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

nytimes.com

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

#91

Post by koboll »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #5

Actual paper: https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2752328/unprocessed-red-m... Harvard response: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2019/09/30/flaw...

The first three grey Q&A boxes on the Harvard response are a pretty devastating rebuttal to the paper.

To summarize:

- 3 of the 5 meta-analyses reviewed support the consensus on red meat's health dangers

- The other 2 are irrelevant and shouldn't have been considered at all

- The paper handwaves away the conclusions of the 3 by raising reliability issues that could be applied to any meta-analysis of nutrition, since it's impossible to perform nutritional research as rigorously as drug research

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

#92

Post by sparrc »

sleavey wrote: post #12

I guess this study gives credence to the relatively old idea that modern bad health (chronic inflammation, cardiovascular diseases, dental problems, etc.) is driven by the high levels of carbohydrate and linoleic acid (omega 6, found in large quantities in sunflower and other seed oils) in our diets and not the traditionally "bad" foodstuffs like red meat and foods containing high cholesterol and saturated fat. I'm l…

Is this an 'old' idea? In this context isn't the 'old' idea that saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for you?

How does this hypothesis deal with the fact that vegans and vegetarians have lower levels of cardiovascular disease, lower blood cholesterol, and lower risk of diabetes (honest question, I'd assume that vegans and vegetarians generally eat much more carbs)?

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

#93

Post by 01100011 »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #27

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…

It's my understanding that Neu5Gc can trigger a low-level inflammatory response, but generally not auto-immune disease as it is typically defined. It may be that the resulting inflammation is less damaging than inflammation caused by things like increased carbohydrate or omega-6 oil intake.

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

#94

Post by lazyasciiart »

jackfoxy wrote: post #71
asdf21 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've known this for years, and own a restaurant that serves all of our fried food cooked in beef tallow rather than seed oils. Everyone loves the taste of the food, I guess our fries ruin other chains for people.

McDonald's used to fry fries in beef tallow, but caved to the settled health science of the day in 1983. Here's the recipe to fry your own. https://grannysvitalvittles.com/stovetop-beef-tallow-french-...

I don't know why that site thinks it happened in 1983, but McDonalds stopped using beef tallow for fries in 1990 (in the US) because a really rich guy decided they should and was willing to put millions of dollars into making that happen. Phil Sokolof obituary - https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-apr-16-me-sokol...

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

#95

Post by achenatx »

saagarjha wrote: post #36
jumpman500 wrote: post #26

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?

worldwide plague or nuclear war

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

#96

Post by chrisco255 »

jschwartzi wrote: post #83
chrisco255 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's in environments where forests exist. I would agree with you there. In the U.S. the Great Plains were not forests in any recent millenia. I'm comparing corn and soy fields to grasslands.

Consider though that most "grass-fed" beef is grown in places like Brazil or Argentina where the native forest is cut down to make space for it. Or as an alternative consider how many cows are grown in feedlots and would instead need grassland to roam on and you can see how everyone indulging in red meat at their current level but with grass-fed beef could result in another environmental disaster. A better way to thi…

Very few soybeans are used for cattle. The meal from soybeans is used on chickens and pigs. Cattle cannot stomach very much soy at all. They are more likely to be fed some grain, but their diet is 90+% hay and grass even on feed lot cattle. Soy meal is the leftover part of the soy bean. About 20% of a soy bean is used to produce soy oil, which is the primary source of human nutrition in soy. That's what's used to make soy milk, soy protein, etc. The meal component of the bean is not useful for all these other byproducts that soy acts as an ingredient of. So it would be a waste of perfectly good food not to feed that to chickens and pigs.

Land use management in Brazil sounds like an incredibly nuanced topic that I know next to nothing about. I'm much more familiar with American agriculture. And we make most of our own food here, including our own beef.

Source: https://ncsoy.org/media-resources/uses-of-soybeans/

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

#97

Post by coldtea »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #66
sleavey wrote: post #12

I guess this study gives credence to the relatively old idea that modern bad health (chronic inflammation, cardiovascular diseases, dental problems, etc.) is driven by the high levels of carbohydrate and linoleic acid (omega 6, found in large quantities in sunflower and other seed oils) in our diets and not the traditionally "bad" foodstuffs like red meat and foods containing high cholesterol and saturated fat. I'm l…

The body doesn't need carbohydrates to function. If you consume exclusively fats and protein (with very low levels of carbohydrates: less than 25g/day), the process of ketosis will kick in: your body will start converting fats to ketone bodies, specifically beta-hydroxy-butyrate, which as used as energy in the brain, heart, etc. instead of glucose.

Or that's a half-understood idea some push [1], mostly looking into first order effects, and unaware of the bigger picture (except from cherry-picking this or that pro-keto study, which are themselves a dime a dozen, like most nutrition studies are).

[1] Nutrition in general, is at this point scientifically half-understood. Science has tons of things it still tries to understand and needs to explain on nutrition...

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

#98

Post by philipkglass »

asdf21 wrote: post #73
fucking_tragedy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farmed salmon is often high in mercury[1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsbtit20DLo

Sheesh, how does that even happen? Does Hg just spontaneously appear? Sorry, can't watch video at work.

Farmed salmon usually has fish meal (sourced from wild-caught fish that has lower economic value) as a significant part of its diet. Those wild-caught fish concentrate organomercury compounds like other wild fish, and the compounds pass on to farmed salmon who eat them.

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

#99

Post by bpodgursky »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #5

Actual paper: https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2752328/unprocessed-red-m... Harvard response: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2019/09/30/flaw...

The Harvard response undercuts itself by bringing up "environmental sustainability"

It isn't wrong, but it seriously calls into question whether the aim of the recommendation against red meat purely accurate nutrition science or a broader agenda.

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

#100

Post by thrownblown »

asdf21 wrote: post #74
jackfoxy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonald's used to fry fries in beef tallow, but caved to the settled health science of the day in 1983. Here's the recipe to fry your own. https://grannysvitalvittles.com/stovetop-beef-tallow-french-...

Yep, we tell people that all the time. We do our fries like McDonalds did in the fifties.

Checkout Malcolm Gladwells podcast regarding how MickieDees abandoned the beef fat.

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/19-mcdonalds-broke-my...

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