Red meat causes heart disease. Except when it doesn't? | Hacker News Reader

Red meat causes heart disease. Except when it doesn't?

bigthink.com

15 pointsBrajeshwar21 comments

> Since health recommendations are generalized for an entire population, it makes sense that experts target individual advice with the public in mind.

I profoundly disagree here. I believe it would and should undermine trust in scientific publications if the results get framed with the intend to influence behavior. That is neither scientific nor helpful. Perhaps a statement would need to make sure it cannot be generalized as is.

You can say that nuts are healthy for the most part, it won't immediately kill the people with allergies and you could also replicate the numbers game that was put forward as a justification to lie.

Perhaps the result of a study needs to be put in context, if it is not "communicable" as is.

But this is such an easy example to communicating the results that there shouldn't even be a thought wasted for the "correct" framing of a study.

It gets even worse when policy-level thinking gets incorporated — something like, “eating red meat causes climate change; climate change hurts people; therefore we declare that eating red meat hurts people.”

The most obvious recent example of this was the health establishment supporting mass gatherings during the George Floyd protests, because of the argument that fighting racial inequities was even more critical to public health than stopping the spread of COVID.

Trust in public health institutions has been consequently gutted, and I don’t see it coming back any time soon.

Based on what is reported in the article (and without reviewing the review studies) we can only say that claiming in a survey to eat less red meat is associated with a small reduction in heart disease risk.

After decades of nonsense high profile nutritional studies being presented then debunked the represented my policy is that I only believe large effects.

I wonder how much this risk compares to smoking a pack a day? Or being obese or sedentary?

Red meat causes environmental damages, because it requires so much more resources and pollution, this is more important

There are people buying top grade meat for their pets, seriously, this is incredible, 1/5th of world meat production is used for pets btw

Cats are not human and don't each veggies. While you can go meat free your cat cannot. Something tells me you wouldn't eat the top grade meat found in cat food where they use parts of the animals humans wouldn't eat.

> 1/5th of world meat production is used for pets btw

Could you give the source for this?

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/would-you-feed-your-d..., https://sentientmedia.org/pet-food-environmental-impact/

Is it 1/3 or 20%. Who is estimating? This is junky science. The links talk about fish/meat not red meat.

read meat has an even higher impact than other meat, 2nd link shows what type of meat mostly compose pet food, and for the estimation there are enough numbers (just the number of million of tonnes of pet food is so huge and again doesn't take into account people buying the best meat fr their pets, or more rare people eating dog food..)

That meat is made up of organ meat humans don't consume.

the article explains why this belief is false, let alone people who buy standard & high-quality meat for their pets

Am I reading the article correctly that it was published in Feb 2020?

In the coming years we're going to see a war on meats as large organizations push their "environmentally friendly" patented protein sources. The small farmer will be pushed out with carbon taxes and other fees.

meat should be considered luxury, based on its footprint, so higher cost and people should consume much less of it, simple

The limit of that argument is that most everything is a luxury, that life itself is a luxury that should be taken away.

Luxury: "something adding to pleasure or comfort but not absolutely necessary"

Talking, walking, breathing air, drinking water, eating cereal or local vegetables are not luxuries

Talking to friends over phone, taking your car to gym to then run on a treadmill, drinking anything but water, smoking, eating meat/fish/dairy products/processed food are luxuries

Your comment implies very deep inconsistency: your examples have no pattern that others outside of your circle might agree upon. Why should your personal "definition" of luxury be a golden standard for all?

Cereal is an internationally traded commodity - the polar opposite of local produce. Local produce is often an expensive luxury in my experience. Even in my hippy experiences I don't think I've ever met someone who has grown their own oats.

You define talking to friends over phone as a luxury - why? Is having time and opportunity to talk to friends in person a luxury?

Are food standards a luxury?

Is potable tap water a luxury?

Historically beer was a means of providing safe drinking water. Was it a luxury when used for that purpose?

Is commenting on an internet forum using your mobile phone a luxury?

I am probably being provocative. However I think the questions above are simply implications of my comment.

Commenting on internet is not too much luxury when it's an attempt to educate or act for the environment

Boiled water is not a luxury is that's the only way to get non-contamined water, but no need to transform it in beer. Electricity, internet, buildings, trucks transporting non-luxurious food are also base products in our cities, many people need it, but some of their usage become luxurious. For example water plastic bottles when not reused, many devices like air conditioners, usage of internet like streaming, oversized houses/apartments, many usages of personal cars are luxuries by definition (not necessary)

Talking to emergency or for a practical action is possibly non luxury, if it saves a life or save more polluting ways of communication, but spending hours talking to friends is luxury

I'm maybe including "non-sustainability" into luxury, but it's related to necessity, because when you have multiple type of foods, like cereals, vegetable, meat, some are scalable, some are not

At the end of the day, this is the iterative process of science. Something as foundational to the average American's diet as red meat is going to be a difficult variable to isolate and weigh the costs of, and we may not even get an answer one way or another in my lifetime. For my part, I'll probably just keep eating it because red meat tastes good.

What if I ate 16oz (pre-cooked weight) of meat a day for 90 days, then I go get some bloodwork done? Would they be enough to be conclusive? What could we expect the bloodwork to show?

https://youtu.be/IUYhhlNV-4o Dr. Shawn Baker only eats meat

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