Issue 200
December 2023
Red meat is touted as the ultimate villain, a trigger for climate change and diabetes that amount to first-round KO from the Reaper. Here’s Ray Klerck to explain why your ribeye might be misunderstood.
Nate Diaz was MMA's first meat-free poster boy. Next came Netflix’s The Game Changers, and suddenly, we saw fighters like McGregor talking about trading broccoli for red meat. Who can blame them? The writing is on the wall regarding the ills of red meat. Several times a year, nutrition studies eschew the evils of red meat. However, strictly speaking, you don’t need vegetables either. Your dietary necessities are protein, fat, and a few essential vitamins and minerals – which, many carnivores point out, you can get in abundance from eating meat. Eating plenty of red meat does mean generous servings of saturated fat, but whether that’s a problem depends on perspective. A meta-analysis of 21 studies found no association between saturated fat consumption and heart disease. We’re made to believe that vegetarianism is the left jab, then carnivorism is the right hook, but they can work together if you look at the science from a holistic view.
Meat is a killer?
Food can shorten or lengthen your life. You’ll live 10 years longer if you’re a vegetarian, says a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Eating red and processed meat, even in small amounts, increases your risk of death from all causes, says a paper in Nutrients. Vegetarians do life better. Case closed, right? Well, not so much if you look at what, when, and how people eat in Blue Zones, the places in the world where people live the longest. The Mediterranean diet, which sees you eating vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes, and some red meat and poultry, cuts your risks of dying from everything and lowers your chances of heart disease, says the British Medical Journal. So, the only real-life lab where the food-longevity link is on display is in these places where they eat a small amount of red meat. They’re not ripping into 3lb steaks, but they’re not saying no when the bolognese is twirled around the spaghetti fork. Like most things, moderation is vital, but how did red meat get such a bad rap?
Food science is flawed
It’s just as easy to buy a scientist as it is to buy a politician, but that’s not what happened to red meat science. The flaws lie with almost all nutritional science because most of it is observational studies where people are asked what they eat in a day. Not only do people love to lie, but we fib because of what’s socially acceptable. We omit embarrassing foods or ones that we don’t think count, and food is complex, so it’s hard to judge a homemade burger against a fast-food burger. The only way to know about nutrition is to control precisely what someone eats in a random trial. Weirdly, explorer Vilhaljmur Stafansson got stranded in the Arctic for a year, ate nothing but animal protein, and felt super healthy. When he returned to Canada, he went on an all-meat diet in a laboratory setting and walked away in best-ever health. Most of the research on vegetarian diets are observational studies on Seventh Day Adventists who don’t drink, smoke, or take drugs and have strong community bonds (a longevity plus point). That’s not to suggest they’re wrong, but the truth about meat very often ends up as a split decision dressed up as a KO against your steak.
Red meat revival
It’s now considered controversial even to suggest that red meat isn’t going to kill you, but some scientists have tried. After examining the results of multiple studies on millions of people, McMaster University researchers found that red and processed meat has no negative impact on health. “This is not just another study on red and processed meat, but a series of high-quality systematic reviews resulting in recommendations we think are far more transparent, robust, and reliable," said Bradley Johnston, the co-author. “We focused exclusively on health outcomes and did not consider animal welfare or environmental concerns when making our recommendations.” What might be happening in the nutrition world is that climate science is crossing over, and since there’s a theory that cow farts are making the earth hotter, their meat may be lumped in as a destructive element.
An inflammatory topic
Many people consider meat eaters as inconsiderate, especially in light of the like-meat alternatives available on the market. Externally, red meat has become an inflammatory topic, but internally, it’s also supposed to be a massive source of inflammation. Chronic inflammation is life-threatening in your body, but red meat may not cause this inflammation once people’s body mass index is factored in, says 2023 research in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It used to be believed that this red meat induced inflammation that was the driver of cardiovascular disease. This paper suggests that being overweight is the inflammatory culprit after accounting for smoking, physical activity level, education level, age, sex, and household income. It’s an observational study, so the thousands who took part reported what they ate, and Beef Checkoff funded it. That’s your cue to raise a single suspicious eyebrow. The same suss eyebrow should also used when reading nutrition articles on vegetarianism.
Hard-hitting advice
So, if you’re a fighter or just a fight fan, red meat may not be a death sentence. After all, plants aren’t without their failings. Dr. Steven R Gundry’s book The Plant Paradox argues the defenses plants cultivate to keep away predators negatively impact humans. Lectins, gluten, and phytic acid are all cited reasons why some people feel better when they cut out greens and grains. That said, the impact of plants’ defense mechanisms on their digestibility could be drastically overstated. Cooking food usually reduces or destroys so-called ‘anti-nutrients’ like phytic acid. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of good evidence for the nutrients in plants being protective against everything from cancer to heart disease. It’s possible you can have a bad reaction to one or two, but it's not wise to go all in on carnivore or vegetarian approaches.
Instead, you should eat in moderation. The World Cancer Research Fund International suggests eating three servings of meat per week, about 35-500g (12-18oz) cooked. This probably requires an adjustment to how you portion your food. Imagine a dinner plate. Now divide it into six portions. Red meat should take up one of those six slices. It should not gobble up two-thirds of your plate, where the other third is made up of a mountain of fries. Do you love red meat? Eat it as a treat meal. Try to focus on eating high-quality grass-fed beef wherever you can. This tactic means you can enjoy the things you love without the negatives. Life, like MMA, is about being well-rounded in your approach. Try this guilt-free nutritional tactic so you’re able to thrive, not just survive.
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