice for hundreds of years, and in fact one of the neighboring islands(Kaho'olawe) no longer catches rain because the ruminant grass-fed beef cattle that were ranched on that island ate all of the vegetation year after year resulting in massive erosion of the topsoil. What you would call "wildlife living on a pasture" is actually the invasion of endemic ecology with one that is alien to the area, and this has a significant impact on the endemic species.

So no, grass-fed beef is not particularly good for the environment.

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cocaine is also a natural compound. So's cyanide. Pretty sure the 'invisible hand' demonized animal fats and promoted sugar, and now people are are starting to come to their senses.

Do you have a source showing that Cocaine is a natural compound? Perhaps the invisible hand did demonize animal fats and promote sugar but how is that in any way related to my argument?

[deleted]
Post reply on HN