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Topic Title: Let them eat steak: Hold the shame, red meat is not bad for you or climate change
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Created On: 11/02/2019 10:10 AM
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 11/02/2019 10:10 AM
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dingpatch

Posts: 19032
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/let...ak-hold-090012002.html

Let them eat steak: Hold the shame, red meat is not bad for you or climate change

USA TODAY Opinion

Will Coggin, Opinion contributor
,USA TODAY Opinion.November 2, 2019

Imagine ordering dinner at your favorite restaurant. You know what you want without hesitation: a perfectly marbled 8-ounce steak cooked medium rare. Just before you order, your date tells you they've read that cows cause climate change and that meat might be unhealthy. Suddenly, the Caesar salad seems like a better option.

We've all been steak-shamed before. Ever since Sen. George McGovern's 1977 Dietary Goals report declared red meat a health villain, Americans have been chided out of eating red meat. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, red meat consumption has fallen more than 24% since 1976. During that time, study after study has attempted to tie red meat to a laundry list of health problems.

Until now.

So many studies, so many flaws

Three studies published recently in the Annals of Internal Medicine did something too few papers do: Ask whether the previous studies had any meat on their bones.

The researchers who wrote the report analyzed 61 past studies consisting of over 4 million participants to see whether red meat affected the risk of developing heart disease and cancer.

All three came to the same conclusion: Decreasing red meat consumption had little to no effect on reducing risk of heart disease, cancer or stroke.

How can so many studies be wrong?

Nutritional research often relies on survey-based observational studies. These track groups of people and the food they eat, or try to tie a person's past eating habits to a person's current state of health. The result is something akin to a crime chart from a mob movie with a random red string connecting random suspects trying to figure out "who dunnit."

Observational studies rely on participants to recall past meals, sometimes as far back as a month. Even when eating habits are tracked in real time using food diaries, issues arise. Research has shown that participants don't give honest answers and often pad food diaries with typically "good" foods like vegetables while leaving out things like meat, sweets and alcohol. There's also the matter of having to accurately report portion sizes and knowing the ingredients of the food eaten in restaurants.

Beef may be healthier than fake meat

The room for error is huge. A much better form of study would be to lock people in cells for a period of time so that you could precisely control what they ate and did and then measure outcomes. Obviously, there are ethical issues with such a structure, which is why observational studies are more common, if flawed.

Some companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have tried to cash in on the misconception about meat's healthfulness. According to the market research firm Mintel, 46% of Americans believe that plant-based meat is better for you than real meat. Ironically, the anti-meat messages could be leading people to less healthful options.

Science on your side: Don't let vegetarian environmentalists shame you on meat

Plant-based meat might enjoy the perception of being healthier, but that perception is far from reality. A lean beef burger has an average of nearly 20% fewer calories and 80% less sodium than the two most popular fake-meat burgers, the Impossible Burger and the Beyond Burger.

Fake meat is also an "ultra-processed" food, filled with unpronounceable ingredients. The National Institutes of Health released a study in May finding that ultra-processed foods cause weight gain. Unlike observational studies, this research was a controlled, randomized study.

Earth will survive your meat-eating

It's not just the flawed health claims about red meat that deserve a second look. In recent years, we've been told reducing meat consumption is essential to saving the planet. But despite what critics say, even if everyone in America went vegan overnight, total greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in the United States would only be reduced 2.6%.

Eat better meat: Don't go vegan to save the planet. You can help by being a better meat-eater.

Since the early 1960s, America has shrank GHG emissions from livestock by 11.3% while doubling the production of animal farming. Meat production is a relatively minor contributor to our overall GHG levels. In other countries, it may have a higher impact. The solution is not lecturing everyone else to go meat-free. Sharing our advancements would prove to be a more likely and efficient way to reduce emissions than cutting out meat or replacing it with an ultra-processed analogue.

Those who enjoy a good steak now have a good retort the next time they're criticized for their choice: Don't have a cow.

Will Coggin is the managing director at the Center for Consumer Freedom.

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Red meat red flags discredited: Fake meat may be worse for your health

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Dora Hates You
 11/04/2019 09:18 AM
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tom

Posts: 8013
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^So much wrong with that article. Sigh. Source check: "The Center for Organizational Research and Education (CORE), formerly the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) and prior to that the Guest Choice Network, is an American non-profit entity founded by Richard Berman that lobbies on behalf of the fast food, meat, alcohol and tobacco industries. It describes itself as 'dedicated to protecting consumer choices and promoting common sense.' "

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add a signature since I'm here in profile anyway
 11/05/2019 08:45 AM
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RustyTruck

Posts: 33296
Joined Forum: 08/02/2004

http://annals.org/aim/fullarti...n-health-food-thought

Interesting, it's critical of the state of current research, and like most science articles it recommends more and better research. In my opinion meat is like anything else, not significantly harmful in moderation.

I don't see anything to dissuade us that bulldozing the rain forest to graze cattle isn't a horrible thing for the environment. A plant based or mostly plant based diet is healthy and sustainable. But in 'Murka no one is stopping you for pounding cheeseburgers if you want.

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Capitalism is based on the ridiculous notion that you can enjoy limitless growth in a closed, finite system.

In biology, such behavior of cells is called "cancer".
 11/05/2019 11:42 AM
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TeeBirdForever

Posts: 357
Joined Forum: 08/21/2016

If nothing else it's a super inefficient use of land, though it may be that a lot of grazing land can't be used for much else from a purely pragmatic standpoint. Well, apart from solar farms of course.

Taking all of those acres of sunlight to grow some grass to raise a cow is pretty funny if you think about it. A cow is just concentrated solar energy, as are we. With a lot of waste on the side.

Historically, (after hunting/gathering ended and we started farming) meat has been a feast type of dish, unless you were a king or some other kind of apex predator.

Edited: 11/05/2019 at 11:43 AM by TeeBirdForever
 11/15/2019 05:05 PM
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WG

Posts: 37257
Joined Forum: 03/10/2005

There are those that argue that low density ranching can have a net positive effect on biodiversity, even improving the lands productivity.
But you don't feed millions of burgers daily with low density.

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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill
 11/16/2019 07:04 AM
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dingpatch

Posts: 19032
Joined Forum: 07/24/2003

"Food" production versus "biodiversity" = Food production. Period

I know that everybody is aware of the dust-up over RoundUp and such, , , , well, last year I watched the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee hearing about wether or not to end some UN funding because the UN reports were so unfair to Monsanto, etc. I forget which House Monsanto Shill it was but, he said in very plain language that it is our job to feed the World and that we can not do it without RoundUp, etc. And, if there are concerns about cancer, so what? Food production is more important than cancer and gene damage !!!!!!!!!?????? WTF? WTF? WTF?

So, sorry about your Cancer but, well you know, , , , ,!

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Dora Hates You
 11/17/2019 08:06 AM
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Greensleeves

Posts: 20478
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dingbatch citing an opinion piece from USA Today. You can smell the fumes if you get close to your monitor.
 11/17/2019 08:09 AM
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Greensleeves

Posts: 20478
Joined Forum: 07/22/2003

The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) (formerly called the "Guest Choice Network (GCN)") is a front group run by Rick Berman's PR firm Berman & Co., originally primarily for the benefit of restaurant, alcohol, tobacco and other industries. It runs media campaigns that oppose the efforts of scientists, doctors, health advocates, animal advocates, environmentalists and groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, calling them "the Nanny Culture -- the growing fraternity of food cops, health care enforcers, anti-meat activists, and meddling bureaucrats who 'know what's best for you.'"

More recently CMD revealed that the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation is funding CCF to attack environmental groups with pop-up websites, like the "BigGreenRadicals.com" website, as well as to assist and train other Bradley-funded organizations in crisis communications (more below).[1]
 11/17/2019 10:07 AM
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dingpatch

Posts: 19032
Joined Forum: 07/24/2003

Greensleeves: No, I really watched it, the whole stinking thing, , , , ,

", , , , , a hearing on whether the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) should be defunded. "




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Dora Hates You
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