Eat Less Red Meat, Scientists Said. Now Some Believe That Was Bad Advice. (nytimes.com) 315
The evidence is too weak to justify telling individuals to eat less beef and pork, according to new research. The findings "erode public trust," critics said. From a report: Public health officials for years have urged Americans to limit consumption of red meat and processed meats because of concerns that these foods are linked to heart disease, cancer and other ills. But on Monday, in a remarkable turnabout, an international collaboration of researchers produced a series of analyses concluding that the advice, a bedrock of almost all dietary guidelines, is not backed by good scientific evidence. If there are health benefits from eating less beef and pork, they are small, the researchers concluded. Indeed, the advantages are so faint that they can be discerned only when looking at large populations, the scientists said, and are not sufficient to tell individuals to change their meat-eating habits. "The certainty of evidence for these risk reductions was low to very low," said Bradley Johnston, an epidemiologist at Dalhousie University in Canada and leader of the group publishing the new research in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
The new analyses are among the largest such evaluations ever attempted and may influence future dietary recommendations. In many ways, they raise uncomfortable questions about dietary advice and nutritional research, and what sort of standards these studies should be held to. Already they have been met with fierce criticism by public health researchers. The American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and other groups have savaged the findings and the journal that published them.
The new analyses are among the largest such evaluations ever attempted and may influence future dietary recommendations. In many ways, they raise uncomfortable questions about dietary advice and nutritional research, and what sort of standards these studies should be held to. Already they have been met with fierce criticism by public health researchers. The American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and other groups have savaged the findings and the journal that published them.
The data is inconclusive. (Score:2, Insightful)
No. The new study doesn't say that this is bad advice. What it said is that the data from previous studies is insufficient to make any conclusions with good statistical certainty.
Re:The data is inconclusive. (Score:5, Insightful)
Giving that advice based on insufficient data from previous studies makes it... bad advice.
Re:The data is inconclusive. (Score:5, Insightful)
Over the years, a lot studies in the nutrition field have demonstrated one thing and its opposite. Margarine causes cancer, then it doesn't. Fat is bad, then it's good. Sugar is good, then it's bad, then it depends. HFCS is OK, then it's evil.
Let's just eat whatever makes you feel good, and go with logic. Eat natural stuff, fruits, veggies, meat, fish. Avoid a bag of chips everyday, chocolate bars and soft drinks as much as possible. Exercise.
Then, if you have cancer, you can say that you did your best. Even people eating perfect diets can end up having cancer. Live and eat happily.
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Margarine causes cancer, then it doesn't.
Margarine causes heart disease, not cancer.
Also, you have the flip-flop backwards. First it was thought to be healthier than butter, until we found out it wasn't.
Avoid a bag of chips everyday, chocolate bars and soft drinks as much as possible.
Based on what evidence?
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Margarine causes heart disease, not cancer. Also, you have the flip-flop backwards. First it was thought to be healthier than butter, until we found out it wasn't.
I have found nothing on the Internet, probably the news is too old, I heard when I was young that studies have shown margarine causes cancer. Then not, then you risk heart disease.
Avoid a bag of chips everyday, chocolate bars and soft drinks as much as possible.
Based on what evidence?
Frikin logic. Chips are full of sodium and trans fat. Chocolate bars generally have "sugar" as their first ingredient, as in "refined sugar", which causes all sorts of diseases, too long to list here. Same with soft drinks, diet or not. Diet soft drinks are the worse, cause the sugary taste make your pancreas believe there will be
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Based on what evidence?
Frikin logic.
Science is about evidence, not logic.
Chips are full of sodium and trans fat.
Chips do not contain trans fat. Evidence that sodium is bad for you is inconsistent. It appears to be bad for some people (especially ethnic West Africans) but others can consume it with no problem (especially ethnic East Asians).
Chocolate bars generally have "sugar" as their first ingredient
Chocolate also contains healthy antioxidants. Some studies have found that chocolate can lower cholesterol and reduce memory decline.
Re:The data is inconclusive. (Score:4, Interesting)
My recollection is that sodium increases blood pressure
It does, but only in some people.
If your ancestors lived where salt was scarce, such as West Africa, your body will tend or hoard salt, and your blood pressure will go up.
If your ancestors lived where salt was widely and cheaply available, such as East Asia, your body will tolerate excess salt.
If your ancestors lived where salt was somewhat available but historically expensive, such as Europe, salt will likely raise your blood pressure some, but perhaps not excessively.
Disclaimer: I try to avoid salt, but I am not fanatical about it. My BP is 125/85. My spouse puts soy sauce (basically liquid salt) in everything she eats, and her BP is 90/60.
Re: The data is inconclusive. (Score:4, Informative)
In a nutshell, your body tries to maintain a specific amount of electrolytes per volume of blood. How much of each electrolyte it maintains is generally determined by your kidneys. Each nephron takes in electrolytes, releases an exact amount back into your blood, and excretes the remainder. This is one among hundreds of reasons why your blood pressure is 90% determined by your kidneys. In other words, if you have high blood pressure, it probably has something to do with your kidneys. In order to do this effectively, your kidneys need water (too much of which can raise your blood pressure.)
One mechanism your body uses to keep these electrolytes balanced is to trigger a thirst reflex so that you drink in order to increase your blood volume. Sodium, being an electrolyte that we tend to consume in abundance, will make you thirsty for this reason if you consume a lot of it. For a short period of time, this does increase your blood pressure until your kidneys have time to remove what you don't need.
If your kidneys have a chronic disease, they're permanently filtering slower, so this will increase your blood pressure long-term, so doctors will tell you to avoid salt (sodium and salt aren't the same, by the way) if you have high blood pressure, and especially so if you are diagnosed with kidney disease.
Though speaking from experience, even with my failed kidneys, sodium doesn't increase my blood pressure that much, even before I got my transplant.
The same is also true of congestive diseases like congestive heart failure, where fluid buildup increases the size of your ventricles, making your heart less effective at pumping blood. Many chronic diseases will be worsened by increased blood volume.
So, let me state this clearly: Sodium will not cause a heart attack; that is a condition caused by a blocked vein that delivers blood to the heart muscle itself, meaning your heart is deprived of oxygen that it needs to use to extract energy from adenosine triphosphate, meaning the muscle tissue dies, meaning it's harder to pump blood.
Sodium will also not cause cardiac arrest, which is a symptom of a weak heart. It also won't cause a stroke, which is a clogged blood vessel in your brain.
Sodium could, in theory, cause a cardiac arrythmia, but you'd feel dehydrated to the point of insanity well before that happened. A lack of sodium can cause the same, a condition called hyponatremia, which is a common reason runners die during marathons (not adequately replenishing their electrolytes.)
Long story short, unless you already have a major chronic illness of some sort, having too much sodium won't cause you to inadvertantly kill yourself.
Re:The data is inconclusive. (Score:4, Informative)
I have found nothing on the Internet, probably the news is too old, I heard when I was young that studies have shown margarine causes cancer.
In AP Biology in High School, circa 1993, margarine was thought to possibly be carcinogenic on the basis that it contained a particular molecule (I don't remember which) that was a geometric isomer with something that definitely was proven to be carcinogenic.
However, it was not (at that time) *proven* to be carcinogenic itself. I think it did get a lot of press, a lot of which was no doubt misreported by liberal arts majors trying to summarize science in a way that people would tolerate reading.
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Interesting fact about the history of margarine
It was the space food of the 18th century.
" Margarine was invented in France by Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès in 1869, during the Franco-Prussian wars. He invented it in response to a competitive challenge from the French government under Napoleon III, who was looking for a cheap and stable substitute for butter, and offered a big prize to anyone who could pull it off."
https://culinarylore.com/food-... [culinarylore.com]
Re:The data is inconclusive. (Score:5, Interesting)
What is the damn difference in eating the oil the margarine is made from versus eating the oil water emulsion?
The oil is hydrogenated (to raise the melting temperature) before emulsification.
So you aren't eating the same oil. It has been chemically altered.
Disclaimer: I rarely consume butter or margarine. Olive oil tastes better and is healthier than either.
Re:The data is inconclusive. (Score:5, Funny)
Okay! Let's get to the good advice!
> Avoid a bag of chips everyday
So if I avoid that one bag, I can still eat all the remaining bags of chips as usual?
> chocolate bars and soft drinks as much as possible
Very good! So I can add an extra chocolate to make up for that one less bag of chips?
> Then, if you have cancer, you can say that you did your best.
I can say that no matter what. I did my best. The very best. I've done better than anyone else. Anyone else in history. Nobody has done as good as I have. Honest. I've done so good that people call me all the time to tell me how good I've done. Trust me. The very best. I've done my best better than anyone else ever.
Now please excuse me, I've got to take this call from Vladimir.
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I would imagine if you looked back that these flip flops on healthy eating, timing roughly correlates with study grant expirations. Gotta get a new grant, so lets say eggs are good for us this time!
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The won't fit the narrative that to combat global warming (climate change, whatever you're calling it these days)....tha we have to stop eating meat, and go more vegetable!!!
I'd be willing to bet and more than a little of the flak this report is getting isn't just for people concerned about human health effects of meat eating, but also of folks trying to link meat eating to climate change.
Re:The data is inconclusive. (Score:4, Insightful)
Giving that advice based on insufficient data from previous studies makes it... bad advice.
It's not necessarily bad advice, it may even be the correct advice. But it's inconclusive advice, uncertain.
Bad advice implies that it's not true. But it could be true, we just don't know for sure.
If it were bad advice would be more coached like this: "They said lots of red meat and pork was unhealthy, we know that is not true."
Or, to quote 1973's Sleeper:
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Wow, thanks. I didn't expect to see an accurate correction as the first post.
Slashdot lives!!!
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It is really the meat producers using delaying tactics to allow them to profit for a while longer
look at the tobacco and fossil fuel industries for prior examples of this behavior
The facts are already in that red meat consumption (poultry and fish have no carnitine) result in gut microbiome generating TMAO, a known precursor to heart disease [nih.gov]
Since there is money on the line, expect astro-turfing galore with a fair amount of concern-trolling thrown in, because people dying of unnecessary heart disease is a-ok
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Or maybe people just like steak and burgers.
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Bacon is good for you, Bacon is bad for you. When I was growing up it was "eggs are bad for you." Then it was wine and beer are bad for you. Now its wine and beer are good for you.
You know. I don't care any more. I'm going to do what I've been doing and eat the same things in moderation and just enjoy life. Any over done is bad for you. You try to eat a whole cow and see where it gets you.
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Bacon is the GREATEST food in the world.
Think about it....bacon is the ONLY food in the world that you wrap around other food to make it taste better!!!
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Bacon has become a condiment.
And Ketchup is a vegetable. (Score:4, Insightful)
So, my main diet of the last 55 years of Meat, Cheese, Potatos, Ketchup, and Bacon is a prime, high protein diet, well balanced by carbs, dairy, and large amounts of Veggies. :D
Whooda Thunkit?
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And in another study, TMAO is considered good for your heart health, and they recommend eating fish and vegetables to raise it.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... [sciencedaily.com]
Re:The data is inconclusive. (Score:4, Funny)
Why would Troop Movement Assignment Order be considered good for your heart health?
Re:The data is inconclusive. (Score:4, Funny)
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It is really the meat producers using delaying tactics to allow them to profit for a while longer
Go to a typical grocery store and look at the miniscule shelf space used by meatless alternatives.
I don't think the meat industry is in peril.
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Indeed. It says that things are not actually as clear as was assumed. And since people like to eat meat (and humans are not vegetarians by nature, as a brief look at human teeth amply demonstrates), the quality of life aspect is definite in comparison. There is also the hard fact that everybody dies sooner or later, so eating meat will not "kill" you, it will, in the worst case, just cost you some time.
This may also be a sign that nutritional sciences finally start to grow up and may actually start to gener
Re:The data is inconclusive. (Score:5, Funny)
And since people like to eat meat (and humans are not vegetarians by nature, as a brief look at human teeth amply demonstrates), the quality of life aspect is definite in comparison. There is also the hard fact that everybody dies sooner or later, so eating meat will not "kill" you, it will, in the worst case, just cost you some time.
A new study confirms exactly this! Study Finds Avoiding Red Meat May Lead To Longer, More Miserable Life [babylonbee.com]
Re:The data is inconclusive. (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. It says that things are not actually as clear as was assumed.
That's probably because whether a food is good or bad for you depends, in part, on your gut biome, which depends on such factors as your ethnic background (matrilineal, primarily), the places you have lived (particularly as a child, eating dirt), etc. So any expectation that all humans will handle foods in exactly the same way is likely based on flawed assumptions right off the bat.
This may also be a sign that nutritional sciences finally start to grow up and may actually start to generally use sound scientific methods. So far they have been very mixed in result quality, see, e.g. the recommendations of margarine over butter (apparently a bad idea) or the wrong recommendation to reduce fats to a very low level because of blood cholesterol (apparently only weakly connected or not at all).
The thing is, there are some fats that make your HDL/LDL balance better, and others that make it worse. The main problem is that when you remove fat, you reduce flavor, so things with less fat often end up being less healthy because of sugar and other things that they use to replace the missing fat.
Also, because fat is a major contributor to making you feel full, reducing fat levels also tends to make you eat more, which is, in and of itself, a risk factor for obesity and, subsequently heart disease.
So reducing fat tends to do more harm than good, though replacing certain kinds of fats with other kinds of fats can be beneficial.
And there's no reason to assume that any of those effects are universal. :-/
There are good recommendations (consume less salt, drink enough fluids), but it is hard to separate the good and the bad ones.
Drink enough, but not too much, and eat less salt, but not too little. Sometimes, I start to wonder if the flavor-enhancing impact of salt actually causes its apparent negative impact by causing people to eat more than they otherwise would. *shrugs*
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say that to the cow ... (Score:2, Insightful)
health is only one small aspect of why I'm vegetarian, non-cruelty is far more important to me
Re:say that to the cow ... (Score:5, Informative)
As a staunch meatatarian I have to agree. It's important to make decisions for the right reasons, and humane treatment of animals is a good reason.
Fortunately I live in rural America where I can go pick out my cow at the local farm and it is humanely processed that day and whatever portion is mine is packed into my freezer. Most of the farms near me have at least a couple of acres per head in paddocks with 20-30 head each.
If I want chickens, I go to my next door neighbor a mile up the road and pick one out from her chicken yard, and pick up some eggs while I am there.
Industrial farms make me sick to my stomach. There are a lot of industrial chicken houses around here and the stench is overwhelming sometimes. Even worse is how they are transported - stuffed into open wire cages on the back of a flatbed tractor trailer and driven at 80mph completely unprotected from elements, and where it's a great day if only 10% of them die in transit (though the dead ones can still be used for utility meat - pet food etc). I know they're "just chickens," but we're still responsible for treating them humanely while they are alive.
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You didn't even mention the best benefit of all to that arrangement -- fresh beef and chicken is a world apart in taste from what you'd find in the typical grocery store. Eggs as well!
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"humanely processed that day"
Yeah, sure. You have never worked at a farm I guess.
I would hope the treatment is at least more humane than that used by a mountain lion...
Re:say that to the cow ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Me too. I still eat fish. When people ask why I'm a pescatarian, or pesco-vegetarian, I tell them it is simply a moral luxury that I enjoy.
If it was me or the deer, I'd eat the deer. But it isn't. I don't need to do that to get the nutrients needed for full health. I have a choice. And I choose not to kill warm-blooded animals for my food. They have surplus metabolism to spend enjoying life, or suffering it, as the case may be, and I see more personal benefit in not causing their suffering than in causing it.
If it was only about health, it would be sufficient to avoid processed meats, or to really make sure, eat only traditionally-raised meat.
Also the environmental impacts are important to me. That strongly affects my choice of which seafood to eat.
Re:say that to the cow ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, you do realize that fish suffer when they are caught? They asphyxiate slowly. Not sure what "warm blooded animals" has to do with anything. What a bizarre justification.
Re:say that to the cow ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Probably. Don't yell at me. I eat everything. I don't need to justify it to anyone.
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Um, you do realize that fish suffer when they are caught? They asphyxiate slowly. Not sure what "warm blooded animals" has to do with anything. What a bizarre justification.
Do you abstain from eating fish? Or are you just engaging in hypocritical moral posturing?
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No. Quite the opposite. I am just pointing out a fact. Did you see me make a moral statement? These people with their bizarre justifications are weird.
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Actually Bill, I think this is a fine example of Concern Trolling: the action or practice of disingenuously expressing concern about an issue in order to undermine or derail genuine discussion.
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I eat quite a lot of fish, but only the free-range kind. I have issues with farming/raising animals for human consumption, but when taking food out of the greater nature, I don't make a moral difference between plants and different kinds of animal. Free-range meat is harder to come by, as I don't hunt myself, so fish is a lot more practical option.
It also helps that we've always eaten a lot of fish in the family, as well as done recreational fishing. I know how it feels to kill a fish with your bare hand
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"but only the free-range kind."
Uhhhhhh, why? You guys have some weird justifications.
Re:say that to the cow ... (Score:5, Funny)
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I too like Disney movies. I only eat Bambi if they are free-range.
Re:say that to the cow ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Me too. I still eat fish. When people ask why I'm a pescatarian, or pesco-vegetarian, I tell them it is simply a moral luxury that I enjoy.
If it was me or the deer, I'd eat the deer. But it isn't. I don't need to do that to get the nutrients needed for full health. I have a choice. And I choose not to kill warm-blooded animals for my food. They have surplus metabolism to spend enjoying life, or suffering it, as the case may be, and I see more personal benefit in not causing their suffering than in causing it.
Funny you should mention suffering. Deer don't have nearly enough natural predators, at least in the U.S., which means that without a lot of hunting, the deer population would quickly reach unsustainable levels at which the animals would be unhealthy.
So in a manner of speaking, if everyone became vegetarian, the vegetarianism would arguably be the cause of their suffering. :-)
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I appreciate the concept of reducing consumption and paying a bit extra for reduced cruelty, but I don't understand the irrational strong stance around "cruelty". They c
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Hi, I'm Mr. Meseeks! Look at me!
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I feel there is more value in the alternative perspective than there is in the perspective itself.
You don't need to justify your diet to us with moral relativism and mental gymnastics.
Just enjoy your burger.
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I only eat Beyond Meat burgers because I want the stockholders to make money.
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I only eat live plants that were humanely processed by virgins on top of the Himalayas and blessed by the leaders of all the major religions. I sure am hungry...
I never understood the cruelty argument (Score:5, Insightful)
But I never understood the cruelty argument. Death due to old age is something almost unique to humans. The fate of nearly every living thing on this planet is to be eaten. And most of them [youtube.com] will be eaten alive [youtube.com] - suffering a terrifying and painful death. The idea that animals live together in peaceful harmony and that humans are the cause of all their suffering, is a fantasy propagated by people who watched too many Disney movies and haven't spent enough time observing how wild animals live and die in the real world.
In contrast, a slaughterhouse is a pretty good way to go. The cattle walks up a ramp, a person puts a bolt pistol [wikipedia.org] against their head, and it's over. No pain, no suffering, just immediate loss of consciousness followed by death. So displacing habitat for wild animals by fencing off land for cattle, causing the wild animal population to shrink, and replacing them with cattle actually decreases the aggregate amount of animal suffering. And by corollary, getting rid of food cattle production and freeing up that land, thus allowing wild animal populations to grow, would actually increase the total amount of animal suffering.
The cruelty argument only works if you ignore opportunity cost [wikipedia.org] in your reasoning. And your belief is that if you personally are not the cause an animal's death, then it will somehow live forever, never suffering, until it dies in its sleep of old age. The reality is that because people are concerned about minimizing the unnecessary suffering of animals, an animal dying to feed a person is almost certainly a less cruel fate than if you left the animal alive in the wild to die at the claws and fangs of other wild animals.
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Some of those animals such as pigs and cows are sentient beings so getting executed in a orderly and "humane" process won't quell their fear of death, nor lessen the impact on those witnessing the demise of their fellow species.
Perhaps one should ask oneself, would one rather live a sheltered life of above average longevity, devoid of self determination, or would one rather live a life of one's own choosing, full of uncertainties and possible early death.
Re:say that to the cow ... (Score:5, Funny)
This meat eater agrees. While I enjoy the taste of meat, I'm in it far more for the cruelty.
Mmmmm.... torturelicious!
diet fads change (Score:2)
Now I just eat as much fruit and veggies as I can stomach, and everything else in moderation. I suspect that's the only dietary advice that's gonna last for the long haul.
Except perhaps "don't cram your face hole with massive amounts of ice cream and 2-liter quantities of cola products". Gave me gout until I cut
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Typical (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
"Erode public trust?" (Score:3)
Who are these assholes? In Science, if you find an earlier finding is not as good or clear as hoped, you publish a correction or better results. There is no acceptable
alternative. Scientists are only very rarely lying scum. (Every group of people has bad apples... )
Lying to people to not "erode trust" is something religions and other highly questionable human movements do.
Re:"Erode public trust?" (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps this suggests that while science remains science, many see it as a faith narrative in many ways.
Not really surprising - many attempted to use science to "displace God" and fill that niche. What did such think would happen?
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Who are these assholes? In Science, if you find an earlier finding is not as good or clear as hoped, you publish a correction or better results. There is no acceptable alternative.
What they said is that in practical terms it is impossible to do a rigorously controlled experiment. This would require a control group that wasn't allowed to eat meat, and a test group that had to eat meat, with people randomly assigned to each group, with a large enough number of people in each group to be statistically significant, and with the people in each group following the diet for a minimum of ten years (and preferably longer). In the real world, this is absurdly beyond the ability of any organi
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Most of these reports are not originating from any new research -- they're using the mystical dark art of statistics to combine data from multiple original studies (warts and all) to try to get additional ink or research bux.
Sometimes they're found to have misread the tea leaves and articles such as this are published (again, primarily to get more ink and/or sweet sweet research bux)
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Ugluk says: (Score:3)
"Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!" [youtube.com]
Health science (Score:2)
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Meat != meat... (Score:5, Informative)
It almost seems like they just wanted to convince you to stop eating meat of all kinds, and aren't much concerned about the actual evidence...
As far as "studies" go, I'll take the 5000+ year Inuit study, thanks.
Inuit/Dorset people ate basically nothing but meat and fat for at least that long.
If doing so was bad for you, there wouldn't be any Eskimos around today. http://discovermagazine.com/20... [discovermagazine.com]
There used to be a good wikipedia page about Inuit/zero-carb diets, but it has been removed and now the subject connects to a page about trendy modern Atkins and Keto bullshit.
All that remains now is the page about Vilhjalmur Stefansson, which I guess they were afraid to take down-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Processed meats are usually mixed with significant mounts of salt...
And in broken news, salt isn't bad for you either. Seriously, there was a study released a few months ago which basically said it doesn't really matter how much salt you eat, your kidneys can process it just fine and it doesn't affect your blood pressure. Don't drink ocean water, sure, but beyond that don't worry about it.
I'm getting whiplash trying to follow all the dietary news these days.
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it doesn't affect your blood pressure
It does affect blood pressure, but only temporarily. Salt makes you retain fluid; more fluid in the same space means higher pressure, but only until you piss or sweat it away. The fallacy they told us all these years was that salt would cause hypertension, which it doesn't. However, if you already have hypertension, it may still be a good idea to avoid salt. (At least that's what I got from the recent news...)
What's your absolute risk? (Score:2)
Is any increase in risk bad? What are the absolute risks?
In general, it's the people that want to tell you what to do that use relative risks. What is your absolute risk of dying from eating meat? What is the absolute risk of dying if you don't eat meat?
Note: the absolute risk of dying is, by definition, 100%. So how do they define their criteria around that? The risk of "early death?" What does that mean?
Michael Pollan started it best. (Score:3)
..and I like to add: No soda, and nothing that comes in a box.
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no soda? but fermentation is caused by plants and carbonated spring water is natural. what's wrong with club soda or sparkling mineral water for example?
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Whats in the box??? Whats in the box???
Exercise (Score:2)
Coffee... (Score:2)
so, is my 6 slices of bacon and 3 eggs bad? (Score:2)
Actually, when I think about it. I really don't eat red meat a lot. I do try staying away from processed meat(deli meat) as much as possible. To much salt. Try staying away from fast food, again. Too much salt. So my red meat consumption is actually very low. If I do eat steaks, I buy a better cut and cook it myself. Fry sear in olive oil and garlic, then bake. Burgers are mostly what I cook, or the cafeteria here at work wh
Bullets don't kill people. (Score:3, Interesting)
well, duh! (Score:2)
More Doctors Smoke Camels than any other! (Score:2, Interesting)
Some people are for sale and also some are incompetent...
Why are so many assuming this has merit?? Is it because you LIKE what they are saying??? Where are the all the annoying correlation vs causation comments?
All the science points to meat being a rare thing we are not evolved for heavy consumption; just like the other primates. We have a primate digestive system; not a carnivore's. It's massively plants and insects with some occasional meat, just like them. We crave sugar and salt far more because th
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Been saying this for awhile now. We, as humans, have a choice. Eat what our ancestors did for over a million years, which includes mostly meat with some plant material thrown in, or eat the grain crap that was developed only about 6,000 years ago. To make the grains palatable, we can add sugar, which only really showed up in the last 100 years.
How quickly has human knowledge advanced in this 6000 years compared to the last 100?
I remember my Western Civilization class from university, and people got a lot more work done once they found sugar, tea, and coffee. Before that people got their calories and water from beer, wine, and other fermented drinks. That's assuming they didn't starve to death, or some disease killed them.
Heating water for tea and coffee meant it killed the germs in the water. Adding tea or coffee meant it tasted better and gav
You can have my wagyu tataki... (Score:2)
...when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
I don't pay much mind to any of this. Over the 40-something years I've been mostly awake:
1. Coffee was bad, then good,then bad, then good again.
2. Read meat was bad, then meh, then evilz.
3. Wine was bad, then good, then bad, now it's good again.
How about this: Don't overdo it. Don't do it every day. Chances are if you live a mostly sane life, you'll be OK.
If you're putting down a 2-liter of coke to wash down that value-sized bag of Doritos every single da
People are complicated to study (Score:2)
So unless you know of a place where we can find a large number of identical humans who are willing to be experimented on, our dietary
follow the money (Score:2)
Without knowing who funded the research, you can know nothing of its inherent bias.
This starts to remind me of Soviet times (Score:4, Interesting)
You know, back in the bad old days, Soviet scientists miraculously had those frequent breakthroughs in research where the food that was in short supply was always incredibly bad for your health, but whatever there was a surplus of was the fountain of youth.
This starts to feel like it's coming from the same department.
It all depends (Score:3)
What did the animal eat, grass, hay?
Was it injected with antibiotics? hormones?
What part of the animal is used, lean meat? tenderloin? fatty?
Re:So which way is anti-science? (Score:5, Funny)
Whichever way the blue check marks on Twitter tell you to go.
Re: (Score:2)
The correct pro-science way is to say that the data is inconclusive in cases when the studies are insufficient to support a definitive conclusion.
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Science is all about continued research into matters. The stance you should take if you are indeed worried about the "anti-science" moniker is "the data is currently inconclusive about the matter and that the answer of 'we don't know yet' is the correct one to work with." It seems so many people are allergic to the notion of "we don't know" when that's just as fine an answer as any. There are some things we know for certain, there are somethings we know a good deal about, there are somethings we have a p
Re: (Score:2)
So which way are you supposed to go if you don't want people to say you are "anti-science"?
There are still far more studies that suggest that large amounts of red meat and processed meat could be linked with things like cancer, etc, than say otherwise.
As with all thinks nutrition related, avoid thinking anything is 100% certain.
Re: (Score:3)
So which way are you supposed to go if you don't want people to say you are "anti-science"?
There are still far more studies that suggest that large amounts of red meat and processed meat could be linked with things like cancer, etc, than say otherwise.
Exactly!
The data suggest that too much red meat, especially processed meat, could be linked to bad health effects, but the data is insufficiently robust to demonstrate that this correlation is causal, and not an effect of other things.
As with all thinks nutrition related, avoid thinking anything is 100% certain.
Don't trust any one study, always look at the error bars, look at how large the study cohort was, pay attention to how large the effect is in absolute terms (not just relative terms), and, more than anything, think about whether a correlation observed could be caused by some o
Re: (Score:2)
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It's a 12 minute video
Does it magically become 24 minutes if you post it twice in the same thread?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It is the case.
The following video does a good job of researching who paid for this "research" and he also cites his sources.
The video is 12 minutes long, but very informative.
New Research: Keep Eating Red & Processed Meat | Debunked
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgEKBRe755Y&t=0s
Re: (Score:2)
The meat industry has a goal, the anti-meat industry has a goal.
Which of these two groups is motivated entirely by money?
Re: (Score:2)
studies showing that reducing meat does, in fact, significantly reduce chronic diseases
Please cite one single study that does a controlled experiment to show a causal relationship.
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I tend not to tilt windmills.
Good. That will help GW more than cutting out meat.
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If you want to combat climate change you should stop eating meat and switch to Beyond Meat Inc (tm) products.
It seems TPTB have a different plan.
https://youtu.be/p4WlPf6v0gE [youtu.be]
Strat