The more we learn, the less we know, certainly. Recent research has decided that eating red meat can be part of a healthy diet.
Meat is, in fact, the main source of protein (plus iron/vitamin B-12) in all of the world’s affluent countries except Japan (Ferris Jabr/ Scientific American).
Meat-eating played a vital role in our evolution from primates to humans.
Scientists (Brazil) indicate that a strictly vegan diet could not have created the large brains we now possess; a vegan-only diet would have required nine hours per-day of eating — just to consume enough calories to support body-mass.
Evolutionary biologists believe that hunting game and eating cooked meat altered our anatomy significantly.
Recent study suggests that the process, not the red meat itself that is the culprit; researchers (Harvard) found only a minor increase in the risk of death or disease from eating unprocessed red meat.
The key word is, unprocessed. A cut of red meat (beef, pork) that has been processed contains (in general) four times more sodium and 50 per cent more preservatives than the unaltered version.
Many of us have long-realized that processed food of any kind (cheese, etc.) is not as good for us as fresh and altered our dietary intake accordingly.
The study-teams noted that self-reported surveys have limitations that can skew results; warning that evaluation of overall health based on meat consumption alone does portray a totally accurate picture as other (poor) dietary choices/personal behaviours must be factored in.
“A shotgun approach telling people to avoid all red meats may not be the biggest bang for your buck,” says Dariush Mozaffarian, an epidemiologist at Harvard University. Not all meats are the same. We have choices.”
Good news! I choose to enjoy my home-grown unprocessed beef.