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Comment by dawnerd | Hacker News Reader

But is it really? We're omnivores. Our bodies are designed to eat meat.

I went hardcore keto and only eat meat + cheese and I've lost a ton of weight and lowered my BP etc. That is way healthier than what I was before so I'm not sure the argument cutting down on meat is healthy.

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Yes, support for this is practically unanimous by health research on the topic. Obviously there's orders of 'bad', with processed meats being worse than red meats, and red meats worse than say lean white meats, and the quantity matters too. The whole omnivore argument tends to assume we used to eat tons of meat all the time but it was a rarity until fairly recently in our history.

Yes, I've seen plenty of these studies but all of them have too many variables at play. Actual proof that meat is bad is very foggy at best.

Edit: I'm not arguing either way - I just don't buy into this whole meat is bad for you argument.

The argument about processed foods (meat and otherwise) is pretty solid. Red meat... Open to debate. You need to keep in mind that most of our baselines come from the mid 20th century. Where everyone ate meat, so our definition of "healthy" is based on 70 year old averages. The median for "healthy" is a meat eater.

My spouse is vegan and super healthy. Yet some of her blood-works are borderline. As far as we can tell it's because she's vegan. It's the stats themselves that are biased against veganism. I think that if the studies were corrected meat eating would look MUCH worse than it does now.

I disagree, we were not designed by anyone. Our ancestors made choices that worked for them in the past, but just because we did things in the past does not mean it is the only way moving forward.

Your issue was probably your weight (causing high BP), more than meat and cheese being an optimal diet. I would be cautious about the longtime harm to your cardiovascular system due to lack of fiber and triglycerides.

I always find it funny when people use the ‘omnivore’ reasoning. Like it sets us in-line with all other animals in the food chain somehow. When was the last time you saw a living animal and thought: “god damn, I’d love to tear into that beast and eat it alive.”

Humans evolved to prepare meat in very specific ways: WE COOK IT (like 95% of the time unless you’re some kind of lunatic) We’re not like ANY other animal and trying to say ‘oh we eat meat AND plants so we’re omnivores and therefore we are intended to consume animals’ is ridiculous.

We originally ate animals because it provided tons of calories in primitive times. It gave us an edge and we got ahead. At this day in age there is absolutely no scientific justification for consuming animals (unless you have some kind of tragic health condition). Can you lose weight and lower your BP in the short term? Sure. But please keep this up for 10+ years and we’ll see how the body sustains itself.

>absolutely no scientific justification for consuming animals

Given the state of nutrition science, I would also say there is no scientific justification for not consuming animals.

Given historical precedent, eating cooked meat seems to have effectively taken fat (a very long digestive track) apes with small brains and turned them into bigger brained highly capable humans.

From what I understand of research, and advisories from Harvard Health and the like, reducing red meat intake in particular can improve CVD risk. Saturated fat raises total cholesterol levels; not just the "bad" small ldl, granted, but that is still thought to raise health risk. It's worse when paired with refined carbs and sugar.

The Mediterranean diet, which is as of yet the most studied in nutrition, advocates for little red meat, moderate poultry and fish, more legumes and vegetables etc.

But it's not eating meat that's making you lose weight, it's cutting out all the carbs you'd normally eat...

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