Meat And Health: Assimilating The Facts
Still having dinner according to your grandmotherâs advice of âmeat and two vegâ? How very 2017 of you.
According to Mintelâs Meat-Free Foods UK Market Report, more than one in four Britons are now favouring a vegetarian lifestyle.
Vegetarians have many reasons for not eating meat, including concern for animal welfare, health benefits, and reduced environmental damage. Here are some of the benefits of leaving meat off your plate.
Are humans meant to eat meat?
The dietary status of the human species is that of an âunspecialised frugivoreâ â an animal specialised for nuts, grains, seeds, fruit and vegetables, but can handle âunspecialisedâ food sources too. Biochemistry, comparative anatomy and genetics do not support the contention that human digestive tract is specialised for meat-eating. âBut we have canines!â is the all-too-common quickfire rhetoric.
Our pathetic, short and blunt canines may be useful to take a bite out of an apple. But try lunging for the throat of a cow and see if they are of any use then.
Due to limited resources our ancestors became habituated to eating meat, and through evolution our gut can handle it to some degree. But it is not the case that we are specialised for meat eating or need it in our diet to be healthy. In fact, the opposite is the case.
The WHO report
A wealth of research indicates that vegetarians have reduced incidences of diseases, and overall greater longevity. In support of this, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has classified processed meats as a Group 1 carcinogen. Tobacco smoking and asbestos are classified in the same category. As stated on their website, âthis classification is based on sufficient evidence … that eating processed meat causes colorectal cancerâ.
Moreover, red meat is classified as Group 2A, which means itâs âprobably carcinogenic to humansâ. My gut feeling is that it is only a matter of time that additional evidence will confirm this positive association.
Put it this way: if you had a choice between a meal that is proven to be protective against cancer (e.g. a wholefood, plant-based meal) and one that is âprobably carcinogenicâ (e.g. a meal that contains red meat), which one would you choose?
Nevertheless, there are other health risks that are associated with meat eating such as coronary heart disease and diabetes, to which we now turn.
Backed up by research
In a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the authors state that âVegetarians had a 32% lower risk of [ischaemic heart disease] than did nonvegetariansâ. And a study published in Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism showed that vegetarians had an overall 18% lower cancer incidence. Moreover, the largest study to examine the effects of different sources of dietary protein found that a high intake of proteins from animal sources â particularly processed and unprocessed red meats â was associated with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, whereas high plant protein intake had an inverse effect. The authors note that, âsubstitution of plant protein for animal protein … was associated with lower mortality, suggesting the importance of protein sourceâ.
To be fair, a limitation of some epidemiological studies is that they do not consider the food source and the quality of the meat. However, in a study published by JAMA Internal Medicine, 73,308 participants were analysed and were controlled for important demographic, lifestyle and food confounders. They found that even a modest amount of red meat, regardless of the source, led to an increased rate of mortality. Whereas vegetarian dietary patterns were associated with reduced all-cause mortality and increased longevity.
In a study published in American Journal of Epidemiology, researchers found that a higher intake of red meat and poultry is associated with significantly increased risk of developing diabetes. Further, in a 2017 Sweden study, it was found that beef, pork and poultry are associated with colorectal cancer, which is considered one of the most common forms of cancer in the Western world. In fact, heart disease and cancer are the biggest killers on the planet, both of which have been directly linked to meat consumption.
Colossal damage
Aside from the health issues, rearing livestock for food is highly inefficient and wasteful. Every year over 56 billion animals are slaughtered by humans, not to mention sea creatures whose deaths are so great they are only tallied in tonnes. The crops fed to industrially-reared animals worldwide could feed an extra four billion people on the planet.
Let us not forget the devastating effect of the meat industry has on the environment. A staggering 51% of global greenhouse-gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture, according to a report published by the Worldwatch Institute. Grass fed, and âhumanely slaughteredâ (an oxymoron) is even more unsustainable.
Conclusion
Humans have been facultative meat eaters for a long time, but recent research suggests that a diet with minimal meat is much more healthful. And we certainly do not need meat nutritionally in our day and age.
But the health benefits of keeping meat of the menu is only one side of the argument. For many, it is the ethical implications that make meat indigestible.