A study by the Harvard School of Public Health has claimed that regularly eating red meat can shorten your life. John Nicholson, author of The Meat Fix: How A Lifetime Of Healthy Eating Nearly Killed Me, thinks that it's not about how long you live. It's about how you live...
Run! Run for your lives! We're all going to dieeeee! Panic and panic now! Arrghghh!!!!
You may have heard a report from findings in the USA that eating red meat will kill you. Or rather, eating it every day will increase your likelihood of dying of a heart attack or some form of cancer.
Right, now we've got the hysteria over with let's apply a bit of more reasoned thinking about this latest research shall we? Trust me, I'm not a doctor.
First up, yes, we're all going to die. No-one gets out alive. We think we're so big and important, we humans. We're so in love with our big and clever selves that we think we're immortal but we're not; we're all so much rotting flesh sooner or later. I find this very comforting. We come from the earth and we return to it. Big deal. So does everything else. We're just another animal with eyes and an arsehole. A grunting beast. We like to think we’re more sophisticated than the other animals but then we invented the concept of sophistication, so it's no surprise that we like to think it applies to us most.
The key thing about life is having a good time while you're doing the walking around, breathing and having the rumpy pumpy bit. How long it goes on, give or take a few years, should be less important than how good it is while it's happening. So we need a diet which delivers us maximum energy, contentment and general good vibes, regardless of the various percentages of likelihoods that something bad will happen to you. Life is a gamble. Every day.
Next thing to ask, when you read a report such as this, is who paid for the research? This is crucial to know. Instinctively we think anything coming out of a University must be fair and impartial. However, all major industries have an arm of their marketing teams which are dedicated to sponsoring such science that will 'prove' whatever they want proved for their financial gain.
You may find, for example, a report advocating eating less red meat is funded by the soya industry, in whole or in part. Because if you can be persuaded not to eat quite so much red meat and you see a lot of ads for tasty healthy soya alternatives, you might substitute one for the other. This kind of subtle mind-washing is constantly happening, so much so that we don't consciously notice it. They don't want us to think it’s being sold to us; they want us to think we have made the consumer decision independent of their persuasion.
Always follow the money. More often than not, whoever would benefit most from the results has had a hand in sponsoring the research behind it.
The next important thing to remember is the figures are not very scary at all. For example If you have a 1 in a 100 chance of having a heart attack, a 20% increase in the likelihood means you now have a 1.2 chance in a 100. Doesn't sound nearly as scary as 20% does it? Given all the other variables and dangers in life, we'd ride out a 2 increase in the likelihood of something bad happening as all part of the roll of life's dice. When the publicity for such reports is created, they always go for the most impressive, sensationalist sounding headline. 20% seems massive. But in reality, it isn't.
Now let’s get down to the meat of the matter. This report looked at 120,000 people over 20 years. What type of meat did they eat? We are not told. Was it organic? Probably not. Was it intensively reared on wheat and soya? Almost certainly. Did it have hormones injected into it? It’s America so, probably, yes.
Not all meat is the same. The nutritional value of meat intensively reared on soya and wheat is markedly different from a proper grass fed organically reared beast. It just is. How does this play out in the figures? We don't know and can't know because it was not studied. Many say it is higher in Omega 6 and lower in Omega 3. A diet high in Omega 6 is often associated with inflammation which in turn provokes heart diseases and cancers. There is a body of opinion which sees this as the main issue behind so many metabolic and degenerative issues.
But let's not stop there. What else where these 120,000 eating? Almost certainly all of them ate bread, grains, sugar and other high load carbohydrates. Many believe it is the sugars from these foods that feed cancer cells and make them grow. Has the level of carbohydrate eaten been discounted as a possible cause of the noted rise in early deaths? No. Neither has the mass consumption of processed vegetable oil and hydrogenated fats – another major source of omega 6-based inflammation.
On top of all these variables we have our individual genetics and lifestyles, which mean all the other variable factors play out in many and varied ways.
This report also highlights processed meats as being worse for you – this may well be true because of the nitrates present in preserved meats. This has long been known as a possible carcinogen and is why I eat bacon preserved without them from Laverstoke Park. The alternative health community has long known about this. It is old news, though it is being reported as though it is some kind of weirdness.
So what are we left with? Panic and a vague sense of worry? Mostly that's what these studies do to us. They destroy our peace of mind, worry us and make us anxious; all emotional states which are likely to make you sicker than eating properly grown red meat. The effect of stress can be accurately measured on our bodies in a way that eating red meat can't be. It isn’t good. The more you worry the more likely you are to get sick. How to compute this into the will-I-die-early-if-I-eat-red meat debate?
At one level it is laughable. Are they saying that if you eat 500g of red meat a week, or 70g a day, you'll be OK, but if you eat 600g or 80g you won't be? What if you eat a kilo one week and none the next? And over how many years does this apply? Can you have 10 years eating a lot of meat and 10 years eating none and cheat death? What if like me you went 26 years not eating any? Will I live for-bloody-ever? Bollocks. Of course not.
What a diet rich in top quality, grass fed, organic red meat has done is to make me stronger, fitter, more energetic and more vital compared to my low fat, super healthy eating old self and that is incontestable. When I ate no meat at all my get up and go got up and went. And that is what really matters. That is what life is about. The one who lives longest doesn't win; the one who lives the best wins.
It's not big news that we will die of something. Just eat food that has been grown naturally and don’t eat anything processed and then let the variables do their worst. Relax. Don't fight it. Just put the pedal to the metal and rock on. It’s better to burn out than it is to rust.