Hacker News Reader

Comment by bb123 | Hacker News Reader

Does your second point suggest that we should avoid eating beef?

I think there's better arguments than a risk of prion disease for cutting beef (or meat in general) from your diet - not sure if your comment is meant as a joke that I'm not catching, so I'll hold out on going into details unless you're interested :-)

Not meant as joke. I'm aware that there are lots of good reasons for not eating beef, I was wondering if prion exposure risk is one of them, as the meat/no-meat argument is one I try to revaluate regularly as new info comes to light. I eat beef once or twice a week as I have found it hard to get sufficient iron, protein, b12 and enough calories in general without it (and other meats). That and it tastes good, but I'm always receptive to new counterpoints.

I take a liquid supplement called Floradix for b12/iron. It is made from yeast and vegetables. I'm prone to anemia and it has been immensely helpful.

Prion concentration varies greatly from one part of a cow to another, because prions gravitate toward nerve tissue for some reason. The brain is definitely dangerous to eat. So are the eyes, the spinal cord, and parts of the intestines. Muscle tissue on the other hand is said to be much less dangerous. I don't know how much less, though.

Remember that all risks are relative. Just like radiation, there's likely to be a background level of prions in the soil that you can't avoid even if you only eat vegetables. The question is how much prion exposure you can tolerate without having noticeable symptoms within your lifetime.

I don't think prion disease currently is a significant enough risk to make it an argument against eating meat. It's a rounding error compared to for instance increase in colon cancer

I eat meat occasionally as well. I tried going vegetarian for a six months, but I lost an unhealthy amount of weight (my BMI dropped from 19.2 to 17.8) and I think the health risk from malnutrition, as you also mention having struggled with, is much more severe than that of prion disease

Yeah this is exactly the situation I find myself in. I regret the ethical and environmental consequences of eating meat, but I found it very hard to replace it completely and still have a balanced diet.

I mean, there are a lot of reasons to not to. And I say that as a meat eater.

For people who are intensely worried about prions, it seems that eating less meat will decrease their chance of exposure.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com