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Red meat is not a health risk. New study slams years of shoddy research
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago"Unprocessed" seems to be the key word that the headline skips, plus the one specific risk category. So basically the headline is a lie. But ignoring that, the article is further confirmation that you should eat more vegetables and less processed meat, like your doctors have been telling you. But with some extra attacks on expertise and science, which I'm sure will be helpful in further eroding our civilization.
- onceiwasthere 4y agoIs there any regulated/"official" definition to the word "processed" in this context? I see the word so much in the context of food in general and I've never known exactly what it means.
- ImHereToVote 4y ago
- throwaway4aday 4y agoYou're saying that this study only concerns people who eat raw meat?
- _aavaa_ 4y agoThat’s a meaningless definition. Does peeling carrots suddenly make them “processed”?
- tomrod 4y agoYep. Removing the skin is a process, and the carrot underneath is then exposed to oxidation. No clue if there is a health effect due to it. Just pointing out what processing means. Though usually processing is totally destroying the physical structure of something and applying heat/freezing/chemical exposure for preservation or transformation.
- weird-eye-issue 4y agoSo you are eating processed food if you peel a carrot and then eat it? Fascinating
- dtech 4y agoNo, this is not what people mean with "processed food" at all.
- _aavaa_ 4y agoBut that is what the comment he's referring to means, that's the point.
- tomrod 4y agoRight, you're arguing a connotation on "processed" when the question was "would this hypothetical count as processed?" The hypothetical shows the disconnect between denotation and connotation.
- _aavaa_ 4y agoExcept that it was clear that I meant "processed" in the way that it is generally used in the context of "processed food" and not in the sense of "having had something done to it".
- pessimizer 4y agoThe argument is that it doesn't have a general meaning, so relying on that general meaning misses the point.
- _aavaa_ 4y agoAnd that argument is wrong. A “sandwich” doesn’t have an explicit general meaning, but almost nobody would classify a pizza as an open face sandwich. Likewise, the vast majority of people would consider a carrot (peeled or otherwise) “unprocessed food” and would consider cheetos “processed food”.
- pessimizer 4y agoNo, that's a meaningful definition. When food is transformed through a process, it becomes processed. The alternative definition seems to be to throw the word around randomly, and to vaguely mention something like a tv dinner from the 50s as a counterexample. It's annoying. I wish when people were talking about "processed meats" they'd talk about which meats and which processes. They're not fungible. Once you've learned one process, you haven't learned them all. Whether I'm using sodium chloride or sodium citrate makes a difference if we're doing science.
- ystad 4y agoCooked is not processed
- criddell 4y agoYes it is, it just isn't necessarily a form of processing to be avoided.
- weird-eye-issue 4y agoFreshly cooked chicken or steak is processed? I don't think that is the generally accepted definition but maybe I'm mistaken
- TheLoafOfBread 4y agoYes. It went through process of cooking, which causes that proteins in the meat will fall apart due to heat - denaturation. So it is processed by definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denaturation_(biochemistry) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denaturation_(biochemistry)
- PuppyTailWags 4y agoI don't think that's reasonable because there are certain categories of food where cooking makes them healthier/edible. I'm not sure that eating raw eggs is statistically healthier than boiled ones and would be surprised by such a study concluding as such. I would be very concerned about people insisting on eating raw beans? Lentils? Potatoes?
- Aaargh20318 4y agoButchering is still a form of processing. So basically we should only eat live cows.
- mark_l_watson 4y agoBuy foods in bulk, not boxed or in plastic. Make food from scratch from whole grains, veggies, peppers, spices. Avoid all of the seed oils. My Dad is 101 and doing OK, and he has always preferred large salads, small amounts of lean meat. I feel better whenever I hit the Fuhrman Diet for six months.
- germinalphrase 4y agoWhat non-seed oils do people use for moderate/high temp cooking? I use olive for almost everything, but it’s not the best choice for high(er) temp so I go for the sunflower oil.
- docandrew 4y agoAvocado Oil is supposed to be a good option too with high smoke point. Costco has a reasonably priced option. I’ve read though that the whole fear of over-heated olive oil is overblown, so who knows. Like everything in nutritional science it is unclear.
- dariusm5 4y agoFor moderate to high temperature cooking I use either ghee or beef tallow. For deep frying, beef tallow is the best. Both of them are easy to make at home and last for months in the fridge or at room temperature.
- germinalphrase 4y agoThanks! Looks like ghee has a smoke point of 250 °C (485 °F) degrees which is quite good.
- denton-scratch 4y agoFor frying, I usually use a mixture of olive oil and butter. The oil slows down the process of the butter burning. It's certainly not as good as ghee, but ghee tends to make stuff greasy.
- weatherlight 4y agoI always assumed it meant, cured, chemically preserved or fermented.
- Avicebron 4y agoOther than the pedantic both cured and fermented count as chemically preserved in a broad sense, I think the general modern understanding of "processed foods" means that "ultra-processed foods" per the webmd definition https://www.webmd.com/diet/what-are-processed-foods#:~:text=Processed%20foods%20refer%20to%20any,salts%2C%20sugars%2C%20or%20fats https://www.webmd.com/diet/what-are-processed-foods#:~:text=.... e.g. foods that are doped with additives that don't necessarily occur in the food's base state, including dyes, preservatives, added flavors generated in lab environments, etc. To be fair I'm not advocating either way, since I'm sure I ate some form of ultra-processed food this morning just by having grocery store brand jelly on my toast, but I think the argument is that by mixing these into the diet frequently there are unknown long-term side effects on the human body by eating these in excess.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago> Processed meat refers to meat that has been preserved by smoking, curing, salting or adding preservatives. This includes sausages, bacon, ham, salami and pâtés. > If you currently eat more than 90g (cooked weight) of red or processed meat a day, the Department of Health and Social Care advises that you cut down to 70g. https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-types/meat-nutrition/ https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-types/meat-nutrit...
- chasd00 4y agodoes pork count as red meat? because, man, i would grill up some good pork chops every single day if my family would let me.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoYes, it does. There's a comprehensive list here: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-guidelines-and-food-labels/red-meat-and-the-risk-of-bowel-cancer/ https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-guidelines-and-fo... Pork, veal, venison etc. = red meat.
- adrian_b 4y agoScanning the article, I do not see any definition, except that at one place "fresh" is also mentioned. I assume that "unprocessed" meat refers to meat that is cooked at home, as opposed to buying sausages, ham or any other industrial meat products, which may contain various additives or impurities from techniques like smoking. This new study still shows an increased probability of cancer when consuming more than 200 g of unprocessed red meat per day, which is indeed more than should normally be eaten. I have always been skeptical about these claims about the effects of eating meat, because they do not differentiate between the different methods of cooking the meat. I doubt that eating meat that was fried in oil has the same health effects as eating meat that was baked in an oven.
- ufo 4y agoFor a precise definition of "processed", check out the NOVA system. The biggest villains are the "ultra processed" foods. https://www.fao.org/3/ca5644en/ca5644en.pdf https://www.fao.org/3/ca5644en/ca5644en.pdf https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-health-nutrition/article/un-decade-of-nutrition-the-nova-food-classification-and-the-trouble-with-ultraprocessing/2A9776922A28F8F757BDA32C3266AC2A https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-health-nutrit...
- denton-scratch 4y agoSo the stock photo for "processed food" in MSM reports seems to be a picture of a hamburger. As far as I'm aware, the only processed things in a hamburger are the bun and the cheese. Oh - maybe the secret sauce; but I tell them to hold the cheese and sauce. For me, processed meat means rubbery hotdog sausages; reconstituted chicken meat; doner kebab; TV dinners; fishcakes, and so on. [Edit: ham and bacon, of course, but only a crazy person eats a quarter-pound of bacon.] I imagine some of those are fine, but if you can't see the unprocessed ingredient, then the 'Lemon Market' rule says it's probably not what it's supposed to be.
- mingus88 4y agoI, for one, only read an article if something is being SLAMMED
- ricardobayes 4y agoSure, 'meat' itself is fine, it's the nitrosamine used to cure it, that's the bad part. Anyway, my old boss was a cancer researcher and he always said if you do these three things you have basically done everything to avoid getting cancer: - excercise a little every day - don't smoke - avoid red meat
- ravenstine 4y ago> "Unprocessed" seems to be the key word that the headline skips The cancer claims haven't been specifically against things like hot dogs, sausages, pepperoni sticks, etc., but red meat. When the term "red meat" is used, that's implying anything containing red-looking meat from large ruminant animals. > plus the one specific risk category That's because that's the only risk category that anyone thought was credible up to this point. There are no risk categories for red meat, besides perhaps that one can overeat protein. That's really hard to do, especially with red meat. > But ignoring that, the article is further confirmation that you should eat more vegetables and less processed meat, There is no sound scientific evidence that anyone should eat more vegetables. People are certainly free to eat vegetables, they can be pretty tasty, and some may come with their own individual benefits, but there's nothing inherent to vegetables as a category that means we should simply consume more of them. Vegetables have their own drawbacks and contain various substances that are contraindicated in humans. Vegetables may be better than processed foods on a case by case basis, but not as a group. Humans aren't specialized in consuming them as a primary source of nutrition. > like your doctors have been telling you "Your doctors" know f--- all about nutrition. General practitioners are not nutritionists and are not trained in nutrition. Their job is to prescribe pills or send you to a specialist.
- denton-scratch 4y ago> that's implying anything containing red-looking meat from large ruminant animals. Pigs are not ruminants. Their meat is usually considered red meat.
- coinbasetwwa 4y ago
- Havoc 4y agoI had understood it’s mostly the preservatives and processing - sausages etc
- ystad 4y agoAlso, does adding fertilizer makes vegetables processed. Processed is vague.
- denton-scratch 4y ago"Fertilizer" is vague.
- solardev 4y agoIt's ok, next year another study will prove they're dangerous again.
- ankaAr 4y agoAmen
- globalise83 4y agoWell-cooked red meat, no, but what about undercooked or raw beef from cancerous cattle?
- _aavaa_ 4y agoWhat about poisonous mushrooms, or rotten vegetables? The pushback is against potentially finding negative impacts of one part of a category and labeling the whole category based off that one example.
- type0 4y ago> raw beef from cancerous cattle? Your stomach digests it. That is essentially what a lab grown meat is, a bunch of cancer cells.
- DAVer98 4y agoWheels are coming off the Climate bullshit they keep peddling and this lab grown meat being cancer cells is a fantastic bit of news for me. No way that catches on in the mainstream.
- skummetmaelk 4y agoCancer is not an infectious disease.
- jjtheblunt 4y agosome cancers can be triggered by infectious pathogens though (HPV, some leukemias / lymphomas)
- gpderetta 4y agoAlso: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonally_transmissible_cancer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonally_transmissible_cance... But not terribly relevant for humans.
- gpderetta 4y ago
- boh 4y agoThing that you thought was bad is good and thing that you thought was good is bad, that's 80% of nutritional click-bait. One note summaries of studies aren't worth reading and shouldn't shape your choices. Whatever rough understanding most people have of healthy vs unhealthy is close enough. We don't need to pretend we're all nutritional scientists attempting olympic athlete level nutritional perfection.
- draw_down 4y ago
- COGlory 4y agoThis is because nearly 100% of nutritional education effort is directed at children, which is stupid because children eat what their parents cook. Anyways, that has left a gaping hole for lifestyle blogs to fill with their pseudo-science. When I was getting my Nutrition degree, I was involved in building a community website to help single fathers learn to cook for their kids. When we applied for the funding, we were one of three applications in the adult education section, versus hundreds in the child education category.
- dizzant 4y agoThis is a fascinating observation about the funding of nutrition education, thank you for sharing it. What do you think are the reasons most education efforts are spent on children? It seems to mirror the fact that children spend a significant part of their time on education, while adult education is ad-hoc and self-directed. Are there other factors that you can see from inside the field?
- tluyben2 4y agoSo, please provide a definition of ‘processed’. Like everyone says here, it is really not clear what that is. It seems ‘an intuition’ to what processed is to most people; some things are obvious ($1 per 12 freezer pack of burgers are not going to be unprocessed), but it gets less obvious fast…
- throwaway0x7E6 4y agoground mystery meat full of preservatives, coloring, soy protein to mask its own low protein content, and plenty of other shit. fast food slop for bipedal cattle
- stfp 4y agoI don't think we need a strict definition. If people really got the message "processed food is bad" and made reasonable choices from that information and their intuition (or a google image search) they would stop eating the worst things, which would help a lot.
- chasd00 4y agoyeah, also, it would probably help to think in terms like "raw foods are better" instead of "processed food is bad". When shopping, just try to get as close to raw as you can instead of trying to determine the dividing line between good and bad.
- ihatepython 4y agoMy own definition: If the ingredient list contains something that you are not exactly sure what it is, then it is processed. Personally I consider a can of skipjack tuna in spring water to be unprocessed, even though it has been canned. I consider a frozen bag of peeled and cooked shrimp to be unprocessed, even though it has been peeled, cooked, and frozen. But a frozen bag of peeled garlic shrimp I would consider to be processed, because the ingredient list contains items I don't exactly know what they are. So that's my definition, it's the ingredient list.
- jamesredd 4y agoOf course red meat is healthy. So is dairy. The demonization of saturated fat has had disastrous health consequences.
- sgu999 4y ago
- bboylen 4y agoFrom my basic research into saturated fats, they are only really a problem if you are high in cholesterol and need to lower it. I've checked my cholesterol levels and they are low, despite me being a fan of butter and red meat. If they ever became a problem I would cut out the saturated fats, but there seems to be little point in doing that preemptively.
- jamesredd 4y agoThe cholesterol discussion is highly nuanced. There are alternative theories of the function of lipoproteins in the blood. If you're interested check out Dave Feldman's work around his theory, the Lipid Energy Model. https://cholesterolcode.com/model/ https://cholesterolcode.com/model/
- monopoliessuck 4y agoAs a vegetarian for well over a decade, I've always said the same thing. Meat isn't nearly as egregiously unhealthy as it's panned if at all. Processed foods, excessive simple carbohydrates and sugars are the main evils in the kitchen, but there are a variety of reasons to eat less meat too. There's nuance in all of this. People sympathetic to American consumption patterns will probably see science and explanations like this as some kind of endorsement of their diet. Nutritional science is still in its infancy and we'll be waffling on the specifics for decades to come, especially if food companies have a vested interest in funding studies. Another data point. Just eat minimally processed whole foods as often as possible, diversify your plate and moderate your intake. I think people are too hyper focused on the "super" and "evil" quality of foods and we end up stuck in the margins bike-shedding the minutia.
- mark_l_watson 4y agoI agree with you “Processed foods, excessive simple carbohydrates and sugars are the main evils in the kitchen, but there are a variety of reasons to eat less meat too.” I like to eat red meat two or three times a month: tasty and I think some red meat is healthy for me. I avoid any packaged food except I am too lazy to always make homemade bread. +1 for shopping for fresh vegetables, fruits, berries, whole grains, beans,… Really, the main center parts of grocery stores where everything is in plastic or boxes really needs to be avoided. As a substitute for packaged deserts, making a pancake and berries is pretty good.
- joenot443 4y ago>And so, the researchers came up with the burden of proof risk function, a novel statistical method to quantitatively “evaluate and summarize evidence of risk across different risk-outcome pairs.” My stats knowledge is admittedly shallow, but this seemed a bit out of place to me. Is it common to develop novel statistical vehicles for meta-studies like this? My expectation would be that this is a kind of investigation we've been doing for a while, so new models aren't really needed.
- denton-scratch 4y agoYeah, that looked sus to me too.
- Buttons840 4y agoFrom the first paragraph: > red meat consumption is linked to colorectal cancer, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, and ischemic heart disease I'm only a little deceptive here, because the study only found "weak" evidence of the above, so they did find some evidence. So the study produced some evidence that aligns with previous research and somehow this "slams" previous research?
- triceratops 4y ago"The dose makes the poison."
- tony_cannistra 4y agoGosh, for all the bluster in this comment section of supposed technical folks nobody seems to be highlighting what appears to be a very compelling methodological advance in the Burden of Proof methodology [0] used to produce this result. > "Here, we propose a complementary approach, in which we quantify the mean relationship (the risk function) between risk exposure and a disease or injury outcome, after adjusting for known biases in the existing studies. Unlike existing approaches, our approach does not force log-linearity in risk functions or make additional approximations, such as midpoint approximations for ranges or shared reference group" [0]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01973-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01973-2
- DennisP 4y agoSince they don't mention kidneys, I'd like to see someone apply their approach to this study, claiming that red meat increases the risk of end-stage renal disease: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5198288/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5198288/
- tony_cannistra 4y agoThat's a good idea. As I understand it the Burden of Proof method is a meta-analytical method, though, which means it gets applied to a corpus of studies. I'm sure there are more than 1 study that tries to figure out that relationship, though.
- boxed 4y agoAm I getting this right? 1. MANY studies over many years show red meat consumption is bad 2. This study shows that it's bad, but not a lot 3. This is ONE study we're talking about 4. This study invents a new statistical methodology
- tony_cannistra 4y agoUnfortunately, you don't have it quite right. This "one study" is a meta-analysis, which considers many studies. Furthermore, meta-analysis methodology is very important. Doing it wrong is bad. Working to make it better is good. They did that.
- Aardwolf 4y agoThe state of food research science is so ridiculously bad. We got paper after paper, and badly written news article after badly written news article, contradicting each other on everything about fat types, coffee, milk, meat, wine, anything else that's edible or drinkable you name it. It's as if we know exactly zero information about the relationship between food and health, because for every fact, there'll be another contradictory fact. I have no trust in food related scientific research. Give us properly conducted experiments with large enough (millions?) sample sizes and all the necessary blinds, publish it, and ensure we can STICK with it, don't leave openings for papers with the opposite opinion to be published, by making your experiment good enough to be indisputable. Thank you.
- aetherane 4y agoOne contributing factor is that many studies are funded by the people selling you the food being studied
- blowski 4y agoNot just the foods, but also the books, pills, programmes, etc.
- tony_cannistra 4y ago> Give us properly conducted experiments with large enough (millions?) sample sizes, publish it, and ensure we can STICK with it, don't leave openings for papers with the opposite opinion to be published, by making your experiment good enough to be indisputable. With all due respect, this comment sounds like you've not really ever considered how this research is actually conducted.
- Aardwolf 4y agoI indeed don't know how research is conducted in this field, and I'm sorry if I made the wrong point due to that. But we're getting papers with opposite opinions now, so something is very wrong with how it's conducted now. Either do it properly, or be honest about the correctness/p-values/... to avoid articles on "red meat is bad", then articles with "red meat is not bad", or "coffee causes cancer", then "coffee has antioxidants and is good against cancer", etc...
- gz5 4y agoAs a layman, it feels like studies which are not specific to individual genomes (and expressions of those genomes), and don't usually consider differences in areas we seem to be learning more about every hour (e.g. gut biome), are going to be antiquated as we continue to learn more in those types of areas. Said the other way, getting to the individual level will have a massive impact on how we approach health and medicine. Am I too optimistic? If and when we can get to this individual level, are we each still a very complex system with too many unknown unknowns - too many interdependencies and unknown relationships between cause and effect (even when they do exist)?
- thrwy_918 4y agoThe partisan tone of this article is very grating and makes it hard to take it seriously. It is full of brash, opinionated statements which are not backed up by the actual study [1] the article is based on. I have to conclude that it's being upvoted here because people enjoy eating red meat and want to continue to do so, not because it has any particular merit on its own terms. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01968-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01968-z
- tony_cannistra 4y agoIt is interesting how certain posts on HN elicit a compelling discussion and others more of a "everyone yelling into the void" situation.
- rootusrootus 4y agoVirtue signaling. A loaded term, yes. But it is exactly why these discussions go off the rails. Nutritional 'science' doesn't even really exist, so you can always find something out there that sounds very objective and intelligence which will back up the positions you already hold on faith. This discussion today is already off to a great start with bro science and bragging about personal choices that are clearly the best, with the occasional 'but I am a little weak, so I don't get it perfect every time' tossed in to make it sound real. Hell, there's even a bit of the smug international 'this is just an America problem' already cropping up. Another day ending in Y on HN.
- cbsmith 4y ago> Virtue signaling. A loaded term, yes. But it is exactly why these discussions go off the rails. Nutritional 'science' doesn't even really exist, so you can always find something out there that sounds very objective and intelligence which will back up the positions you already hold on faith. What you're describing is more confirmation bias than virtue signaling. Certainly there's plenty of both here.
- danuker 4y ago
- DueDilligence 4y ago.. not buying it. not. one. bit.
- COGlory 4y agoThe Nutritional Science field is such an unmitigated disaster of bad science, unethical science, sponsored "science", and contradictory science. The rot starts at the top, with a gate-kept Academy of Nutritionists that is far more concerned about increasing Dietition wages and responsibility at hospitals (for instance, they want dietitians writing "food prescriptions" directly so they can bill insurance) than the quality and origin of the research they approve for their database. It has been multiyear battles to get their "official scientific consensus) moved off things like "eggs are bad" and now finally "meat is bad". Glad to see there's progress being made. Also glad I got out of that field.
- Buttons840 4y agoI don't know. Name an area of research that is more complicated and expensive to study than nutrition science. Fusion? That's less complicated.
- thereddaikon 4y agoIs this a joke? Nuclear physics is definitely more complicated. What super computers are the FDA commissioning to study nutrition?
- Buttons840 4y agoI guess I mean an expanded view of nutrition science, where we fully understand the effects of what we eat. This would be beyond engineering. One thing about engineering is it can succeed or fail fairly quickly, and the results can mostly be replicated. We build a reactor and we soon know whether it works or not. And reactors are something we understand enough that we can design them, and create them. Meanwhile in nutrition we're making educated guesses and watching what happens over decades. What helps one person kills another. We're using statistics to tease out the truth, to get mere glimpses of the truth. We're on the outside making educated guesses about a system beyond our full comprehension. A final thought: Which will happen first: commercially viable fusion energy, or the obesity rate in the US falling below 25%? Which would you bet on? (I am considering the challenge of how to improve the diet and nutrition of an entire nation under the umbrella of "nutrition science" here.)
- irusensei 4y agoMy Italian grand-grand parents lived a long life, often filled with hard work for the time they live in. I probably share a lot of their genetical structure. It seems logical to me that I should disregard "good and bad food" clickbait studies and eat and drink the same way they ate.
- ricardobayes 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_zone
- rajin444 4y agoAm I missing it, or is there no mention of genetics in there? That seems like such a massive oversight that failing to address it makes this meaningless. It’s like comparing the space/time complexity of different programs without looking at the code - and instead only looking at the language it was written in.
- CadmiumYellow 4y agoI have had this same thought every time anyone brings up these longevity studies. For the most part the blue zones are isolated locations that would likely have genetically distinct populations. It may be that these groups are genetically predisposed to exceptional longevity or that they're simply especially well adapted to the traditional diet of their location. Either way the findings wouldn't generalize to any useful dietary guidelines unless you're descended from one of those populations. The one exception might be Loma Linda, not very isolated but home to a large population of Seventh Day Adventists who are vegetarian, but I'd be willing to bet that it's still more genetically homogeneous than your average US city.
- lm28469 4y ago> and eat and drink the same way they ate Can you still do that though ? Animal farming evolved a looot since then
- ragazzina 4y ago
- seydor 4y agoslams ! maybe butchers
- nonameiguess 4y agoI don't want to speak like I'm some kind of expert on the state of nutrition research, but I at least follow expert summaries more closely than most people, meaning following science-minded folks in the evidence-based health and fitness communities, not popular science publishing. My impression is that this is not really a problem with the research itself. There's the well-known problem of science journalists turning every finding into vastly simplified and often flat wrong clickbait. But there is a separate issue with recommendation bodies being very conservative and slow to change a recommendation. In all the time I've been paying attention, which is years now, every published finding about risks from red meat has pretty much exclusively been from processed and charred meats, with the risk clearly coming from nitrates and carbon, not from the meat itself. I don't personally "like" this finding. I live in Texas, love brisket, got seriously into smoking meats for years in my 30s, but there is no way I can look at all the evidence that's come out and conclude anything other than that eating smoked meat on a regular basis for decades is going to increase risk. But at the same time, I have nothing to make me believe that simply eating red meat at all that has not been smoked or charred and otherwise modified in some way to extend shelf life, is going to increase risk. And the studies themselves never claimed this. It's health agencies and science journalism that chose to make this interpretation without it being justified, whether out of an abundance of caution or just to grab eyeballs.
- xkbarkar 4y agoOnly a matter of time until the metrics of carbon foot print of the food industry are proven to be based on shoddy research too I suppose.
- Leary 4y agoI'll eat more red meat if anyone could link a study that shows more red meat consumption is linked to LESS cancer mortality. Thanks!
- Buttons840 4y agoNot this study, it showed some ("weak") correlation between red meat consumption and poor health outcomes. Keep looking.
- blue039 4y ago
- pessimizer 4y agoNobody is trying to make you eat red meat, although its weird that you require it to cure cancer.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- oifjsidjf 4y agoGrain fed meat is totaly different than grass fed meat. Grain fed animals have very high saturated fat amount compared to grass fed ones. Grass fed animals and wild boars and wild cattle have much more PUFAs than grain fed ones. So the quality of meat went down drasticaly in the last 100 years. Which is ironic since many carnivores are screaming "PUFA bad" in a reductionist fashion and at the same time say you "must eat only grass fed animals" lol.
- keneda7 4y agoNot familiar with PUFA (had to look it up). I am a little confused by what your last line is saying? PUFA: Polyunsaturated fatty acids are fatty acids that contain more than one double bond in their backbone
- oifjsidjf 4y agoThe types of fats in grain fed and grass fed meat are different, that is what I was saying. By "carnivores" I mean people who only eat meat: they are all taking the stance that "saturated fat good, PUFA bad".
- dundarious 4y agoI think this is the most important figure in the actual study, and it absolutely doesn't justify the bold claims of bigthink. The upper right quadrant is the danger zone. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01968-z/figures/4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01968-z/figures/4 The study tries to account for things like publication bias (though seems to not find any evidence for it or do any accounting for it in 5/6 of the comparisons under study). I don't think it's wise to conclude from the fringe cutting through the x-axis that only shoddy research would claim unprocessed red meat has a health risk (which is to say nothing about processed red meat, the subject of most of the headline-grabbing studies about health risks).
- tony_cannistra 4y ago> I don't think it's wise to conclude from the fringe cutting through the x-axis that only shoddy research would claim unprocessed red meat has a health risk You're right, but they don't claim that. The y-axis here is "relative risk." There's no such thing as "no risk" in these studies. Practically speaking, of course, there is -- most of us live our lives with "low risk" = "no risk," necessarily. The takeaway from this figure is exactly what's written in the article: "As shown in Fig. 4, the relationship between unprocessed red meat intake and combined-cause incidence and mortality was increasing across the entire exposure domain."
- dundarious 4y ago> The takeaway from this figure is exactly what's written in the article: "As shown in Fig. 4 [...]" That's from the study that I didn't criticize, not the bigthink article that I do criticize. The claims about "shoddy research" and "not a health risk" are from the bigthink article, not the study. If bigthink rewrote the article to focus on the quotation you provided, it would be far more informative. Edit: And to somewhat address your point about relative risk (RR). If someone told me that an activity had almost no upside health risk, and a wide range of downside health risk, I would not think "no health risk" is an appropriate summary statement. Again, this is a criticism of the bigthink (or really, RealClearScience) article.
- sergiotapia 4y agoBeen on carnivore for 10 days now. Feel like a horse and my lifting energy has increased, my calisthenics have improved. I sleep better and don't feel bloated. Grains and sugar have been the biggest lie I was ever told. But here's what I propose to you HN reader: take 30 days. 30 measly days, eat eggs, meat and dairy. No grain, no processed shit. Give it a try and see how you feel. Ignore the rest.
- Buttons840 4y ago> Give it a try and see how you feel. Ignore the rest. Remember that how you feel isn't the same thing as your long term health risks. My belief, and that of mainstream science, is that this diet will raise your cholesterol and increase your risk of heart disease. You won't be able to feel your heart health worsening until things are very bad. It might be a trade-off some people want though.
- sergiotapia 4y agoGet your blood work done at regular intervals and confirm that fear. I've seen a lot of people show impressive bloodwork results online. But again, don't believe internet randoms, just talk to a doctor and get your blood drawn. See for yourself.
- Buttons840 4y agoI had 193 LDL-C, which is about 97th percentile, and I'm fairly lean so I can't look to weightloss as a solution. I was scared when I saw this measurement, and after some research started a mostly plant based diet. I purchased another blood test 10 days later and my LDL-C had fallen 50 points to 143. Both tests were reliable; performed by Quest diagnostics. I hope I will continue to improve. I feel a little shitty though, perhaps I haven't mastered a balanced plant based diet yet. I do eat lean meat two meals a week. I believe a proper plant based diet takes more skill to balance than one that includes meat. I also believe that what works for one might not work for another. So yes, trying different things and getting measurements is good advice. I'd warn against chiropractors (they call themselves "doctors", but not of medicine) on YouTube telling people that cholesterol doesn't matter; it is a risk factor, but only one of many factors.
- RadixDLT 4y agosurprize surprize, humans have been eating red meat for a million years
- bogota 4y agoSlams should not be allowed in titles here. It’s abused by journalists or editors who just want to make you feel angry instead of conveying a point. I question info from any publication that uses it
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sinemetu11 4y agoDid the author even read the abstract let alone the paper? > We also found that while risk for the six outcomes in our analysis combined was minimized at 0 g unprocessed red meat intake per day, the 95% uncertainty interval that incorporated between-study heterogeneity was very wide: from 0–200 g d−1. While there is some evidence that eating unprocessed red meat is associated with increased risk of disease incidence and mortality, it is weak and insufficient to make stronger or more conclusive recommendations. Doesn't sound like it particularly slams years of shoddy research.
- OJFord 4y agoOh, but you won't believe what happened next.
- Terretta 4y ago> Did the author even read the abstract let alone the paper? The author has a different purpose in publishing as evidenced in the well crafted headline, as correlated with ratio of commenters here engaging on that headline w/o reading the abstract.
- mritchie712 4y agoI did a good bit of research and experimentation on diet. Tons of conflicting studies. I just eat things that don't make me feel bad after eating them and hope for the best.
- pessimizer 4y ago> While there is some evidence that eating unprocessed red meat is associated with increased risk of disease incidence and mortality, it is weak and insufficient to make stronger or more conclusive recommendations. Is this not a slam?
- hinkley 4y ago> it is weak and insufficient to make stronger or more conclusive recommendations. So you're saying there's a chance...
- photochemsyn 4y agoThis is a misleading headline. The study restricts its focus to unprocessed red meat, indeed the word 'unprocessed' appears 72 times in the study. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01968-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01968-z Furthermore, the study does not separate growth-hormone-treated and antibiotic-treated meat, which is widely considered to have higher health risks. Similarly, there's no mention of food-borne illnesses due to microbial contamination, again a higher risk in combined and processed meat (hamburgers, hot dogs, sausage etc.) > "Approximately 128,000 Americans are hospitalized and 3000 die each year from foodborne illness. A ten-year study of 4589 foodborne outbreaks attributed 46% of these hospitalizations and 43% of the deaths to meat. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the primary federal agency tasked with regulating food, is aware of these statistics, and characterizes them as “largely preventable.” It is becoming clear that modern meat production methods allow pathogens to spread with ease, creating great food safety risks." If FDA Does Not Regulate Food, Who Will? A Study of Hormones and Antibiotics in Meat Production (2015) https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0098858815591528 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0098858815591528 A single animal, raised on crops not contaminated with pesticides and herbicides, nor treated with antibiotics and growth hormones, and butchered in a food-safe manner with due regard for avoiding microbial contamination, is not a health risk. This rules out, what, >95% of domestic USA meat production, at least?
- warkdarrior 4y agoThe nice thing about such articles is that you can change the message without being incorrect. > "Approximately 128,000 Americans are hospitalized and 3000 die each year from foodborne illness. A ten-year study of 4589 foodborne outbreaks attributed 54% of these hospitalizations and 57% of the deaths to vegetables. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the primary federal agency tasked with regulating food, is aware of these statistics, and characterizes them as “largely preventable.” It is becoming clear that modern vegetable production methods allow pathogens to spread with ease, creating great food safety risks."
- photochemsyn 4y agoEven better, you can read the cited study, and look at the footnotes, and read the relevant citation: > "These percentages do not include illnesses and deaths caused by seafood. See John A. Painter et al., Attribution of Foodborne Illnesses, Hospitalizations, and Deaths to Food Commodities by Using Outbreak Data, United States, 1998-2008" http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/19/3/11-1866_article http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/19/3/11-1866_article Hospitalizations: > "An estimated 26,000 (46%) annual hospitalizations were attributed to land animal commodities, 24,000 (41%) to plant commodities, and 3,000 (6%) to aquatic animal commodities (Table 2). Produce commodities accounted for 38% of hospitalizations and meat-poultry commodities for 22%. Dairy accounted for the most hospitalizations (16%), followed by leafy vegetables (14%), poultry (12%), and vine-stalk vegetables (10%) (Figure 2, panel B). Among the estimated 57,000 hospitalizations, 8% were not attributed to a pathogen, mainly because the dataset did not include data for Toxoplasma spp. Deaths: > An estimated 629 (43%) deaths each year were attributed to land animal, 363 (25%) to plant, and 94 (6%) to aquatic commodities (Table 3). Meat-poultry commodities accounted for 29% of deaths and produce 23%. Among the 17 commodities, poultry accounted for the most deaths (19%), followed by dairy (10%), vine-stalk vegetables (7%), fruits-nuts (6%), and leafy vegetables (6%) (Figure 2, panel C). Of the 278 deaths attributed to poultry, most were attributed to Listeria monocytogenes (63%) or Salmonella spp. (26%). Among the 1,451 estimated deaths, 25% were not attributed to a pathogen, mainly because the dataset did not include data for Toxoplasma spp." The real conclusion here is that the food supply chain in the USA is poorly regulated and presents large health risks to consumers, and as the producers do not have to bear the costs of externalities (air and water pollution, increased disease, etc.) they are under no pressure to improve the situation. Again, meat, like vegetables, fruits, grains, leafy produce, etc. - when produced under high standards (i.e. no pesticide/herbicide contamination, no hormones and antibiotics, no violations of food safety standards) is quite healthy to consume.
- wppick 4y agoI think it's not so black and white. When you eat meat you essentially eat what the animal ate. Wild elk is going to be a different "red meat" from factory farmed beef that ate only low nutrition corn grown with pesticides
- rdevsrex 4y agoI think it is still best to err on the side of caution for a number of reasons. One is that not all red meat is equal in quality. For example, beef from cafo's where they heavily does with antibiotics and mostly feed them corn and soy is not the same as grass fed and finished. But another reason is simply your individual health profile. Most people know that the Inuit and other northern people's have adaptations to allow them to handle much higher levels of meat and fat. Maybe you can't handle as much as other people can. I only read the abstract but I saw nothing about the risk of obesity and diabetes there, but clearly in rich countries, we eat too much meat. Lastly there is the environmental reasons. We can't feed everyone the same amount of meat that we in the rich countries eat. So sooner or later we will have to get used to less.
- Waterluvian 4y agoI’ve been listening to a medical history podcast called Sawbones. It’s funny how history rhymes so well. Every generation of health experts have had this sort of smug superiority about how the previous generations were such morons and, finally, they actually understand how things work. But even today it’s obvious that’s simply untrue. Less fats and proteins, more grains? Way to go, food pyramid. I’m not equipped to scrutinize this report on red meat. But I do know that they can be very very wrong and to be skeptical of any bold claim in any direction.
- plaguepilled 4y agoInappropriately emotive language? In my HN link title? Cringe.
- bobbobbobsteve 4y agoI've been a vegetarian since I visited a slaughterhouse when I was 10 years old. I'll never touch meat again. I believe if more people saw what I did, they would stop too, but perhaps not. I'm an old man now and humanity keeps slipping down in my psyches' personal internal hierarchy of veneration, or to state it plainly, "People suck."
- kuhzaam 4y agoHow has that worked out for you, in terms of health? Obviously it is anecdotal, but I'm still curious. I've been plant based for 5 years. Trying to determine if it is a life long thing for me or not.
- moosey 4y agoI'll answer. I have limited myself to vegan food for the last 17 years or so. Buy good cookbooks. Bring your own food to things. That basically sums up our success sticking with it. Health-wise, my health markers are extremely good. No B12 or iron deficiency. I attribute a ton of this success to consistent physical activity, though, particularly weight lifting. Regarding physical activity, it comes easy, I am in way better physical health than the bay majority of my peers, if not for my asthma issues. I associate that, again, not with the diet, but with general physical activity. Basically, the diet doesn't hurt, and statistically isn't likely to help you. The important part is the ecological cost of a diet full of meat, imo, or if someone eats enormous amounts of meat and ends up with a physical malady from it.
- sweetheart 4y agoVegan for nearly 7 years here. Got all my blood work back a couple months ago and I couldn't be healthier! I don't even know much about nutrition tbh. I eat a variety of things, make sure I get B12, and just try to eat green things at every meal. My body is healthy, my conscience is at ease, and I've never enjoyed food more.
- rcarr 4y agoDiet research seems like a wild goose chase and I'm not sure I trust much of it anymore. There are so many variables involved when it comes to human health that I fail to see how you can do any kind of accurate modelling on what is or isn't beneficial when it comes to food unless it has an obviously seismic effect e.g sugar, lack of vitamins and minerals etc. Whatsmore, it's plausible that something that may appear beneficial in the short term may actually be an imbalance that causes a long term response that isn't beneficial. Seemingly every food on the planet has a study showing it causes or cures cancer. Yes I'm being hyperbolic but you get what I'm saying. The whole problem is further compounded by Big $INDUSTRY funding and bribing scientists and whoever else to push $INDUSTRY_PRODUCT such as happened with the sugar lobby until recently. People desperately want diet to behave like classical physics with an indentikit formula they can just roll out to everyone but it's just not the case. Everyone's body responds to different foods differently and even reacts to those same foods differently over time or in different situations. The only real way to find out is personal experimentation and observation.
- 0F5 4y agoDr Sean baker has eaten literally nothing but red meat, cooked rare to boot, for more than five years. He has perfect health. He hasn’t developed any of the pathologies that are caused by red meat or saturated animal fat according to the medical establishment. CAC score zero. Zero plaques in a survey of blood vessels in the eye balls. Nothing. The current model is wrong. Why is it so hard for people to wrap their mind around it?
- karaterobot 4y agoI would not base my decisions off a self-reported, unscientific experiment on one person.
- 0F5 4y agoHis labs are pretty hard data if you ask me. And there are many people who do it. And the evidence is overwhelming. Look at the cholesterol drugs that enzymatically transform LDL to HDL. They improved peoples cholesterol massively and it had zero impact on cardiac events. Zero.
- bilsbie 4y agoI wonder how much of a factor of how the meat was raised plays into this?
- timbit42 4y agoYou are what you eat. What you eat is what it eats.
- silent_cal 4y agoStatistical models are flimsy and misleading. I think anyone who has worked with them would admit that. Add or remove one parameter and the whole thing can change. Trusting any conclusion based on a statistical model is naive. The fact that scientific research relies on them so heavily is the main reason I don't "trust the science". It's a house built on sand.
- Metacelsus 4y agoThe real concern is cured meats. Nitrosamines are terrible for you. Even "no nitrites added" meats will often have celery juice concentrate added, which contains lots of nitrites.
- JeremyNT 4y agoThis title seems like clickbait. The linked article seems like mostly blogspam that's talking about a new meta-analysis with some specific claims, but it also sprinkles in a quote from an unrelated professor that makes some stronger claims. Specifically, the study it leans on most concludes: > We found weak evidence of association between unprocessed red meat consumption and colorectal cancer, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes and ischemic heart disease. Moreover, we found no evidence of an association between unprocessed red meat and ischemic stroke or hemorrhagic stroke. We also found that while risk for the six outcomes in our analysis combined was minimized at 0 g unprocessed red meat intake per day, the 95% uncertainty interval that incorporated between-study heterogeneity was very wide: from 0–200 g d−1. While there is some evidence that eating unprocessed red meat is associated with increased risk of disease incidence and mortality, it is weak and insufficient to make stronger or more conclusive recommendations. More rigorous, well-powered research is needed to better understand and quantify the relationship between consumption of unprocessed red meat and chronic disease. [0] This conclusion is dramatically different from "not a health risk." [0] https://www.healthdata.org/research-article/health-effects-associated-consumption-unprocessed-red-meat-burden-proof-study https://www.healthdata.org/research-article/health-effects-a...
- ZoomerCretin 4y ago_Unprocessed_ red meat. The study is very specific about this.
- racl101 4y agoNot as bad as processed carbs and sugars that's for sure.
- Julesman 4y agoSure, and a spot of heroin won't hurt you either. No one EVER suggested that eating some meat was harmful. Then Americans and some Brazillians decided they could live on 100% steak. Yeah, no.
- lizardactivist 4y agoIt would take some extraordinary results, produced by a mere study nonetheless, to merit calling decades of actual research shoddy.
- xnx 4y agoNew rule of headlines: Don't read any article that contains "slams" in the headline
- coding123 4y agoIt turns out Leafy Greens are the largest health risk for catching bacteria. You can't even wash it out because the bacteria grows into the plant. My wife and I stopped eating any fresh greens lately. Might start again with Kale only because it's a fancier salad green probably sourced in small gardens.
- purpleblue 4y agoJust another example of medical misinformation or disinformation that has been propagated by our media and science community. How many times do we have to fall for the same trick and just fall for what we are told, hook line and sinker? "Low fat diets are heart-healthy" was false, "high salt causes high blood pressure" was false, and now this "red meat causes cancer" is false. The same goes for "blue light causes sleep disruption" was shoddy science as well, conducted on 8 people with an average difference of 15 mins. Yet Apple and other phone manufacturers modified their settings because of this bad science that made its way through our society. There was a time when people who disputed low fat diets by pointing to the Mediterrean Diet, and they were considered heretics. This is why free flow of scientific information is vital to a well functioning society. Without it, we tend to fall into groupthink and we never advance our thinking. MY ENTIRE LIFE, I've been inundated with the idea that red meat caused cancer, especially burnt red meat, and at first I was scared, and then I started eschewing it, and I was right. I'm glad these scientists had the courage to go against the "accepted" view and every scientist should have the freedom to do the same without being castigated. That's one of the biggest problem we have in society today.
- kwertyoowiyop 4y ago“Slams” just cheapens the entire article. If you want me to take your article seriously, treat it seriously yourself.
- xurukefi 4y agoIt always amazes me how controversial nutrition is. Almost 300 comments here on HN within 2 hours. This is basically like religion and politics.
- class4behavior 4y agoThat was never a significant concern with regard to the push for lower consumption of meat anyway. If anything the entirety of your diet combined with your physical activity matters, not whether you choose to eat meat at all. Water consumption, land use, and biodiversity loss are way more important than even our own health care. On top of that, market pressure will always enable abusive treatment and processing of the animal, which is what large-scale animal husbandry inherently is anyway, while climate change and the size of the global population perpetually accelerate the rise of the costs of and competition for our resources.
- rrgok 4y agoI'm always surprised that only we, as in humans species, need studies, books and other things to educate us on what should or should not eat. The processing unit is inside us and yet its feedback is unreliably or, at best, too late to change the course of action. Even when looking at food, my sense doesn't say anything about it suitability to my body and mind. Only rotten or gone bad food are repulsive to the senses. And we are the most evolved species in this damn mud ball. I'm sick of it. From religions, cultures and science, everybody has something to say about the food we eat. But my body? Nope, almost nothing or too late, and that point you don't even know what caused the damage. I see a cow and it just eats the grass all day. It is stronger than me. It weigh more than me. It might be less intellectual than me, but it is not less intelligent than me as far as nutrition science.
- mr_johnson22 4y ago“There is, however, more evidence for a health risk from eating too few vegetables. That is really the risk of a high-meat diet, those meat calories are displacing vegetable calories.” Isn't a calorie just a calorie though? Or is this in regards to what comes alongside those calories?
- blue039 4y agoCICO is true at the highest level but not in general. The effect 200g of protein has on your body vs. 200g of carbohydrate (in particular insulin, ghrelin, etc) means not all calories are created equal. Energy-wise, yes, but the devil is in the details. If I had to infer the meaning here it's that high protein = constipation = not good. Vegetable calories include fiber which is important to insure you're processing things efficiently. Additionally, good vegetables (unfortunately not the ones you can get at the store usually) contain lots of great vitamins and minerals. I would be curious if they mean a typical American chain store vegetable which demonstrably has almost no nutrition compared to it's natural counterpart.
- 2-718-281-828 4y agoin one of lex friedman's more recent podcasts where he had jordan peterson as a guest, they both rave about red meat. peterson allegedly eats a steak for breakfast and for lunch and for dinner and lex is also doing something similar. not sure what to make of that, just came to my mind.
- coinbasetwwa 4y ago
- boringg 4y agoI have spoken with one of the leading researchers of cholesterol in the US and he said if you have high cholesterol you should only eat beef once a year due to the inflammatory nature of beef. I have cut out beef easily. There are a whole host of other reasons to not eat beef or minimize it in your diet. But I'd be curious who funded this research directly or indirectly.
- acconrad 4y agoIf you want to skip the article and go directly to the conclusions of the research: > ...given all the data available on red meat intake and risk of a subsequent outcome, we estimate that consuming unprocessed red meat across an average range of exposure levels increases the risk of subsequent colorectal cancer, breast cancer, IHD and type 2 diabetes at least slightly compared to eating no red meat (by at least 6%, 3%, 1% and 1%, respectively). Furthermore, the conservative interpretation of available data is consistent with no association between consuming unprocessed red meat and the risk of subsequent ischemic stroke or hemorrhagic stroke In other words, very mild risk of _unprocessed_ red meat consumption. Here's the thing - the culprit isn't the meat itself, it's the saturated fat within the meat. Fatty meats have more saturated fat, and the dose-response of red meat (which is generally higher fat than other meats) means it takes very little to hit general recommendations for saturated fat consumption (less than 10% of total calories). Also it's hard to decipher what "processing" really is. Ground meat is processed. Bacon is really processed. But you have to cut up meat from an animal to make it packageable - this is all processing. What is "bad" processing of meat? What is "good"? Is there such a thing? Does the moment you cure the meat (i.e. bacon) make it "bad"? This is how the general public is left with more questions than answers when research like this comes out. But if you stick to the canonical advice of eat lots of plants and a little bit of animal products, you're probably going to be okay. Keep saturated fat and sodium in check. Keep your fiber high. Don't smoke and don't drink to excess. Manage stress. Exercise. All that stuff in aggregate is what matters far more than a grass fed ribeye for dinner tonight.
- DoreenMichele 4y agoI don't like the title. It asserts a finding that wasn't actually found. They determined that the science doesn't really support claims of red meat causing x, y or z health issue. That is not the same as finding that red meat is not a health risk. The real conclusion: Nutrition science has a long history of poor methodology and cannot state much at all with much statistical confidence. That conclusion should not shock anyone familiar with how most such studies get done.
- 1-6 4y agoWe'll get yet another new study that slams studies that red meat is still bad and contributing to climate change. Some things will never grow old.
- tlarkworthy 4y agoThe vast contribution to greenhouse gases is well established though, so a preference to white meat is meaningful
- nottorp 4y agoSo... if i live in a country without a beef tradition, where the beef is imported and -ing expensive and most people have no idea how to cook it... what am I supposed to do now? :)
- norwalkbear 4y agoTrust the science is not a phrase we should be saying. Always question the science
- simonblack 4y agoRed meat is the most efficient way of maintaining iron in the body. That doesn't mean you have to eat red meat all the time, but sufficient for YOUR body to have enough iron. Some people might get away with one iron meal a month, some others might need it 3 times week.
- readonthegoapp 4y agoThis article has about 10 red flags -- the first one to jump out to me is this: And so, the researchers came up with the burden of proof risk function, a novel statistical method to quantitatively “evaluate and summarize evidence of risk across different risk-outcome pairs.” Using the function, any researcher can evaluate published data for a certain health risk, then, using the function, compute a single number that translates to a one- through five-star rating system. A new statistical method? Outside of that, the entire tenor of the article sounds like it's out of an EA journal. We don't do "studies" -- we do _real_ studies. ok. ...site funded by Kochs. ouch.
- sokre84 4y agoThis is part of the reason why people didn't trust Covid vaccines.
- mikestaub 4y agoMore and more evidence is mounting that we should be focusing on our gut biome diversity, which is increased when eating a variety of plant-based foods. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33619379/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33619379/
- yboris 4y agoThe amount of biased interest, lobbying, and funding from the meat lobby / industry is stupendous. With all that as a background, we ought to be skeptical of studies that contradict the evidence of high consumption of meat being correlated highly with (and there's good evidence for causal pathways too of) adverse health outcomes. He’s an Outspoken Defender of Meat. Industry Funds His Research, Files Show. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/climate/frank-mitloehner-uc-davis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/climate/frank-mitloehner-...
- uslic001 4y agoI have performed over 30 thousand colonoscopies in my career so far. I have never seen a piece of meat in the colon, but see rotting vegetables all the time as humans don't have a ruminant extra stomach like cows to digest vegetables/fiber. Meat gets a bad rap for no good reason. Processed meat is another matter as it is bad for you.