To Eat or Not to Eat... Or What to Eat or Not Eat... Or Something...

“If beef is your idea of ‘real food for real people’ you’d better live real close to a real good hospital.”

--Neal Barnard, M.D.

Meat has always been a problematic question for modern humans, even for those who have chosen not to think about the problems associated with the consumption of meat.  Leaving aside the ethical questions for a moment, and just focusing on health, there are a handful of advantages posed by meat consumption (particularly seafood, but also including red meat), juxtaposed with an ever mounting pile of disadvantages (particularly as related to red meat).  We aren’t doctors, but we do think it’s a subject worth revisiting from time to time, particularly because most people on both sides of the consumption aisle are (to put it mildly) not used to discussing the matter politely.

Lest you think we’re going to dogmatically say “don’t eat it,” we’d like to start with some interesting data points from a 1999 metastudy of data from 5 different countries, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: 

Dietary Style	Mortality Ratio
Pescetarian (fish eater)	0.82
Vegetarian (lacto-ovo)	0.84
Occasional Meat Eater	0.84
Regular Meat Eater	1.0
Vegan	(0.7 to 1.44 owing to limited data points)

Obviously, as is true of any population study, these findings do not mean that there are absolute truths applicable to each and every individual regarding healthy eating habits… but the trend lines are clear.  As a general rule, one would expect a person whose diet consists of no animal flesh other than fish or the occasional egg or dairy product to greatly outlive the person who has red meat at every meal.

It is interesting to note, of course, that the statistical differential between this optimal group and the occasional meat eaters is not particularly significant; there is a far greater difference between the frequent meat eaters and the occasional meat eaters (defined as someone who eats no more than two servings of red meat per week) than there is between the occasional meat eaters and the vegetarians and pescetarians.

Vegans, naturally, are in a category all to themselves, owing to the fact that their nutritional intake is perhaps more variable within their category than is true for any of the other categories – a careful vegan is better off than anyone.  A not-so-careful vegan?  May as well be playing in traffic.  We’ll get to why in a future post, more than likely, but the odds are that most vegans reading this blog probably know more about how to eat a healthy vegan diet than we do, anyway.  We’re more concerned with elucidating for the omnivore crowd for purely utilitarian reasons, so please, don’t feel excluded.  And for any vegans who don’t know about nutrients typically not available in plant sources, for heaven’s sake, go find yourself a vegan mentor who does.

Now then, back to meat…

We suspect that a great deal of the differential between the occasional meat eaters and the regular meat eaters has less to do with the dietary value of beef and more to do with the effects of a whole host of corollary factors – quantity consumed at any given meal, preparation methods, what else is eaten, etc.  For example, an occasional consumer of beef is more likely to consume fatty fishes (that is, fishes high in omega-3 fatty acids) than is a regular beef eater; as it turns out, omega-3 fatty acids are essential for a host of bodily functions that have a strong correlation to long-term health.  So… it’s not just that occasional beef eaters eat beef; it’s that they also eat other things in greater proportion than do frequent beef eaters.

Likewise, the occasional beef-eater (especially those who are doing their best to minimize the ecological impact they have vis-à-vis cattle raising method – hello grass-fed free-range, good-bye corn-fed, factory farmed) is much more likely than the regular beef-eater to be getting a healthy dose of dark green vegetables and healthy starches (long grain rice, quinoa, etc.) and is much less likely to be gobbling fried foods and processed flour and sugar – it’s not just what they are eating, it’s also what they are not eating.

Then, too, the occasional beef-eater is more likely to be a gourmand, someone who takes the tastes they consume seriously, and is therefore not likely to be eating lower quality cuts of meat, nor are they likely to be eating processed meats.

And, as it turns out, there are strong correlations between heavy consumption of processed meats (hot dogs, bologna, pepperoni, spam, etc.) and several different cancers, as well as cardiovascular disease.  Those same correlations are not found to be red-meat specific.  In other words, there is something about the way in which the meat is processed which makes it inherently unhealthy.  Much the same can be said for processed flour, processed sugar… seems like maybe processing is a bad idea, no?

Lest you think this means there is a green-light for beef consumption, though, just so long as you’re paying extra for the grass-fed good stuff, there are other considerations that require attention. 

Heterocyclic amines (HCAs) are chemical compounds containing at least one heterocyclic ring (atoms of at least two different elements) and at least one amine (nitrogen containing) group – long story short, it’s just a category of organic compounds.  A lot of them are not only beneficial, they are downright essential.  Niacin would be a good example. 

However, there are several HCAs which are classified as carcinogenic (cancer causing), and they are created by the charring of flesh.  Like you might find in, say, the famous “bark” (that tasty outside crust) on a particularly well cooked brisket.

Let that sink in for a minute… the thing that demarcates beef as “really good” for certainly most Texans, and we’re guessing most people in other parts of the world… is carcinogenic.  Not “might be”, but “is”.

Now, can you cook red meat without charring it?  Yes, you can.  Does it still satisfy your meat cravings?  We can’t answer that for you.  And depending on the method one chooses, there may still be other health risks involved – meat cooked on a grill or over a flame which is not hot enough to char (and therefore not hot enough to create carcinogenic HCAs) may also not be hot enough to destroy flesh-borne pathogens (bacteria and viruses).  Microwaves can kill those pathogens without charring the meat, but they also have the nasty side effect of changing the chemical composition of meat (and of anything else they are used to heat) in unpredictable and hard-to-quantify ways, especially when cooked in, on, or near plastics.  Microwaves do break down a variety of prions, though, which may be beneficial, in light of…

Prion disease.  One form of which is known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).  Also known as “Mad Cow Disease”.  There are actually variations of this particularly nasty affliction for every kind of consumable mammalian flesh, including human flesh, if you’re into cannibalism.  And while some sources of beef are free-and-clear of the potential for BSE (that would be local, free range grass-fed beef), the vast majority of red meat sources for grocers, restaurants, etc. are not. 

Safeguards in place are laughable, given that the only protection measures in place are to prevent the use of bone meal made with already infected animals.  These measures are sensible, of course, in that allowing contaminated animals to be used to make feed for non-contaminated animals would, naturally, spread the condition around.  The problem is, this approach ignores how the condition started in the first place.

Spongiform encephalopathy, whether of the bovine or other variety, is a condition wherein prions (protein fragments which are self-replicatable, but do not comprise a complete RNA or DNA sequence) run amok in the host animal; they invariably attack the central nervous system, and are only noticeable by their effects.  Autopsies done on diseased animals (including affected humans) will find brains eaten away like millions of little swiss-cheese bubbles.

And while on extremely rare occasions these prions are a more-or-less spontaneous creation in a genetically prone individual… on more occasions than not, these prions are created during the process of ingesting, digesting, and metabolizing flesh from a creature with similar DNA to the affected animal’s own DNA.  Hence the references to cannibalism.

Most beef (and pork… and chicken… and farm-raised fish) in the United States (and increasingly in the rest of the world) is “factory farmed” – that is, raised in cramped conditions and fed a slurry made from a mixture of corn, bone meal, and animal wastes (recycled poop, yum!); which means most meat sources are, in fact, cannibal meat sources.  Animals who have eaten their own kind, or a kind awfully similar to their own.

Given these conditions, it’s not a question of if some new strain of encephalopathy will emerge; it’s a question of when will it make itself known. 

Now, there are a few factors limiting the likelihood of onset, and they should be almost as troubling as the event they are forestalling.  A good example is the famed “pink slime” of McDonald’s fame.  Various industrial processes, such as the “cold pasteurizing” (euphemism for irradiation) of meat, or the use of ammonia-baths, etc. are good for removing bacteria, viruses, and even (in the case of irradiation) prions… though if those procedures don’t make you nervous, you are either very brave, or very drunk.

All of which, we are sure, has by now convinced you that it might be easier just to forego that big platter of ribs you were planning on smoking this weekend, right?

No?

Well, at least let us convince you to spend a few extra dollars to make sure that if you are going to continue to be a meat eater, you get your beef from a healthy source.  Archer-Daniels-Midland will do just fine on their own without you throwing away years of your life just to line their pockets.

And make sure that you eat plenty of veggies along with your main dish of choice, no matter in which longevity category you’ve decided to plant yourself.  As we noted when first breaking down the meaning of the statistics, it is quite likely what unhealthy folk aren’t eating that is putting them in the wrong categories; dark green veggies and fatty fishes top that list, so hop to!  We like you; we’d like to have you around reading our blog for a long, long time.

Happy farming!