All Red Meat is bad for you. (daily basis, pains, bleeding)

[hueyeats]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Latest study of 110,000 adults, over a 20-year period, comes to this conclusion. Story found here.

Key points made in the article:
- A 3-ounce serving of unprocessed red meat was associated with a 13% greater chance of dying during the course of the study.
- Adding one hot dog or 2 slices of bacon ("processed" meats) was linked to a 20% higher risk of death during the study.
- Eating a serving of nuts instead of beef or pork was associated with a 19% lower risk of dying during the study.
- Substituting poultry or whole grains was linked with a 14% reduction in mortality risk; low-fat dairy or legumes, 10%; fish, 7%.
- Among the 37,698 men and 83,644 women who were tracked, as meat consumption increased, so did mortality risk.

I've been working towards a more vegetarian diet for a while, and have found a book by Mark Bittman titled How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. It's a thick heavy book of about a thousand pages and I learned of it by searching for info in these very forums.

I feel better if I eat no meat at a meal; if I do, I feel very sluggish and have to walk slower, or else I'm in discomfort.

They say so about eggs (and many things as well) too...
then... years later, "more studies" says its not so.

Then studies also says, certain medication is "good" for you....
Then years later, you can file a lawsuit b/c these studies failed to warn you of its potential "side effects", or even complications "after"....

If you buy into the hype of "studies"...
Then think & think again of predecessors of that "failed studies" when more studies comes out...
hence even a "doctor" called it a "practice"... NOT an exact science unlike physics.

Another great example of the "great"...
Who could have forgotten Steve Jobs & his organic, vegan diet...
We missed him and that "diet" still does him no good!!!
Cancer... happens to my older aunt as well where in Asia, being vegan is so easy a diet... still that diet does not contribute to that "healthier" life everyone & her seek.

Then... I know people who never manage their diets (mostly from my in-law side)... and ate tons of "red meat" from cow farms... they lived till 90 plus. Genetics??? Likely, but includes "red meat" diet too.

So...
Don't ever judge a book via "cover" or some studies...
When everything done in "moderation" that "golden way" is probably the most well balanced & even "happi" way.

[intelfan11315]

I'm going to keep working out and keep eating red meat. I'll let you vegetarian liberals stay skinney and keep preachin while I stop worrying.

People are living to their 100s these days and I think it is safe to say they aren't all vegetarians.

Live a healthy lifestyle and red meat should be the least of your worries... people have been doing it for hundreds of years. Look at the cultures that are vegetarians... you're really telling me those Indian people are better off?

[jtur88]

Originally Posted by Padgett2

My family are red meat eaters. We usually manage to have good health well into our 80s and 90s.

I wonder how old we could live if we didn't eat red meat.......and would we really want to live longer?

I also have "proof" that smoking is good for your health. My dad smoked a pack of Camels a day until he was 55, and pipe and cigars after that, and died in his sleep at home at 94. My mother breathed his second hand smoke, and died in her sleep at home at 98. Anecdotal evidence like my family and yours does not trump scientifically conducted broad-based studies.

[Weatherfan2]

Originally Posted by jtur88

I also have "proof" that smoking is good for your health. My dad smoked a pack of Camels a day until he was 55, and pipe and cigars after that, and died in his sleep at home at 94. My mother breathed his second hand smoke, and died in her sleep at home at 98. Anecdotal evidence like my family and yours does not trump scientifically conducted broad-based studies.

So what, to any correlations found in some "scientific study" there are always going to be a percentage of people who are exceptions to it, such as myself. So at least on an individual level yeah I do trump this "evidence". I couldn't give a crap if eating meat's going to take a few months of anybody else's life or give them a heart attack or cholesterol problems or whatever. I'll enjoy my lifestyle without boring sad health-preachers breathing down my neck.

As for the OP's quote " if I do (eat meat), I feel very sluggish and have to walk slower, or else I'm in discomfort" I LOL'd. I'd sure be walking slower if I ate a boring diet of vege-crap salads washed down with glasses of water cause I'd have no bleedin' energy!

His title "All red meat is bad for you" is just provocative also as it is a blank point "imperative" statement which is to say, wrong. It is no more right that saying "All water is bad for you" or "all oxygen is bad for you", because too much of either of those can be, as can too much of anything.

[jtur88]

Insufficient data. We have a link to a rewrite by a hack newspaper staffer gleaned from a research press release, but where is the data?

Very important: Who was the control group? Or, was this just 110,000 people who volunteered and wrote down what they ate? If that was the case, the deaths cold have been caused by other lifestyle characteristics that are also shared by the kinds of people who eat a lot of red meat.

OK, 13% greater chance of dying. Lets say in the entire survey, one percent of the participants died. (To simplify the arithmetic -- The actual death rate in the USA is 0.83%.) Then 1.13% of the participants who ate red meat died. 1,240 instead of 1,100. Or, red meat contributed to the death of 140 people out of 110,000. Over 20 years, which is 7 a year, in a city the size of Manchester, New Hampshire. Not very scary.

[Padgett2]

Originally Posted by jtur88

I also have "proof" that smoking is good for your health. My dad smoked a pack of Camels a day until he was 55, and pipe and cigars after that, and died in his sleep at home at 94. My mother breathed his second hand smoke, and died in her sleep at home at 98. Anecdotal evidence like my family and yours does not trump scientifically conducted broad-based studies.

You are correct. This is not "proof." However, since we don't know how long people who don't eat meat (or smoke) would have lived if they had, we have no way of knowing that they lived longer. It's flawed research because it's not controlled. It could be that they would have lived even longer if they had added red meat and smoked.

Studies such as this one, are based on guess work as to what would happen....maybe.....if....perhaps. You have no way of comparing what really DID happen to that which MIGHT have happened.

Now, if you could take 100,000 babies at birth and feed one group one way, and the other, another way. Keep records of how they did, when they died, etc. then you would have a meaningful research project.

[LittleDolphin]

Yep, I guess our Western way of eating is a paragon of good health and that's why we as a nation top the list for cancers, diabetes, obesity and heart disease. It's working well--especially for the pharmaceutical industry.

[Weatherfan2]

Originally Posted by LittleDolphin

Yep, I guess our Western way of eating is a paragon of good health and that's why we as a nation top the list for cancers, diabetes, obesity and heart disease. It's working well--especially for the pharmaceutical industry.

The problem with the "western way of eating" is not in meat consumption but refined sugars and inflammatory chemicals used in food processing.

Those diseases such as cancer, diabetes and obesity are mostly associated with high sugar consumption. Refined carbohydrates are an entirely processed, man made bastardization of carbohydrates, which are highly dangerous to the body, because of how quick the sugar level rises in the blood. They also now make up the majority of the modern western diet. High blood sugar levels, obviously lead to insulin resistance, and also inflammation to the linings of blood vessels including arteries. This inflammation is damage to the artery walls which the body attempts to protect by building plaques of cholesterol (which is usually floating harmlessly around in the blood) on the artery walls. However this in turns sparks heart disease, high blood pressure etc... All of these problems come from excess blood sugar and excess refined carbohydrates, not meat or saturated fat. The cholesterol in the blood is mostly from the liver and not fats from meats.

Diets including plenty of red meat and vegetables, on the other hand, are not associated with such conditions, and people have been known to even reverse diabetes on low carb diets high in so called "unhealthy" red meat, and vegetables. Heart disease is not caused by eating red meat either. Diabetes and obesity have absolutely nothing to do with red meat consumption, and obesity is just as prevalent in vegetarians as meat eaters.

This whole demonising meat culture is perpetuated by know-nothings who probably ram plenty of fruit juices (high in fructose and very dangerous, certainly leading to diabetes) down their throat lecturing about how healthy their diet is. The low-fat craze starting in the 70's was miraculously associated with massive rises in diabetes and heart disease as people cut down on fat (including meats) and replaced it with crap full of sugar instead, thinking it was healthier.

There's so much misinformation out there. I'll go on eating my red meat thanks, while ignorants of this society continue to stuff chocolate and sugary bull down their throats believing it's good for them cos one article said "a small square of dark chocolate is good for you" and they interpreted it as "eat as much chocolate as you like! You'll live forever". Duuuh.

[Moonlady]

You know if eating meat makes you feel bad, by all means, find yourself another source of protein. Eating starchy carbs makes me feel bad and I can't tolerate grains. That doesn't mean I think everyone should give them up. Some people's bodies react differently to different types of foods. You need to figure out what makes YOU healthy but don't assume it applies to everyone.

[LittleDolphin]

Meat equals saturated fat equals clogged arteries equals heart disease....personally, I've never heard a cardiologist recommend a patient eat more meat to reverse their heart disease the way Dr. Dean Ornish or Dr. John McDougall have reversed heart disease by changing a heart patient's diet...but my mind's open..if anyone can cite any studies or cardiologists' recommendations to consume more meat for better heart and artery health, I'd sure be willing to listen and learn.