3 ms·

Is "red meat" categorically bad for us, or is it merely bad for us in the corrupt, bastardized form that it usually takes in modern diets? I'm no nutritionist,

Is "red meat" categorically bad for us, or is it merely bad for us in the corrupt, bastardized form that it usually takes in modern diets? I'm no nutritionist, but intuition would suggest that it's actually quite healthy to eat the same animals that humans have been chomping on since the dawn of time. Maybe the problem isn't that we eat cows, it's that we eat mutant freak factory-farmed cows that have been pumped full of hormones, raised on diets of toxic garbage and tortured for most of their short lives? I'm only guessing. With that being said, the thing that concerns me most about lab-grown meat isn't whether it's healthy, it's that if it ever gets popular then it's going to be controlled by a tiny handful of multinational megacorps who'll use it to crush independent food producers worldwide and enforce a brutal centralized control of something as basic to human survival our everyday protein consumption. They're the last people on earth we should trust to keep us healthy and satiated, and their claims that they're doing it for our or the environment's benefit (and not just their own greedy empowerment and profiteering) should be treated with extreme scepticism.

littlestymaar 3y ago
> but intuition would suggest that it's actually quite healthy to eat the same animals that humans have been chomping on since the dawn of time When life expectancy is no more than 40, you don't care about getting cancer at 60. When it's 80+, that's more of a problem. Moreover in traditional societies people have grown-up children long before they get cancer in average, so there's very little selective pressure on that front.
- slily 3y ago
  I don't know how these myths keep getting regurgitated to this day, but plenty of people lived to old age back when life expectancy was low due to high infant mortality. People in blue zones also ate meat regularly despite some claims to the contrary.
  - pazimzadeh 3y ago
    regularly ≠ often
- NackerHughes 3y ago
  Average life expectancy was around 40 only because many died in infancy, which is itself unrelated to red meat consumption. If you lived past that stage, the average life expectancy was more around 70, the origin of the phrase ‘threescore years and ten’.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    It's more complicated than this, longevity (which is the concept you're looking for) was indeed higher than 40 years, but at the same time mortality all along life was still much higher than today and most people died before old age (men more so than women though). But that's why I added the second sentence: from an evolutionary perspective it actually doesn't matter if you die from cancer at 60 when you're close to being great-grand father, you've done your job of reproducing and raising your kids well enough and as such it's a good time to go. People often don't get this, but from a biological perspective death is not actually a bad thing, the only thing that matters is that you leave descendants bearing your genes behind you.
bryanrasmussen 3y ago
>Maybe the problem isn't that we eat cows, aside from quality there is also quantity, which the quantity of red meat consumed in modern meat eaters' diets as I understand it is significantly higher than that of a few hundred years ago.
loup-vaillant 3y ago
As far as I understand the main problem is eating too much meat. Instead of having some at every meal (save maybe breakfast), we could eat once or twice a week. (Not disputing the idea that how the meat was grown matters, though.)

littlestymaar 3y ago

> but intuition would suggest that it's actually quite healthy to eat the same animals that humans have been chomping on since the dawn of time When life expectancy is no more than 40, you don't care about getting cancer at 60. When it's 80+, that's more of a problem. Moreover in traditional societies people have grown-up children long before they get cancer in average, so there's very little selective pressure on that front.

slily 3y ago
I don't know how these myths keep getting regurgitated to this day, but plenty of people lived to old age back when life expectancy was low due to high infant mortality. People in blue zones also ate meat regularly despite some claims to the contrary.
- pazimzadeh 3y ago
  regularly ≠ often
NackerHughes 3y ago
Average life expectancy was around 40 only because many died in infancy, which is itself unrelated to red meat consumption. If you lived past that stage, the average life expectancy was more around 70, the origin of the phrase ‘threescore years and ten’.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  It's more complicated than this, longevity (which is the concept you're looking for) was indeed higher than 40 years, but at the same time mortality all along life was still much higher than today and most people died before old age (men more so than women though). But that's why I added the second sentence: from an evolutionary perspective it actually doesn't matter if you die from cancer at 60 when you're close to being great-grand father, you've done your job of reproducing and raising your kids well enough and as such it's a good time to go. People often don't get this, but from a biological perspective death is not actually a bad thing, the only thing that matters is that you leave descendants bearing your genes behind you.

bryanrasmussen 3y ago

>Maybe the problem isn't that we eat cows, aside from quality there is also quantity, which the quantity of red meat consumed in modern meat eaters' diets as I understand it is significantly higher than that of a few hundred years ago.

loup-vaillant 3y ago

As far as I understand the main problem is eating too much meat. Instead of having some at every meal (save maybe breakfast), we could eat once or twice a week. (Not disputing the idea that how the meat was grown matters, though.)