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The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

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Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#41

Post by Ensorceled »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #14
OrvalWintermute wrote: post #3

I have often wondered: A - Are meats unhealthy, or, is it the food fed (grains on a foodlot) to the animal that negatively influences the health profile? [1] B - If meats are so unhealthy, why are the bushmen superfit and incredibly healthy into old age despite having a significant amount of meat ~25% in their diet? [2] & [3] I recognize that some animals raised on healthy grass-fed diets may have health profiles mor…

> conventional grain fed red meat "Grain fed" is not conventional.

"grain fed" IS conventional as in "in accordance with general practice; customary", it isn't conventional as in "traditional". Conventional is a poor word choice for this usage.

Buying grass raised beef is difficult or expensive in most of North America.

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#42

Post by Ensorceled »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #39
xnx wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sugar is more likely to be the next tobbacco.

The pro-meat lobby has a weird obsession with sugar. It's like the nuclear fans or anti-recycling groups that keep talking about how bad coal is. We know. We can eat less sugar and less meat. But the same places that published climate denial will attack any attempt to eat less meat or less sugar, probably pointing to the other one as the real villain. Note that a current controversy is about reducing the sugar limit…

> It's like the nuclear fans or anti-recycling groups that keep talking about how bad coal is.

I'm confused, are you implying nuclear is bad and coal is good?

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#43

Post by Ensorceled »

raarts wrote: post #31
noelwelsh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "academia" conspiracy. Academia is made of people. Most of those people just go about doing their work, like everyone else in every other job. A few commit fraud, and a few conspire with others with others to commit fraud---just like every other job.

There is no academia conspiracy, but have you seen Dopesick?

Exactly how was academia involved in the opioid crisis? That was mostly doctors and drug companies with health insurance complicity.

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#44

Post by em500 »

the_omegist wrote: post #29

Aren't most studies contradictory ? For one study claiming A you can find another claiming the opposite. In the 80s/90s there was this constant fear about cholesterol and eggs (perhaps promoted by the cereals lobby?) : did people's habits change? If yes, it was probably because of the monopoly of TV as the main source of "information". Nowadays with internet, every one follows his own little bubble of information.

Yup, according to studies, everything we eat both causes and prevents cancer[1].

AFAICT it's almost impossible to conduct convincing nutrition science. Even if the signs of the effect in observational studies are all in the same direction (usually they're not, see the reference), you still can't rule out many confounding effects. To demonstrate causality, you'd need to force a large number of people on specific diets for a long time in a proper randomized controlled trial, or show very specific bio-chemical reactions to particular food components, or (easier but still very hard) dream up some convincing "natural experiment" or "instrumental variable" to workaround the fact that people mostly choose their own diet.

[1] https://www.sciencealert.com/everything-we-eat-both-causes-a...

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#45

Post by ZeroGravitas »

OrvalWintermute wrote: post #3

I have often wondered: A - Are meats unhealthy, or, is it the food fed (grains on a foodlot) to the animal that negatively influences the health profile? [1] B - If meats are so unhealthy, why are the bushmen superfit and incredibly healthy into old age despite having a significant amount of meat ~25% in their diet? [2] & [3] I recognize that some animals raised on healthy grass-fed diets may have health profiles mor…

Regarding your point B, the current US government guidelines that the current article rails against as not being scientific enough actually say:

> The core recommendations of the Guidelines state that a healthy diet for all Americans should include vegetables, fruits, grains (half of which should be whole grains), low or non-fat dairy, and a variety of protein foods, including seafood, lean meats and poultry, eggs, legumes (beans and peas), and nuts, seeds, and soy products. Further, Americans are told to keep saturated fat content below 10% of calories (why the DGA recommends lean meat and low or non-fat dairy), added sugars below 10% of calories, and salt below 2300mg per day.

So they don't seem particularly out of line with the diet of your bushmen:

> The Bushmen are hunter-gatherers, 75% of their diet consists of vegetable, including berries, walnuts, roots and melons, that are mainly harvested by women; while the remaining 25% is made up of meat that is hunted by men who hunt, using poisoned arrows and spears.

(It's not clear how those percentages are measured, volume, weight, calories?)

And the general advice around the world is "eat less red meat, especially processed meat" which seems remarkably tame compared with the anti-meat jihad that some people seem to think is occuring.

e.g. https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-types/meat-nutrit...

> Meat is a good source of protein, vitamins and minerals in your diet. However, if you currently eat more than 90g (cooked weight) of red or processed meat a day, the Department of Health and Social Care advises that you cut down to 70g.

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#46

Post by traviswt »

Gatsky wrote: post #20

Unfortunately meat is clearly bad for you in at least one but probably many ways. The most compelling evidence to me is that carnivorous animals have higher rates of death from cancer, see fig 2 of this fascinating study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04224-5

Does that study only look at zoo animals? I would assume carnivorous animals get far more exercise when they have to hunt, chase, and kill their food than when it’s given to them. That confounding factor alone might be large. I’ve been wondering about the relation between nutritional excess and cancer, can’t recall ever seeing this studied.

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#48

Post by BirAdam »

Ensorceled wrote: post #41
Gordonjcp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> conventional grain fed red meat "Grain fed" is not conventional.

"grain fed" IS conventional as in "in accordance with general practice; customary", it isn't conventional as in "traditional". Conventional is a poor word choice for this usage. Buying grass raised beef is difficult or expensive in most of North America.

Expensive perhaps, but not that expensive. Difficult? It’s in every Kroger which is the largest grocer in the USA (afaicr), and it’s also in every Walmart. There’s a lot of beef and a lot of grass fed beef in the USA. If America simply stopped wasting so much food it would likely lower prices enough to make higher quality foods more affordable.

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#49

Post by BirAdam »

OrvalWintermute wrote: post #3

I have often wondered: A - Are meats unhealthy, or, is it the food fed (grains on a foodlot) to the animal that negatively influences the health profile? [1] B - If meats are so unhealthy, why are the bushmen superfit and incredibly healthy into old age despite having a significant amount of meat ~25% in their diet? [2] & [3] I recognize that some animals raised on healthy grass-fed diets may have health profiles mor…

Comparing one small homogenous group of people to a very large heterogeneous group of people would require controlling for a rather large set of variables. I don’t see that working well. Additionally, when looking at individuals within a single family we find variances where a diet will work for one and not for another, this applies to workout regimens and the like as well.

I would say more study is needed across the board.

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#50

Post by Fargren »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #34
Fargren wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a vacuous argument. It's true for literally anything. an excessive consumption of water is bad, drinking the right amount of clean water is solely beneficial an excessive consumption of eggs is bad, eating the right amount of eggs is solely beneficial an excessive consumption of toxic sludge is bad, eating the right amount (0) of sludge is solely beneficial The question, of course, is what is the right amount…

> true for literally anything Pedantic: no. It’s true for everything that is safe or beneficial to consume. There is no “right amount” of lead or plutonium in your diet.

Even more pedantic: The right amount is 0. I did include that case in my answer.
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