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The red meat, butter, and buttermilk that abounds in the traditional Finnish diet are from moose and reindeer whose own diet in the Finnish woods is at least as

by bfe 15y ago

The red meat, butter, and buttermilk that abounds in the traditional Finnish diet are from moose and reindeer whose own diet in the Finnish woods is at least as all-natural, wholesome, and organic as the grass grazed by Kristen's cattle, but that didn't stop the Finns from being the world leaders in heart attacks. The LDL cholesterol in your bloodstream doesn't care what the cows you ate were eating when they were alive. Kristen's brand of feeling good for rebelling against the food-industrial complex and folksy pattern-matching of traditional must mean good are no substitute for the scientific method, and in this case it's (on average and over the long term) a life-or-death distinction.

scythe 15y ago
At the same time, moose and reindeer are not cattle, and they are cold-weather animals, which means they have a lot of extra body fat. Extrapolating conclusions about moose and reindeer to cattle is not necessarily correct and there are reasons to believe it isn't.
- bfe 15y ago
  There is a significant difference, but it works the opposite way, so that beef is worse for you. Cattle have been bred under ten thousand years of domestication to have fattier meat, whereas undomesticated sources of red meat are much leaner. Off the top of my head I can point you to the index of Guns, Germs and Steel for citations.
  - scythe 15y ago
    >Cattle have been bred under ten thousand years of domestication to have fattier meat, whereas undomesticated sources of red meat are much leaner. I can see that applying to deer, elk, rabbit, etc -- but moose? Furthermore, there's a considerable market for lean beef especially in the modern era, and I know that pigs have rather recently been selected for leanness. My current knowledge of the health effects of red meat as a whole is that the data are conflicting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat#Health http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat#Health The fact that Finland's diet was confounded with lots of butter and other fatty things makes the whole thing rather unconvincing as a data point saying that red meat is any more unhealthy than ordinary nutrition labeling (x grams of fat, y grams of carb, z grams of protein) would lead you to believe. I can buy a pound of 90/10 beef at the store with 12 grams of fat, ~3 grams of carbohydrate, and 23 grams of protein "per serving", which really doesn't sound terribly unhealthy next to e.g. a bag of potato chips.
    - bfe 15y ago
      Breeding for leaner red meat is a phenomenon of the last few decades, compared with breeding for fattier red meat which has been going on among domesticated cattle and swine for the last 10,000 years. Relatively leaner and relatively less processed red meat are relatively better for you, and there are various data about how relatively healthier the relatively better red meats are. But there are also clear and unconflicted data that vegetarians have far better health outcomes than omnivores, and that pescetarians, like Steve Jobs, who eat seafood and plant-based foods but no other meat, have still significantly better health outcomes than vegetarians.
nosse 15y ago
Finnish people as whole have never eaten mostly moose and reindeer. You are confusing Finnish with Sami people.
- bfe 15y ago
  Am I? Are you sure? The Finns, not the Sami in particular, have been observed to be the world's foremost eaters of red meat in general, as noted in my other post. To the degree that non-Sami Finns dieted on pork and beef instead of moose and reindeer, they have tended to consume all the more saturated fat.

by bfe 15y ago

scythe 15y ago

At the same time, moose and reindeer are not cattle, and they are cold-weather animals, which means they have a lot of extra body fat. Extrapolating conclusions about moose and reindeer to cattle is not necessarily correct and there are reasons to believe it isn't.

bfe 15y ago
There is a significant difference, but it works the opposite way, so that beef is worse for you. Cattle have been bred under ten thousand years of domestication to have fattier meat, whereas undomesticated sources of red meat are much leaner. Off the top of my head I can point you to the index of Guns, Germs and Steel for citations.
- scythe 15y ago
  >Cattle have been bred under ten thousand years of domestication to have fattier meat, whereas undomesticated sources of red meat are much leaner. I can see that applying to deer, elk, rabbit, etc -- but moose? Furthermore, there's a considerable market for lean beef especially in the modern era, and I know that pigs have rather recently been selected for leanness. My current knowledge of the health effects of red meat as a whole is that the data are conflicting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat#Health http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat#Health The fact that Finland's diet was confounded with lots of butter and other fatty things makes the whole thing rather unconvincing as a data point saying that red meat is any more unhealthy than ordinary nutrition labeling (x grams of fat, y grams of carb, z grams of protein) would lead you to believe. I can buy a pound of 90/10 beef at the store with 12 grams of fat, ~3 grams of carbohydrate, and 23 grams of protein "per serving", which really doesn't sound terribly unhealthy next to e.g. a bag of potato chips.
  - bfe 15y ago
    Breeding for leaner red meat is a phenomenon of the last few decades, compared with breeding for fattier red meat which has been going on among domesticated cattle and swine for the last 10,000 years. Relatively leaner and relatively less processed red meat are relatively better for you, and there are various data about how relatively healthier the relatively better red meats are. But there are also clear and unconflicted data that vegetarians have far better health outcomes than omnivores, and that pescetarians, like Steve Jobs, who eat seafood and plant-based foods but no other meat, have still significantly better health outcomes than vegetarians.

nosse 15y ago

Finnish people as whole have never eaten mostly moose and reindeer. You are confusing Finnish with Sami people.

bfe 15y ago
Am I? Are you sure? The Finns, not the Sami in particular, have been observed to be the world's foremost eaters of red meat in general, as noted in my other post. To the degree that non-Sami Finns dieted on pork and beef instead of moose and reindeer, they have tended to consume all the more saturated fat.