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'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

thetimes.co.uk

161–170 of 227 posts

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree, however, it does strike me as odd that when I went on carnivore diet for a couple months, it was the best I had ever felt in my life. First week was awesome, every week after that was a chore. It’s just really boring.

This is a good post, and worthy of more study. My point: Your experience is both physical and mental. Both should be measured! In some cultures, this diet is called "keto", which is basically a combo of low carb and high protein. How long did you last and what was the result?

I was trying to fix gut dysbiosis / SIBO, from a bad case of food poisoning. I was willing to try anything. I slept deeper than ever, it temporarily fixed my stomach problems and I just felt great. I did it for 8 weeks, then transitioned back to regular foods. Now that I’m typing this, makes me want to try it again.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#162
This is more than a replication error.

Large-scale studies, with results that have too many variables, have strong tendency to underwrite the consensus.

That wouldn't be such an issue, if they have huge impact on policy making.

In this case the zeitgeist is against meat, for obvious reasons, but there are many more of them.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#163
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should that matter much? Looking on their website it looks like they sell feeds for all sorts of animals, not just ones producing red meat. For most people, "not eating red meat" means eating pork/chicken not going vegan, so they don't stand to gain much from this study.

It wouldn't surprise me if beef turned out to requires significantly more feed per kilogram.

Correct: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/feed-required-to-produce-...

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#164
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not start eating humans ? this would solve many issues at the same time. More nutritious and ecological than eating plants I suppose.

The world death rate is about 8 per 1000 people per year. If there are 50 pounds of edible meat on a body, then human deaths could supply 0.001 pounds per living person. This is also low-quality gamy meat because the average age of death among people is incredibly high for meat animals. Enacting worldwide cannibalism for humans would provide as much additional meat as spending one tenth of a cent per person annually…

Just watched S4E1 of Always Sunny, "Mac & Dennis: Manhunters", which was a lot of fun. Thank you for supplying this supplementary information.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#165

Every PhD student should, in order to obtain PhD, not only do his original research but reproduce another published result. This will make PhD harder to get, so PhD’s will become more valuable (and more vetted), and we will have people verify published studies.

No post body was provided.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's partially tautological. "Not too much" communicates no information, it might as well be "eat correctly."

But taken together (I believe the statement should be written with commas instead of periods) that sentence fully answers your question - what is eating correctly? mostly plants, minimally processed. If you do that, you'll have no trouble managing proportions.

It would be super easy to create malnutrition of some sort with this advice (anemia for instance). You might not even end up managing proportions - it is fairly easy to end up hungry and then binge on bread, nuts, dried fruits or whatever else if the diet don't contain what you need.

The right composition of plants does matter great deal.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called a conflict of interest, and being worried about such conflicts is not paranoia, it is perfectly reasonable care. It adds quite a bit of doubt when the "truth" uncovered is particularly advantageous to the cause of the conflict.

I agree, my comment was sarcasm because this principle is not universally applied.

Almost downvoted you now for explaining it! What's better than getting the downvotes from the ones that get it and don't agree plus the ones that don't get it but would agree? Cheff kiss

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#168
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so much money floating around from environmental and animal rights activists Forgive me if I fell for deadpan sarcasm... but you're joking, right? Commercial organizations who make money from the sale of environment (natural resources, such as petrolium, animals, crops) have orders of magnitude more money to spend to fund research than organizations which seek to protect those resources.

There’s plenty of money and plenty of ideological conviction to produce negative papers on animal products. It’s not like it’s a hard battle of numbers where the winner takes all in the battle for public opinion.

I would point you to oil and gas vs climate. Tell me which of the two won for decades because of financial power.

We have only just now reached the point where the last group of anti-climate people have begun accepting that climate change is real. They've simply moved their argument to "it wasn't humans' fault". This is 100% because of the overwhelming influence of energy sector finances vs environmentalists.

The same goes on with food/animal topics.

Sure, the odd paper comes out showing that something bad is actually bad. But as HN talks about quite often, being a researcher is a difficult balance between producing research that pleases the financial backers and which is of real scientific value.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every PhD student should, in order to obtain PhD, not only do his original research but reproduce another published result Speaking for my own PhD (now around 25 years ago): it's hard enough getting one's own damned work to reproduce, never mind the work of a complete stranger.

I think that's the point

I think the problem here is that articles and publications in general do not provide enough detail to reproduce the results. Even though, that is the exact reason you write an article -- to make research reproducible. Peer-reviewed journals should, and they progressively try to be more strict about it, enforce the necessary level of detail and open-sourcing of methods.

Reproduction in science is a though problem -- not only it requires specialist lab equipment, methods or procedures, but sometimes "a trick" is needed. Inconveniently, it may not be mentioned in the publication for whatever reason. Therefore, giving an unexperienced PhD a task of reproducing somebody's work may end up to be a futile effort. But the idea is neat in general, I think.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#170
post #42
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so much money floating around from environmental and animal rights activists Forgive me if I fell for deadpan sarcasm... but you're joking, right? Commercial organizations who make money from the sale of environment (natural resources, such as petrolium, animals, crops) have orders of magnitude more money to spend to fund research than organizations which seek to protect those resources.

Crop-based corporations and Animal-based corporations tend to NOT be on same side. This is ancient as the bible (the first murder, when the crop farmer murdered the animal farmer). For example, one thing we now know, is that Coca-Cola (a crop-based company) bribed scientists to blame the obesity crisis on meat, and deflect it away from its own products. So no, that person is not joking, animal rights activists are no…

> tend to NOT be on same side

When their common enemy is environmentalists, nature/animal welfare supporters (which includes those concerned with insect or soil life population), and human health experts (who raise issues with factory farmed meat effects on humans), the two forces you mention definitely do work together.

It is fair to say that crop corporations fight animal corporations less than they fight environmentalist/animal-welfare organizations.

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