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Well, maybe if it's part of a hungry lion and you're unarmed and looking particularly tasty in the veldt.
But will eating red meat kill you, as so many news articles are now proclaiming, based on this study?
Turns out the answer is probably not. Mark Sisson of "Mark's Daily Apple" - the paleo-lifestyle go-to mentor - analyzes the faults in this study and especially the media's misapprehension of it, and systematically tears it down. The most salient points:
Why wasn't the title of the report, "Eating red meat lowers cholesterol"?
When I first saw the news reports on this study, I was a little concerned about eating paleo-style. Well, it seems those concerns were unfounded. The important hypothesis that I get from this observational study (which Mark points out is only the first step in the scientific method)?
World-shattering, I know.
There you have it: This study tells us nothing new. What people should not get out of this is that you should eat more grains and seeds - these we know are bad for human consumption (see Mark's "Start Here" page).
Chris
But will eating red meat kill you, as so many news articles are now proclaiming, based on this study?
Turns out the answer is probably not. Mark Sisson of "Mark's Daily Apple" - the paleo-lifestyle go-to mentor - analyzes the faults in this study and especially the media's misapprehension of it, and systematically tears it down. The most salient points:
- It's an observational study (not science per se)
- ...based on self-reporting eating and other behaviors on a bi-annual basis.
- Participants clearly lied about their intake, because the average person in Australia clearly consumes more than 1200 (women) - 2000 (men) calories per day.
- ...but more important is that the self-reporting meat-eaters reported eating 800 more calories per day
- ...any amount of which could be hamburger, which (if American eating habits are under discussion here) was likely delivered buried in special sauce, cooking grease, and refined-flour buns.
- They also smoked more
- ...were less active
- ...and took fewer multi-vitamins
- Oh, and the meat-eaters had lower cholesterol.
Why wasn't the title of the report, "Eating red meat lowers cholesterol"?
When I first saw the news reports on this study, I was a little concerned about eating paleo-style. Well, it seems those concerns were unfounded. The important hypothesis that I get from this observational study (which Mark points out is only the first step in the scientific method)?
Avoid eating fast food, eat fewer calories, get more exercise, and don't smoke.
World-shattering, I know.
There you have it: This study tells us nothing new. What people should not get out of this is that you should eat more grains and seeds - these we know are bad for human consumption (see Mark's "Start Here" page).
Chris
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I saw a note on FB from a friend of a friend, who said she was using standard protein powder (the weightlifters' type) to lose weight-instead of 4 scoops in whole milk, she was using 1 scoop in skim milk as a breakfast replacement. She had lost 30 pounds in 3 months, if I recall correctly.
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As for red meat, there's a more convincing argument against it: a lot of it comes from environmentally damaging factory farming practices, overuse of antibiotics, and so forth. To me that's grounds to reduce it to a flavor-booster rather than to get rid of it, since some can be produced sustainably.
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And I'm right with you on factory farms; I can't stand feedlots, or hog confinement facilities, or chicken sheds either. I'm really wishing I lived far enough in the country to have a small chicken flock; just 6 layers or so, and then buy a couple dozen chicks in the spring for fryers (of course, if I had my way, I'd have a Noah's ark of animals, just because I like them).
I've never looked at Slim-Fast's ingredients compared to the protein powder; if I ever use this container up, I'll have to look into it!
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It would be nice to be able to eat meat fresh off a sustainable farm, rather than fattened up in a feed lot. I could do that through a retailer like Whole Foods, or maybe even through farmers' markets, but the former cost a bundle and without research it's hard to tell whether the latter means sustainable farming or a poseur reselling stuff he picked up at Wal-Mart.
As for the Slim-Fast, the ingredients list includes whey powder (the same protein source as the stuff from the gym), sugar, chocolate, and vitamin supplements. Considering that, it might have been more cost-conscious to just buy the whey powder and mix it with our own flavors (whether that means sugar and chocolate or some other sort of food such as fruit juice, soup, bread, etc.), rather than buying it pre-mixed. On the other hand, whey powder seems to sell in massive packages, which have the "if I ever use this container up" problem you note. We haven't even used up the three cans of chocolate-flavored protein mix, and the straight powder would take even longer.
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http://eatwild.com/
They have a link that you can take directly to Kansas, and get a list of direct-purchase meat, eggs, dairy...all sorts of things! I've seen chicken, pork, mutton (goat wouldn't surprise me), beef & bison.
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There's a link there that will take you to a map of Kansas, and a listing of Kansas farms/businesses.
Where I live in McPherson County, there's two different local butchers' shops within a 30 mile radius, and several more within a 50 mile radius. So that's handy!
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I hear you on factory farming. REALLY looking forward to when we can buy vat-grown meat....
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As I wrote in a moment ago, there is a lot of sugar in it, so maybe the price difference is a wash.
I see vat-grown meat articles now and then. Something I'd be interested to read is a projection of how environmentally justifiable vat-meat would be, when the technology reaches plausibility. Would it take more or less input food energy to grow meat in a bulk culture? Would it take more or less water? Could medicines be avoided because sterile conditions can be maintained? Would nasty hormones be necessary? Will the effluent be clean and recyclable, or even worse then a feed lot? Will the taste be satisfactory? Will consumers recoil at the idea, applaud avoidance of animal slaughter, or see it as a commodity? Those sorts of questions would be nice to address in articles about the technology, even if the current answers are "we don't know yet."
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I love the idea of vat-grown meat for ethical reasons. I'd prefer not eating animals grown only for human consumption, at least that they get to have an enjoyable life pre-slaughter... but if I could avoid that entirely, much better. But you're right: At the moment, we _can_ grow meat in tubes, but it's soft and slimy instead of meaty.
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Still, way fewer calories and bad stuff than in a typical breakfast of processed carbs and sugar!
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Also, despite consuming large animals on a daily basis, people here are thin and relatively long-lived...
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But of course it's more filling to eat real food, so this kind of eating style lends itself to staying trim.
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Departments of Nutrition (Drs Pan, Sun, Bernstein, Stampfer, Willett, and Hu) and Epidemiology (Drs Manson, Stampfer, Willett, and Hu), Harvard School of Public Health, and Channing Laboratory (Drs Sun, Stampfer, Willett, and Hu) and Division of Preventive Medicine (Dr Manson), Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Wellness Institute of the Cleveland Clinic, Lyndhurst, Ohio (Dr Bernstein); and Department of Molecular Epidemiology, German Institute of Human Nutrition, Nuthetal, Germany (Dr Schulze).
Let's see .. doctors, hospitals, medical schools, who are most likely well-funded by who? Drug companies. Who stands to profit from a healthy population? Not them.
Keep tweaking those studies to convince a public that that you're the experts in "healthy eating" while guaranteeing that same public will fall to enough illnesses to keep you profitable.
I know.. preach/choir :)
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