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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

by 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.

by bfe 15y ago

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.