>and your health As far as I am aware, the data on this claim is conflicting, and most studies are plagued by confounding variables. http://en.wikipedia.org/w

>and your health As far as I am aware, the data on this claim is conflicting, and most studies are plagued by confounding variables. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat#Health http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat#Health See? This article is a freakin' yo-yo. It causes heart disease, it does not cause heart disease, it causes cancer, it does not cause cancer, everyone is jumping on everyone else's methodology, and sometimes it seems as though the conclusions were decided before the study was performed. Here it causes heart disease: >a survey ,conducted in 1960, of 25,153 California Seventh-Day Adventists, found that the risk of heart disease is three times greater for 45-64 year old men who eat meat daily, versus those who did not eat meat. Here it does not: >In another study[84] in 2010 involving over one million people who ate meat found that only processed meat had an adverse risk in relation to coronary heart disease. The study suggests that eating 50g (less than 2oz) of processed meat per day increases risk of coronary heart disease by 42%, and diabetes by 19%. Equivalent levels of fat, including saturated fats, in unprocessed meat (even when eating twice as much per day) did not show any deleterious effects, leading the researchers to suggest that "differences in salt and preservatives, rather than fats, might explain the higher risk of heart disease and diabetes seen with processed meats, but not with unprocessed red meats." The lack of attention given to statistical confounding in the diets of the people studied is concerning. The fact that new studies appear to refute previous studies suggests that one of three things is going on: -the new studies are wrong -the old studies are wrong -the physical laws of the Universe have changed in some fundamental manner I cannot hope to be convinced on this topic without hopefully a thorough examination of the methodology of the researchers and potential biases. It is not becoming of a scientist to make an assertion of knowledge without a thorough examination of the data and its origins, and I have my doubts about the quality of any of the current data, whether it condemns or acquits meat consumption. The work regarding heterocyclic amines and the recommendation to microwave meat before it is cooked seems now as a tiny ignored candle flame in a dark room full of people claiming to see the light. I do, however, have the intuition that studying something as broad as "meat consumption" is almost inherently inclined to error and bias, and that it would be better to perform multiple specific analyses and hopefully even experiments involving perhaps directed diets, so that the question can be laid to rest, and people can make a decision based on evidence, fact, and their own relative valuation of health and hedonism. Not from dogma.