"I’ll pick the salad over the steak any day, though."
In terms of food safety and risk of pathogens, salad is far, far more dangerous than steak.
In terms of food safety and risk of pathogens, salad is far, far more dangerous than steak.
Animals also accumulate things like heavy metals and the drugs they are given.
Plants can be washed of pesticides fairly well and they accumulate these chemicals at much lower rates, but meat can’t be washed of what has accumulated in it.
Overall the health outcomes of consuming plants appear to be better than those of consuming meat.
The primary contaminant in steak is E. coli. You are more likely to consume E. coli from a salad than from a steak.
A quick google search yields a few results, each pointing to the same conclusion:
https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/attribution/attribution-...
> Meat and poultry, a combination of four animal food categories, Beef, Game, Pork, and Poultry, accounted for fewer illnesses, but for 29% of deaths.
Poultry accounted for the most deaths (19%); many of those were caused by Listeria and Salmonella infections. This rate is partly due to three large Listeria outbreaks linked to sliced processed deli turkey meat; the last such large outbreak occurred in 2002.
Produce, on the other hand, accounted for 27% of deaths. However, it's important to distinguish here that produce accounts for 27% of all deaths, but animal products accounts for all of the rest. That's 73% of all food borne illness coming from animal products.
You are far more likely to die from food borne illness caused by animal products; especially agricultural animals.
Steak is significantly safer than other types of meat, and steak in particular is significantly safer than salad.
As your link notes, chicken is one of the worst offenders
Your data supports my point, not yours.
please stop with the weasel scare words.
We are exposing ourselves to dangerous substances every day due to bioaccumulation in animal foods.
If I remember correctly it was far better to eat organic vegetables/fruit and “normal” meat, than the other way around, and only marginally worse than all organic. The explanation being mammals have kidneys and a liver that we no longer eat (most of us at least).
From this one could guess insects could be worse than steak.
Sorry I don’t have a reference right now, or know if this research was heavily skewed somehow by the meat industry. I would be happy to hear more from someone knowledgeable on the subject.