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You bring up the point that really pisses me off in these studies. They treat a mcdonalds big mac as the same quality of meat as a grass fed steak or free range

You bring up the point that really pisses me off in these studies. They treat a mcdonalds big mac as the same quality of meat as a grass fed steak or free range chicken breast. While grain free and free range is always best, even commercially produced grain fed cooked healthy is miles better than mickey d chicken nuggets. Lumping all these together as "meat consumption" is incredibly misleading. Most of these anti meat studies seem to still rely on the idea the "food pyramid" is still gospel.

giantg2 6y ago
If someone asked me to name a meat, chicken nuggets would not even come to mind.
- NoOneNew 6y ago
  Agreed, but it still gets classified as one in these studies. Thats my problem with all of this. Let's try something else. A teriyaki drenched piece of chicken breast doesn't have the same healthiness level of a garlic, carrot roasted chicken breast. One is slathered in sugar, the other isnt. Does it make sense to classify someone who dumps sugary BBQ sauce, ketchup and other condiments on their meats with the same person that, well, doesn't? A salt, pepper, garlic steak salad lunch does not equal a Whooper burger. Drowning the salad in a crappy dressing will though.
toshk 6y ago
I've looked into a few of the studies you mention a while back because of personal interest. Most of the conclusions of large scale studies are not very solid and can often be dismissed with correlation is not causation. Your point is valid, but also very often popular health habits align with the view of what a healthy diet is in society. Therefore lower meat intake often is connected to more exercise, more sleep etc. Of course they often try to correct for it, but it still makes many of the conclusions debatable. There is however one association that seems to hold up for red meat, whether that's a steak or a shitty burger, which is the connection between heme iron and certain form of cancers: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3261306/#:~:text=For%20both%20esophageal%20and%20stomach,with%20risk%20of%20these%20cancers https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3261306/#:~:tex.... But at the same time the effect is still very small and not well understood.
- NoOneNew 6y ago
  Somewhat agree on the habit assertion. I say it's more of a regional culture habit issue than health habit issue. I changed my health habits to a more MMA diet strictly because I view that "body type" as more well rounded in capabilities. Good stamina, good strength and not overly stacked in one body aspect. Like, you need good upper body, lower body and core strength all around. You cant really focus on just one part. Their diets are mostly meat and veg based. Obviously there are a few exceptions, but most are pretty big meat eaters. But eating lots of meat doesn't mean they tend to be unhealthy in other aspects of their life. The biggest problem, most people in the modern 1st world are lazy af. No change in diet is truly going to fix the lack of movement and lack of sun exposure. A 12 hour a day, everyday, call of duty gamer is equally unhealthy and useless whether herbivore, omnivore or carnivore in diet.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gruez 6y ago
>free range is always best Source?
jimbokun 6y ago
I don’t think it’s worth getting pissed about, as if the researchers have an ax to grind. Getting Hugh quality data with enough power to separate out the effect of Big Macs versus lean steaks is really really hard. I imagine they are doing the best they can with the experimental techniques available to them.
- NoOneNew 6y ago
  I would have 100% agreed with you prior to the study involving the sugar industry persuading some research to push the dietary fat, cholesterol link that's being debunked more and more. They claimed simple carbs were better to have and sugar wasn't so bad. When that study was released in the 60s, dietary changes in the US happened. That's also when you see obesity rates rise. Sure, I'm claiming a correlation as causation, but if they can do it, why cant I?
- hntrader 6y ago
  > Getting Hugh quality data That's why we need large interventional studies instead of observational ones. Observational studies are interesting and sometimes necessary (e.g. when there's ethical concerns about running an intervention such as with smoking), but it's just way too tricky to separate out the impact of confounders especially when the treatment effects are rather weak (e.g. with coffee or meat consumption).
Shivetya 6y ago
Its not just the meat, people eating fast food tend to eat some of the other foods and worse the sugar laden drinks. We really need to focus on how much sugar is in our foods both naturally occurring but most importantly in processed foods that are everywhere. I have always operated under the idea that if you only use the produce, meat, and dairy, departments of a grocery store you can do a lot to improve your health. The largess of our society is that we have so many food options that are very easily consumed that many tend towards over consumption; as in no preparation required
ragnese 6y ago
> While grain free and free range is always best, even commercially produced grain fed cooked healthy is miles better than mickey d chicken nuggets. Since you're upset about the weakness of these studies, can you point to any that rigorously show any of the claims here? In particular that free range animals are somehow healthier to eat? Grain free next. Followed by the claim that fast food meat is inherently less healthy than meat I can obtain elsewhere. None of the claims would surprise me if true, but there's a lot of commentary in this post about how flawed these studies are while making very strong claims about what is healthy (no carbs, free range meat, etc).

giantg2 6y ago

If someone asked me to name a meat, chicken nuggets would not even come to mind.

NoOneNew 6y ago
Agreed, but it still gets classified as one in these studies. Thats my problem with all of this. Let's try something else. A teriyaki drenched piece of chicken breast doesn't have the same healthiness level of a garlic, carrot roasted chicken breast. One is slathered in sugar, the other isnt. Does it make sense to classify someone who dumps sugary BBQ sauce, ketchup and other condiments on their meats with the same person that, well, doesn't? A salt, pepper, garlic steak salad lunch does not equal a Whooper burger. Drowning the salad in a crappy dressing will though.

toshk 6y ago

I've looked into a few of the studies you mention a while back because of personal interest. Most of the conclusions of large scale studies are not very solid and can often be dismissed with correlation is not causation. Your point is valid, but also very often popular health habits align with the view of what a healthy diet is in society. Therefore lower meat intake often is connected to more exercise, more sleep etc. Of course they often try to correct for it, but it still makes many of the conclusions debatable. There is however one association that seems to hold up for red meat, whether that's a steak or a shitty burger, which is the connection between heme iron and certain form of cancers: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3261306/#:~:text=For%20both%20esophageal%20and%20stomach,with%20risk%20of%20these%20cancers https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3261306/#:~:tex.... But at the same time the effect is still very small and not well understood.

NoOneNew 6y ago
Somewhat agree on the habit assertion. I say it's more of a regional culture habit issue than health habit issue. I changed my health habits to a more MMA diet strictly because I view that "body type" as more well rounded in capabilities. Good stamina, good strength and not overly stacked in one body aspect. Like, you need good upper body, lower body and core strength all around. You cant really focus on just one part. Their diets are mostly meat and veg based. Obviously there are a few exceptions, but most are pretty big meat eaters. But eating lots of meat doesn't mean they tend to be unhealthy in other aspects of their life. The biggest problem, most people in the modern 1st world are lazy af. No change in diet is truly going to fix the lack of movement and lack of sun exposure. A 12 hour a day, everyday, call of duty gamer is equally unhealthy and useless whether herbivore, omnivore or carnivore in diet.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gruez 6y ago

>free range is always best Source?

jimbokun 6y ago

I don’t think it’s worth getting pissed about, as if the researchers have an ax to grind. Getting Hugh quality data with enough power to separate out the effect of Big Macs versus lean steaks is really really hard. I imagine they are doing the best they can with the experimental techniques available to them.

NoOneNew 6y ago
I would have 100% agreed with you prior to the study involving the sugar industry persuading some research to push the dietary fat, cholesterol link that's being debunked more and more. They claimed simple carbs were better to have and sugar wasn't so bad. When that study was released in the 60s, dietary changes in the US happened. That's also when you see obesity rates rise. Sure, I'm claiming a correlation as causation, but if they can do it, why cant I?
hntrader 6y ago
> Getting Hugh quality data That's why we need large interventional studies instead of observational ones. Observational studies are interesting and sometimes necessary (e.g. when there's ethical concerns about running an intervention such as with smoking), but it's just way too tricky to separate out the impact of confounders especially when the treatment effects are rather weak (e.g. with coffee or meat consumption).

Shivetya 6y ago

Its not just the meat, people eating fast food tend to eat some of the other foods and worse the sugar laden drinks. We really need to focus on how much sugar is in our foods both naturally occurring but most importantly in processed foods that are everywhere. I have always operated under the idea that if you only use the produce, meat, and dairy, departments of a grocery store you can do a lot to improve your health. The largess of our society is that we have so many food options that are very easily consumed that many tend towards over consumption; as in no preparation required

ragnese 6y ago

> While grain free and free range is always best, even commercially produced grain fed cooked healthy is miles better than mickey d chicken nuggets. Since you're upset about the weakness of these studies, can you point to any that rigorously show any of the claims here? In particular that free range animals are somehow healthier to eat? Grain free next. Followed by the claim that fast food meat is inherently less healthy than meat I can obtain elsewhere. None of the claims would surprise me if true, but there's a lot of commentary in this post about how flawed these studies are while making very strong claims about what is healthy (no carbs, free range meat, etc).