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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

#181

Post by sgdpk »

Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #127
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…

As someone trying to lose weight, all the conflicting advice out there is so frustrating. Should I eat ‘n’ times a day or just once? Is fasting good, or will it put me in ‘starvation mode’? Why is it that when I was young I didn’t even need to think about my food intake and stayed really, really lean? Do we have a set-point and if so, has mine gone up and am I going to be forever hungry if I want to get back to a sen…

Unfortunately the most compelling evidence I've seen seems to confirm the weight set-point (or set-interval) theory. A good book that summarizes main results is Sandra Aamodt's "Why diets don't work".

That's not to say weight loss is impossible. If you're overeating as a habit you may be keeping your weight above your set-point. Learning to "listen" to hunger cues may then bring your weight down. It happened to me 2 years ago and I managed to keep the weight down, and I'm not feeling hungry. There are other ways of lowering the set-point, but not very recommendable in general.

I think focusing on hunger cues and eating a balanced diet is good advice, together with exercise and avoiding drinking and smoking. These will (statistically) reduce morbidity risks to normal-weight levels.

Note that I am not a doctor, though, so take this information with the proper grain of salt.

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

#182

Post by Retric »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #150
ses1984 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us find it incredibly hard, almost impossible, to just eat less. Also some would argue that keeping a food journal and measuring every calorie you eat is far more complicated than special diets like "don't eat carbs" which are successful for some people without measuring or recording anything.

Not sure why you are getting downvoted. Counting calories is fairly simple if you are eating fast food or out of packages. I found it to be a huge pain in the ass when eating whole foods.

You don’t need extreme precision when counting calories. The trick is to A develop a reasonable baseline for breaking even at your weight and activity level. Then B make a significant reduction sufficient to lose weight in a reasonable timeframe. You can call them calories or magic beans, as long as the energy ratio is about right that’s plenty.

Really, the difference between say 2,500 calories a day and 1,800 is about the magnitude you want and not that hard to differentiate.

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

#183

Post by dmix »

Medicalidiot wrote: post #171
Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone trying to lose weight, all the conflicting advice out there is so frustrating. Should I eat ‘n’ times a day or just once? Is fasting good, or will it put me in ‘starvation mode’? Why is it that when I was young I didn’t even need to think about my food intake and stayed really, really lean? Do we have a set-point and if so, has mine gone up and am I going to be forever hungry if I want to get back to a sen…

All the fad diets, trendy diet suggestions, are bullshit. Cogent science has delineated what we should be eating: lots of vegetables(3-5 cups of carrots, peas, green beans, spinach), complex carbohydrates(think fiber, whole wheat), lean meats(fish and chicken), and unsaturated oils (olive oil). It doesn't matter if you eat them all at once, what matters is that you go after vegetables first then go after the rest. Su…

Not eating bread, cereal, or sugar had a big impact for me. I haven’t gone full keto but I’ve found just doing that is sufficiently challenging and effective for long term weight loss. Especially once you hit 30 it’s should be something you start drilling into your head and simply stop buying it.

Replacing sugar with Erythritol and monk fruit has been more than sufficient replacement for things like coffee and small treats. It’s hard to find commercial products with Erythritol which is a shame but that seems to be slowly changing.

Sadly most “sugar free” products have Maltodextrin or Xylitol which is awful for me as I have colitis and I’ve read they aren’t keto friendly. If every product that contained those two switched to the former two my life shopping for groceries would be so much easier.

I also don’t go hard at restaurants (nothing worse than having to be picky at a restaurant) mostly for practicality reasons but that would be the 2nd area I'd focus on next if I started to care more.

Starting small and simple (ie just no bread) at the beginning is the best way. Abrupt changes usually have A abrupt endings as you significantly increase the workload.

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

#184

Post by perl4ever »

tebs1200 wrote: post #110
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 you like people to pitch as an alternative effective action? It's something that most people can look at immediately. You eat every day so what you eat does have a relatively large impact on your personal carbon footprint. It's also something people can do that doesn't have to cost them a cent.

A person's carbon footprint is approximately proportional to the amount of stuff they consume, measured in dollars. Getting into the weeds on what's more or less carbon intensive and other details is just a way to evade living like someone much poorer than you are. Look around and see if there are people who live on half your income. If there are, then you could too, if you really cared.

If you can't help spending all you make, maybe you could start by getting a new job that pays much less than your old one...

That won't save the planet, but it is the way to do your part.

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

#185

Post by goldforever »

zacherates wrote: post #86
narrator wrote: post #15

Diet science is the most pathetically politicized "science" next to economics. On one side you've got the industry groups promoting their food and giving out grants to scientists to get the right results. On another side you've got the rich radical environmental and animal rights activists wanting everyone to go Vegan and giving out grants to scientists to get their results. It's just a clusterf k of politics going b…

While funding and conflicts of interest are an issue, a much bigger problem with nutrition research is that it is extremely difficult/expensive/unethical to study the outcomes people actually care about (living longer, losing weight, preventing disease), because that would require being able to control a large number of people's diet for decades (which in turn would require either paying/motivating them enough to com…

Agreed, you've nailed it!

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

#186

Post by tobib »

sgdpk wrote: post #181
Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone trying to lose weight, all the conflicting advice out there is so frustrating. Should I eat ‘n’ times a day or just once? Is fasting good, or will it put me in ‘starvation mode’? Why is it that when I was young I didn’t even need to think about my food intake and stayed really, really lean? Do we have a set-point and if so, has mine gone up and am I going to be forever hungry if I want to get back to a sen…

Unfortunately the most compelling evidence I've seen seems to confirm the weight set-point (or set-interval) theory. A good book that summarizes main results is Sandra Aamodt's "Why diets don't work". That's not to say weight loss is impossible. If you're overeating as a habit you may be keeping your weight above your set-point. Learning to "listen" to hunger cues may then bring your weight down. It happened to me 2…

> Note that I am not a doctor, though, so take this information with the proper grain of salt.

In moderation though, too much sodium is bad for you

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

#187

Post by rmtech »

jeremyw wrote: post #175
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...

Note, all of these studies use a low standard of evidence (food questionnaires and the like), and they generate low signal (barely registering positive/negative). Read John Ioannidis @ Stanford for why these methods should banned, and why nutritional research currently produces mostly irrelevant data. Harvard, unfortunately, has doubled-down on this style of science. It's not helpful that the press supports these met…

Got a reference for ioannidis on this topic specifically?

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

#188

Post by copperx »

ses1984 wrote: post #131
p10_user wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know you have to eat less. Counting your calories with a food journal is a very successful way to keep yourself accountable for how much you’re eating. Any special diet or strategy is making it more complicated than it is.

Some of us find it incredibly hard, almost impossible, to just eat less. Also some would argue that keeping a food journal and measuring every calorie you eat is far more complicated than special diets like "don't eat carbs" which are successful for some people without measuring or recording anything.

I wholeheartedly agree. Eating less for some people with strong hunger pains can be almost impossible. I was one of them. Skipping breakfast would make me irrationally angry, and the pain of having an empty stomach was too much to bear. I could not concentrate even if I had mild hunger.

I'm going to plug in a program that changed my life, even though I have never done that, and I don't really agree with their business model, but their methodology for training yourself to eat less is top-notch and incredibly simple. The program is called Naturally Slim, and many insurance companies cover it.

I think their $50/month fee for non-insured people is a bit outrageous because the principles are simple:

* Eat really slowly and stop eating when you're not hungry anymore (not full, just not hungry). Throw away the rest of the food or store it for later.

* Only eat when you're really hungry.

* Drink diluted orange juice at a 1:8 ratio throughout the day to maintain a steady glucose level and prevent hunger.

* Your meals should consist of about 1/3 vegetable or animal protein to keep hunger away.

* Instead of having breakfast, drink plenty of water or the diluted orange juice. Most people aren't really hungry in the morning.

The beauty is that as your body weight drops, your caloric requirements drop, and if you're following the first rule, you're eating less every week.

Probably that's how anorexia sufferers get to eat so little without feeling devastating hunger.

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

#189

Post by cageface »

scottlocklin wrote: post #180
cageface wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Major fast food chains are rolling out plant based burgers, backed by massive marketing campaigns. You bet the meat industry is threatened by this. If you’re really interested in learning more about this read the book Meatanomics: https://meatonomics.com/ The typical keto diet is an improvement over the standard American diet loaded with junk but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other dietary options with better long t…

That isn't really much of a citation; it's an assertion, and the thing you link me to is ... not a citation either: it's some kind of vegetarian propaganda. I don't care about factory farming or the "personal dignity" of cows; I just want to know why you think there is a "meat industry" engaged in disinformation programs. From the looks of this link, you may be projecting. FWIIW I barely eat red meat when I'm in Amer…

There are so many industry funded studies with conclusions contrary to mainstream wisdom I hardly know where to start. This article lists several, just as an example:

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/marta-zaraska-big-meat-a...

Also the statement that you don’t care about factory farming is a pretty appalling disregard for the suffering of intelligent animals.

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

#190

Post by lhl »

tobylane wrote: post #10
chrisco255 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think to the contrary, and agree with Amber Heard, "Eat meat. Not too little. Mostly fat." http://www.empiri.ca/p/eat-meat-not-too-little-mostly-fat.ht... But ultimately what we should all agree on is: eat less processed foods, less sugar, don't overeat, fasting is cool, exercise often.

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.

I agree that carbon footprint should be something that people keep in mind when they're eating. What's worth noting though is that regenerative agriculture (where the goal is to be sustainable and can be carbon net negative) requires ruminant grazing as part of the integrative crop production cycle.

A recently commissioned LCA study done by Quantis showed that for White Oak Pastures, estimated carbon footprint was -3.5kg CO2e/kg (vs 30+ for conventional beef): http://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/blog/carbon-negative-grassf...

This seems to jibe well with the research coming out of the Rodale Institute and peer review (I've written previously about this so instead of rewriting, I'll just link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20652657).

WOP sells 1 lb of their ground beef for $10/lb (either a 90/10 or 80/20 blend), so it's about twice as expensive as conventional beef: https://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic/data/averageretailf... (you could probably match the price if you are able to buy and store in bulk from a local regenerative-practice farm), but I think for most people reading this comment, the price difference is still de minimis compared to their overall daily cost/expenditure.

Another thing to keep in mind is the latest and most detailed FAO put full LCA (this includes supply chain, etc) of CO2e of global livestock production at 14.5%: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/

IMO the anti-beef climate story seems to be very overblown/disproportionate compared to its relative GHG impact (lets not distracted, switching off of fossil fuels is by far the priority).

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