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Cut
the red meat and extend your life
April 1, 2009
Suzanne Havala Hobbs
“Killer
meat,” said The Los Angeles Times.
Similar headlines grabbed our attention in other major newspapers
last week. This time, the cause wasn’t E.coli or mad
cow disease.
The headlines were triggered by findings from a massive study
from the National Institutes of Health linking eating red
meat to earlier death.
The study followed more than a half million older adults for
ten years. Even taking into account other factors that might
affect health, including use of tobacco and exercise level,
people who ate more red meat – beef, pork, and lamb,
for example – were likely to die sooner, especially
from heart disease and cancer.
The more meat they ate, the more likely they were to die during
the period of the study.
Critics from the meat industry were quick to dismiss the study,
pointing out that it relied on self-reported accounts of peoples’
eating habits, which often lack precision. They also pointed
out that meat is rich in protein, iron and other nutrients
of value to health.
All true.
But the sheer size and quality of the study – as well
as the fact that the findings are consistent with a large
body of existing research – are convincing. And the
nutrient value of meat is largely irrelevant.
In fact, characteristics of the protein and iron found in
red meat are thought by some nutrition scientists to contribute
to the adverse effects on health. The easily absorbed heme
form of iron found in meat, for example, is a potent oxidant
that may cause changes to cholesterol that make it more likely
to clog arteries.
And meat in the diet displaces health-supporting foods such
as fiber-rich fruits and vegetables, beans and whole grains
which supply us with plant proteins, vitamins, minerals, and
other beneficial phytochemicals.
Is it OK to eat red meat once in a while?
Maybe.
How much is too much?
Nobody can say for sure. On the individual level – me
and you – it depends on too many factors, including
what else we eat, other lifestyle factors and our genetic
profiles, for starters.
But, as this study demonstrates, less is better.
Like a jelly doughnut, a bowl of ice cream, the cheese sauce
on the broccoli or the sour cream on the burrito, a piece
of red meat isn’t good for you. If you eat it, you should
treat it like any other food that delivers more bad than good:
eat less, less often.
It’s going to require a different mindset about the
role that red meat plays in most of our lives. Instead of
the focal point of the plate, red meat should be a condiment
or minor ingredient in foods – if it’s served
at all.
We face substantial political hurdles in putting that advice
into practice.
Many interested parties involved in the production and distribution
of meat stand to lose financially if we eat less.
They are powerful, wealthy groups with the ability to influence
government policies – including dietary recommendations
– that can make it easier or harder for ordinary people
to eat in a way that supports their health.
We face social hurdles to changing our diets, too. Old habits
take time to break.
Eventually, we’ll remove red meat from school cafeterias.
Young people need appropriate models for health.
Nonprofit health organizations will stop serving steak at
fundraising dinners, and the rest of us will serve meatless
alternatives when we get together with family and friends.
Government dietary guidelines for the public will come right
out and say it, “Avoid red meats,” instead of
cloaking the advice in ambiguous wording.
Someday. Not today – enough of us aren’t ready
yet. But soon.
Suzanne
Havala Hobbs is a licensed, registered dietitian and clinical
associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and
Management and the Department of Nutrition in the UNC Gillings
School of Global Public Health. Send questions and comments
to suzanne@onthetable.net.
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