
What is the role of meat in a healthy diet? - sridca
https://academic.oup.com/af/article/8/3/5/5048762
======
thomascgalvin
The short answer is that we don't know. Refreshingly enough, this article
seems to focus on that fact.

There are studies that say eating meat will give you cancer, or just kill you
younger in general, but there are studies that show the opposite, and studies
that show no correlation.

And pretty much all of these studies have issues, the biggest usually being,
as the article says, that they're observational, based on a subject's ability
to remember what they ate, how much they ate of it, and report that
information correctly and truthfully.

The human body is massively complex, and we just don't know very much about
how diet affects it. We know that eating a lower calorie diet helps you lose
weight, and that's about the only thing we can prove with any kind of
certainty.

Does a low-carb diet improve health outcomes? Or a vegan diet? We just don't
know, and anyone that tells you they _do_ know is either selling you something
or, at best, telling you what worked _for them_.

~~~
vfc1
We do know, all the evidence points in the direction that the western diet,
high in animal products and processed foods is the number explanation for the
rampant increase of cancer, diabetes and heart disease in the west.

This argument is old: we don't know because the perfect experiment has not
been conducted and never will and because the studies that we have don't say
what we want to hear.

If the news is bad, question the source and keep doing the same thing. This
was what was done for decades with tobacco, for decades the validity of the
argument that it causes cancer was questioned.

Here we are in 2019 and still 15% of adults smoke in the US. And still, the
perfect experiment was never done and never will.

Take any population that is healthy, they move to the west and develop these
illnesses. The places in the world that have the best health are the ones that
eat fewer animal products.

The Inuit that eat only meat and fish have rampant arteriosclerosis.

People on the paleo diet have been found to have much higher levels of a
biomarker linked to heart disease than people on a normal diet, for which
cancer rates are increasing - [https://www.sbs.com.au/news/study-links-paleo-
diet-to-heart-...](https://www.sbs.com.au/news/study-links-paleo-diet-to-
heart-disease)

When a whole country stopped eating animal products for a year (during WW one)
their health as a population massively increased.

The list goes on and on, we have epidemiological studies, we have population
studies, we know some of the mechanisms through which cancer is developed, we
know that a plant-based diet reverses heart disease.

But we still prefer to keep saying that we just don't know, because we don't
like the news.

~~~
smarkov
From the article you linked:

> Eating more red meat under the Paleo diet paired with a lack of whole grains
> results in higher levels of a biomarker linked to heart disease

WITH A LACK OF WHOLE GRAINS. Does that mean that red meat is the cause or that
the lack of a _balanced diet_ is the cause?

> The places in the world that have the best health are the ones that eat
> fewer animal products.

Where's the evidence for that claim? If we look at the life expectancy for
each country:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy)

The US ranks at #30 out of 180 which is quite decent despite their huge
consumption of animal and more importantly processed foods. The countries
which are at the bottom are there not because they consume animal products but
because they have poor living conditions and little to no health care
available. Meanwhile Japan is at #1 and all kinds of meats including raw are a
frequent part of their diet.

~~~
vfc1
It just means that the population cancer rates in general just keep rising,
and adopters of the paleo diet which is promoted as a meat-based health diet
have even higher levels of certain cancer biomarkers.

The current science says that processed meat is a known carcinogen, and red
meat a likely carcinogen. This

The places with the highest lifespan have all low animal product diets and are
known as the blue zones -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone)

The health in the US is pretty bad, the rates of cancer, stroke, heart
disease, and diabetes are at all-time highs and keep rising.

You can give drugs to people and keep them alive for longer, but in which
conditions?

Did you see the source of the article? It's a journal sponsored by the meat
industry -
[https://academic.oup.com/af/pages/About](https://academic.oup.com/af/pages/About)

~~~
HNestUnCulte
> Did you see the source of the article? It's a journal sponsored by the meat
> industry -
> [https://academic.oup.com/af/pages/About](https://academic.oup.com/af/pages/About)

You keep repeating this all over this thread, but this is an academic journal
specializing on animal agriculture (it says the same thing in the link).
Besides, the OP should be discussed on its own.

~~~
vfc1
Check the sponsors of the multiple organizations linked in the About page,
here is one -
[https://academic.oup.com/af/pages/About](https://academic.oup.com/af/pages/About)

------
rongenre
I stopped eating meat 6 years ago. I miss it, but decided to try going veg-
only + eggs/dairy and see how it impacted my life. If I found myself unable to
keep up with my exercise routines (bicycling and sporadic weight work), I'd
have stopped.

But it really didn't affect things, and I find myself unable to justify the
cruelty of meat production.

One note: I did notice that it's tougher to control carb intake while eating
veg, because meat is a great way to feel full without spiking blood sugar.
When that's not an option and you're feeling like snacking, you're faced with
a ton of unhealthy options. So I'm probably 10-15 lbs heavier than I would be
if I ate meat.

~~~
dbingham
The problem with the ethical argument - that meat production is cruel and
vegetable production is not - is that it makes all kinds of assumptions about
plant anatomy and behavior that may be wrong.

In fact, the growing field of plant behavior strongly suggests that those
assumptions are wrong. That plants aren't unthinking, unfeeling at all, but
every bit as alive and aware of their environment as animals. It's a really
fascinating field of study.

They've found evidence of an analogous nerve system (that appears to send pain
responses), evidence of non-genetic memory, surprisingly advanced
communication (tobacco plants communicate using over 3000 chemical compounds
that mean different things), environmental awareness (you can perform pavlov's
experiment on pea plants using wind for the bell and sunlight for the food),
kin recognition, and more.

It's a lot harder for us to recognize the signs of awareness, pain, even -
maybe - intelligence of a sort, because plants are completely alien to us.
They communicate with chemicals, move by growing, live at a different speed.

For example, most of us would immediately recognize and empathize with any
animal screaming in pain or fear. Most of the animals that scream to
communicate are social animals. The scream serves as a warning, "I'm hurt or
afraid, there's danger, watch out!" Grass plants, when cut, release a chemical
that cause other grass plants to raise their defenses. It serves pretty much
the same biological purpose as a scream, "I'm hurt, there's danger, watch
out!"

But we would never recognize the smell of fresh cut grass as a scream.

~~~
ryandvm
I like to think I have an open mind, but this line of reasoning is a non-
starter for me. Releasing chemicals upon damage is a far cry (no pun intended)
from the anguish and pain a sentient creature is obviously capable of. Plants
just do not have the necessary information processing facilities to allow them
to suffer. But hell, supposing they did, what could we even do about it? Are
we supposed to switch to some sort of enzyme slurry diet produced by nano-
machines? I don't even...

~~~
dbingham
Are we so sure that plants aren't sentient or can't be sentient? We originally
assumed we were the only sentient and self aware animal on the planet. We've
gradually realized that we're definitely not, but the assumption that self-
awareness and sentience must look similar to what it does in us seems to have
stuck.

Think about what's required for pavlov's experiment. They took pea plants and
turned on, by turns, a fan and a light from one of two opposite directions. In
the control group, there was no correlation between when they turned on the
fan and when they turned on the light. In the experimental group, they
consistently turned on the fan an hour or two before they turned on the light.

Pea plants will grow towards light pretty actively. In the experimental group,
they would consistently grow in the direction of the fan - expecting the light
to follow the wind.

Think about what's required for that. You have to be able to sense your
environment. You have to have an awareness of light and wind. And you have to
be able to associate the presence of wind - something that normally has
nothing to do with the presence or absence of light - with the later coming of
the light.

That pretty strongly suggests there's some level of sentience at work here.

My point isn't to say "Don't eat plants." It's to question whether eating
other sentient beings is really avoidable for us as autotrophs. And if it is
unavoidable, where does that leave us ethically?

For me, it leaves me trying to treat everything I eat with care and respect
and an awareness that my life comes at the cost of other lives.

And then primarily examining the health and sustainability impacts of my diet,
rather than using an incomplete ethics.

~~~
lawlessone
>Are we so sure that plants aren't sentient

Yes.

>Pea plants will grow towards light pretty actively. In the experimental
group, they would consistently grow in the direction of the fan - expecting
the light to follow the wind.

You don't need sentience for that.

------
hirundo
> I find myself unable to justify the cruelty of meat production.

Would you eat meat from an outfit that convinced you it was raised without
cruelty, right up to a pain and panic free slaughter? For say, a 20% premium?

~~~
simonask
Most people who have the means to do so probably would.

However, the killing in itself is very difficult to defend at all, in my
opinion.

You very quickly run into some sketchy philosophical dead-ends, such as for
example the notion that human life fundamentally has some kind of divine right
to make decisions of life and death over lesser lifeforms.

~~~
sauwan
>divine right to make decisions of life and death over lesser lifeforms

Are plants not lesser lifeforms?

I ask this as someone who does not eat factory farmed meat and buys nearly all
organic produce, from local farms if possible.

But I just don't find this argument compelling. It's not our "divine right",
it's just a survival mechanism for our species. There are other much more
compelling arguments for avoiding meat consumption.

~~~
simonask
It is hopefully obvious to everyone that a plant does not suffer in the same
way that a cow does.

Add to this that many plants actually rely on being consumed for reproduction.
Sure, our sewage systems prevents it from actually working, but it is clearly
not a crime in any metaphysical sense to consume a fruit that contains seeds.

------
ddoran
Not making a comment on the veracity of the article, but the source is "Animal
Frontiers", the journal of "The American Society of Animal Science (ASAS)"
which is "a non-profit professional organization for the advancement of
livestock, companion animals, exotic animals and meat science" [1]. They are
not agnostic in the meat vs vegetarian debate.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_of_Animal_Sci...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_of_Animal_Science)

------
derefr
The one thing that I _know_ eating meat (and/or other tyrosine sources)
affects, is the switching frequency of tyrosine kinases in your cells.
(Helpful mental model: some of your cellular organelles are finite-state
machines. Tyrosine kinases trigger their state transitions.)

And I don’t _know_ with the same level of certainty, but do believe, that this
switching/state-transitioning in your cells is a major contributor to cellular
senescence. Decreasing the switching frequency of tyrosine kinases in the body
is, IIRC, being proposed as as both 1. a major reason that intermittent
fasting increases lifespan, and 2. as a potential mechanism by which some
aquatic species that live in extreme cold can live for hundreds of years.

It’d be nice to be able to turn this effect down, is what I’m saying. Sadly,
it seems that doing so makes some things (like maintaining homeostasis during
exercise) much harder. So there’s, maybe, a trade-off here: a longer life, but
one constrained to only a part of the range of human activity. Interesting
choice.

------
modzu
ive not heard of the journal "animal frontiers" before, but they seem to be
partially funded by something called "american meat science" which, according
to wikipedia, "represents the scientific advancement of meat production,
including animal welfare, slaughterhouse operations, meat biochemistry and
microbiology, and food safety." i'm not sure if that equates to a conflict of
interest (is this just a lobby group with "science" in the name?) maybe
somebody more knowledgeable can chime in.

------
DoreenMichele
Upon skim, the study appears to be about the relationship between meat
consumption and colon cancer, not the more general question of what role it
plays in a _healthy diet._

Everything I have ever read seems to indicate that people who are strict
vegetarians, especially strict vegans, have trouble getting enough B vitamins.
If you consume some animal products, such as seafood but not beef or chicken
("pescatarian"), this is not an issue.

I think there is an argument to be made that eating a low meat diet is
generally wiser for most people. It's also easier on the earth -- which is a
not insignificant detail these days, what with there being 7 billion people on
the planet.

~~~
User23
On the other hand a pescatarian diet exposes you to lots of delicious heavy
metals and mercury, which also have their downsides.

------
purplezooey
_It is likely that the association of red-meat consumption with colon cancer
is explained either by an inability of epidemiology to detect such a small
risk or by combinations of other factors.._

Whoah.

------
Strongarms
We are not entirely sure

------
sridca
Podcast with the author (Dr. David Klurfeld) discussing this subject:
[https://peakhuman.libsyn.com/dr-david-klurfeld-on-meat-
not-c...](https://peakhuman.libsyn.com/dr-david-klurfeld-on-meat-not-causing-
cancer-bogus-vegetarian-scientists-and-balanced-nutrition)

Interesting report of his experience with WHO:

\- He was on the World Health Organization working group to decide if meat
causes cancer in 2015 with a bunch of vegetarians and vegans and says it was
the most frustrating professional experience of his life

\- There were 22 scientists - half of which were epidemiologists

\- They claimed they used 800 studies but they actually only used 18

\- There was a group of people that were strongly against the vote

\- He thinks a number of the people made up their minds before they even
arrived

~~~
simplemts
I'd recommend the book "How to not Die".

Here are some takeaways: "Which foods contain the most cholesterol? Eggs,
fish, chicken, and red meat all earn the red light..."

"As for saturated fat, desserts, dairy, and snack foods are all designated as
red light, with eggs, chicken, fish, and red meat getting the yellow light.
Most of the saturated fat in the American diet comes from cheese (8.5%), pizza
(5.9%), grain-based desserts (5.8%), dairy desserts (5.6%), and chicken
(5.5%)."

"Salt levels are highest in lunch meat and snack foods, which both get a red
light."

"...The more plant-based we get, apparently, the better."

Conclusion: Meat is bad, ultra processed foods are bad, and plant based diets
are healthiest. Based on your comment alone, sounds like both Dr. Klurfeld and
the WHO scientists are biased, whereas that book provides references to each
and every claim that has science backing it. It's not rocket science, it's no
surprise at all to find cholesterol, sodium, saturated fats, etc. are in meat
and processed foods.

Book: [https://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Die-Discover-
Scientifically/d...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Die-Discover-
Scientifically/dp/1250066115/)

[https://nutritionfacts.org/2018/02/15/what-are-the-best-
and-...](https://nutritionfacts.org/2018/02/15/what-are-the-best-and-worst-
foods/)

~~~
eMSF
>It's not rocket science, it's no surprise at all to find cholesterol, sodium,
saturated fats, etc. are in meat and processed foods.

You say that like dietary cholesterol, sodium and saturated fats were bad for
us. (They're not.)

------
sridca
Yet another dietary article not in favour of veganism/vegetarianism got
flagged. Well done Hacker News.

~~~
malvosenior
Indeed, why would this be flagged? There's plenty of vegan stuff on this site
and it's never flagged. The same argument always comes up too: "red meat
causes cancer!". Now we have an article exploring that point and it's flagged
so we can't discuss it. Lame.

~~~
vfc1
This seems to be from a magazine sponsored by the meat industry, so it could
be why it was taken down -
[https://academic.oup.com/af/pages/About](https://academic.oup.com/af/pages/About)

~~~
malvosenior
I'd rather see their points addressed than just flagged because they're from
the "wrong" industry.

~~~
vfc1
Yes I agree, concerning that I have been following this debate for a couple of
years now. And you just don't find independent studies that claim that meat is
healthy.

The WHO and similar organizations are extremely conservative, so if they
adopted this stance concerning meat its because there was some solid science
to back it up.

I mean, they knew how people would react, and probably delayed this
recommendation for a long time.

Every credible study that I see coming out, they all point in the same
direction.

Check Dr Fhurman books, he is not vegan and even gives non-vegan recipes in
his books. He is looking for the best human diet from a point of view of
longevity and health, without ethical claims.

Here is his current food pyramid, he recommends less than 10% of calories from
animal products [https://www.drfuhrman.com/get-started/eat-to-live-
blog/90/dr...](https://www.drfuhrman.com/get-started/eat-to-live-blog/90/dr-
fuhrmans-nutritarian-pyramid)

~~~
malvosenior
Just as I don't want to dismiss the OP because of the industry they are in, I
also don't want to blankly believe the WHO. We should be free to discuss this
and come to our own opinions and having this article flagged goes against
that.

