Red Meat Health Observations

[Deleted member 532959]

I'd agree that we will do what we need to do to survive but going on the basis of those that did survive to produce future generations there are no vegans possibly because they require supplementation and perhaps this meant in t he past they couldn't have successful pregnancies being deficient in iron and B12 for example.

It's our modern world/lifestyle that needs supplementation. In our natural environment, and without current sanitation, B12 would've been abundant. That it no longer is is the reason why most animals bred for human consumption are fortified with the vitamin (The animal's health and for those who eat the animal). In our modern world , B12 deficiency is certainly not reserved for vegans.

Iron deficiency is also a bit of a red-herring. Iron issues aren't solely the preserve of a vegan minority. Firstly, it seems there is a possible genetic component to the rise of this deficiency. Secondly, it seems pretty volatile in terms of absorption and co-factors needed for improved absorption. But a lot of it, especially on the vegan side of things can just be down to not knowing how to eat health-fully.

But the point seems moot. None of our ancestors were thinking about the philosophical implications of their diet (There weren't any, really) , so wouldn't have even attempted it.

Keto doesn't require supplementation and there are still hunter gatherers who eat t this way without access to supplements. I agree that those peoples might well have eaten grains had they been able to not having the luxury of choosing to only eat m

Not going to take an over-arching position on this, but in all my years around this diet-sphere (Including doing Paleo.Primal) I've come across lots of people who supplement while on keto. How much of that is a need and how much is 'just in case', I'm not sure.

I take B12, VitD and an occasional multi (Will probably drop them at the end of this bottle). I think these 2 are wise choices and because I am not making any claims to the naturalness of my diet (As you can see, quite the opposite) there's no detriment.

 

[Deleted member 532959]

Possibly not needed for fibre or vitamins but helpful for gut microbiome perhaps?

Or maybe it's necessary for everything it contains (Vitamins, minerals, fibre and the gut microbiome) and that it's only our myopicness, hubris and endless amounts of scientific reductionism that lead us to believe we've got any real kind of handle on any of this

 

[NicoleC1971]

I have a daughter deficient in vitamin b12 and agree it isn't the preserve of vegans. My father in law is deficient too due to medication he takes (another modern confounder). The only reason we know this is of course that they both had blood tests for other reasons. No doubt there's plenty of people functioning and reproducing despite sub optimal nutrition!

I also take vitamin D though I have no idea if I am deficient and of course my Norther European ancestors seemed to cope without my 4000 iu.

I like red meat and coffee so will avoid any 'observational studies that say otherwise!

 

[Deleted member 532959]

I have a daughter deficient in vitamin b12 and agree it isn't the preserve of vegans. My father in law is deficient too due to medication he takes (another modern confounder). The only reason we know this is of course that they both had blood tests for other reasons. No doubt there's plenty of people functioning and reproducing despite sub optimal nutrition!

See, I think about that in reverse i.e it's not so much that people are going about their business on sub-optimal nutrition, but that our nutritional needs are much simpler than they've been made to be (B12 and VitaminD, notwithstanding). It seems impossible to align any combination of evolutionary nutritional theory such that today's RDA's would be satisfied. It has to have been simpler, else we wouldn't have survived, and any selective evolutionary pressures that might have been needed to get us here would surely have allowed us to thrive on much less.

But glad you caught your family members' issues. B12 is not to be messed with

I also take vitamin D though I have no idea if I am deficient and of course my Norther European ancestors seemed to cope without my 4000 iu.

It's hard to view this as separate from survivor bias. Just because your ancestors made it through, doesn't mean there weren't a lot of folk that didn't. Vitamin D is really not the easiest situation to navigate. Not only do we need sun, but we also need to be at the right angle/latitude to get the right exposure (Cant remember fully. It's been years since I looked at it). And our way of synthesisng it is overly complex. The further North we moved, the less sun and the greater need to cover our flesh from the cold. With that reduced amount of exposure we must've been even more dependent on the animals we ate, hoping they'd managed to synthesise enough of it through their fur.

So, yeah... Best to supplement

Like you, I'm not responding to a known deficit. If I stopped being vegan tomorrow, I'd still continue with b12 and VitD.

I like red meat and coffee so will avoid any 'observational studies that say otherwise!

Yeah! Meat tastes good. So does coffee. Free from one. The other is a work-in-progress.

Observation is a useful tool, but nothing is conclusive. And when it comes to nutrition, a lot of science is next-to-useless.
You make yer choices and yer lives yer life!

 

[Lamont D]

If you don't like vegetables, why eat them?
It's a choice.

Need?

I have never taken supplements and its a surprise to me, that I have a blood panel or a cat scan, I had one over Easter, that the doctors are really surprised at my health, and if you could see my medical history, you would be too.
They always ask me how I do it?
When I inform them of my dietary intake, they are fascinated and start asking questions.
As a guide, only take supplements, if you need them for medical reasons.
Too much of a vitamin or a supplement is not good for you.

 

[LittleGreyCat]

In the UK apples are harvested when ripe in September.
Used to work on a large fruit farm when at uni and it was the last job before the start of the before Christmas term.
Now we store them at chilled temps for months friends dad owned a large fruit farm.
If you simply leave them on the tree they rot so the season for UK apples is about a month max.

I grew up in a house with a small orchard.
We spent the Autumn picking the apples, wrapping them in newspaper, then storing them in racks in a utility room.
They lasted for an awful long time - well into spring - although they were pretty wrinkled after a few months.
Different varieties stored for different lengths of time.
We had some waxy skinned ones which lasted very well.
Strangely, I still enjoy stewed apples.

IIRC apples used to be stored long term in barrels - hence the one rotten apple that spoils the barrel.

 

[Riva_Roxaban]

I eat red, white and smoked meats, I have access to fresh fruit and veggies all year, as they are in "season" nearly all year in Australia, or imported from New Zealand if not.

Sounds like the doom and gloom purveyors are putting out their latest propaganda to me.

 

[Lamont D]

If you are broke and have no food, you will eat anything that will stop the hunger.
If you have never gone hungry, then you just don't know, how awful that is. During my early years and no school dinners in the holidays, and the rationing was still having an effect on what was available, and if you could afford it, learning how to get food, how to beg, borrow or cadge off the neighbours or the shops, going to the butchers to get some offal or an off cut, the cheapest cuts, I remember one Christmas when all we could afford was a small chicken, a roastie each and some vegetables. Between six of us. I also remember my dad eating tripe regularly, and sterilised milk, , condensed tinned milk. And so on.
I think what I'm trying to say if you have to gather food for the family, back to our hunter gatherer days, I would really believe that they would eat what they found. Regardless of dietary needs or worrying about being vegan etc.
If they had meat, from many animals, not just the farm animals we have now. I'm certain there were skills necessary to fish and have local knowledge about the food sources, and they ate everything from an animal including bone soup, they foraged for food just like armies did up until the Victorian age. There would hardly be a surplus of food within the family groups, they would feast if plentiful, or go without if they had to. Having fruit off the local uncultivated trees, or nut, chestnuts roasted are nice. The head of the family would probably teach the young and between them, how to prepare animals and the more prominent of the family would get the choice of what they ate.
The biggest down side to this way of living was, you were fortunate to get past thirty years of age.

But while the Hunter gatherers were trying to feed themselves, the Egyptians had been storing food and because of the difference in living standards, the Egyptians could feed the population because of the Nile and the growing season with the Egyptian technology and horticultural science. If you were a mason or privileged, you didn't have to go foraging.

Even up to just before world war 2, the workhouse poor had very little and not very nutritious gruel, you had to have a breadwinner in the family. Or starve!

 

[Deleted member 532959]

The biggest down side to this way of living was, you were fortunate to get past thirty years of age.

But how much of that was due to the terrible sanitary conditions of that period?

 

[Lamont D]

But how much of that was due to the terrible sanitary conditions of that period?

And still is, even today, there are millions of the world's population being fed on industrial junk food diets and cheapest food or in certain places around the world and if you are unaware of working families in this country that can't afford to buy food and rely on food banks or the generosity to charities. In this country alone, there are around 15 million people who live below the poverty line.
In my area, the only place to get food was the salvation army before the Tories won the election over ten years ago. Now there is food banks in every area around here, every church, youth clubs, sports clubs, and most charities have started giving food to those less fortunate or charging very low price food. Don't forget that most of the food is basic nutritional. Full of carbs. It is still so alarming that the inner cities are the worst areas for what age you die.
Covid has highlighted the need for an overhaul of how we feed ourselves, and how politics is destroying any hope of change.

 

[EllieM]

raises the question what changed significantly or the most - veg oil and derivative products.

Added sugar in (all) processed food...

 

[Resurgam]

I don't understand what is being asked.

 

[Brunneria]

Hi Everyone,

This is a reminder that @Mbaker asked some questions in his OP, and the posts have wandered a long way from addressing those questions.

Please make future posts on topic.

Here is the original post, in case people have lost track of it during the derailment:

What is your opinion is the best method of testing Red Meat health, and rate in your order. I have listed a couple of points loosely based around the evidence hierarchy:

1. Food Frequency Questionnaire:
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/news/2021/may/gorging-on-red-meat-is-not-good-for-heart-health.html

Pros
Cheap

Cons:
Recall
Minimal or none carnivore dieters - i.e. is the problem the alcohol, burger, fries, bun etc that came with the meat
Relative risks and other lifestyle confounders

2. Proxy Tested Results:
https://www.virtahealth.com/outcomes

Pros
Meat eaters are the majority population. So if this cohort and similar get better then.....

Cons:
Not exclusively meat eating, quantities of red meat not known

3. Anecdotes:
https://meatrx.com/category/success-stories/

4. Ancestral / History:

Pros:
Some populations still alive

Cons:
Some tribes are getting some modern foods also

5. Randomised Trial:

Pros:
Can carry weight of efficacy

Cons:
Definitions. E.g. low carb 130 grams
Foods: use of veg oils or versions of Keto, Keto people would not do

So for me the order is:

1. Ancestral / History
I believe this is trumps everything as it encompasses common sense e.g, Obesity rate in UK in 1970 was 2%, raises the question what changed significantly or the most - veg oil and derivative products.

2. Anecdotes
In significant numbers these are hypothesis generating and when backed by medical records backing the results are powerful evidence. These can often disprove an hypothesis, e.g. meat causes: diabetes, hypertension - how can both reversal and causation both be true at the same time.

3. Proxy Tested Results
These often show results that disprove another hypothesis e.g. Women's Health Initiative study, Mr FIT study and Minnesota coronary experiment 1968-73. In the case of Virta Health, there study confounded many "accepted" facts.

4. Randomised Trial
These can be setup to show what is required. E.g. a study of "meat eaters" vs "dash diet". If the meat eaters were Josephine and Joe blogs from Somewhere world vs dash diet eaters who were 4 times a week gym goers who do not drink - you would get outcome 1; if the meat eaters were several I could pick out from this website who have put their Type 2 into remission you would get outcome 2.

5. Food Frequency Questionnaires
Where to start with these. People from a computer / engineering background cannot abide by this type of science, due to if those same methods were being used in our fields, computer systems would get more viruses, every other plane would fall out of the sky etc. Most of us are in absolute results industries, where relative results are not acceptable or useable, and "misleading" is definitely off of the table.

Over to you, your thoughts

 

[Brunneria]

My own view is that I’m very wary of using Ancestral Diet as justification for anything. Humans spread across the globe, in a wave of opportunist omnivory. As individuals we are very adaptable, shown by the astonishing range different environments, climates and ways of eating in different parts of the world.

If a remote village (in an area with restricted natural resources) has a few octogenarian inhabitants, then someone, somewhere is going to claim they’ve found the Fountain of Youth Diet. Then they will write a glossy diet book and hit the best seller list for a few weeks...

edited to add:
Sorry, that was a bit flippant. I was thinking of the Pioppi Diet as I wrote the last paragraph.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a good book. And a healthy way of eating for many, many people. But did we really need a glossy best seller to tell us that human bodies respond well to fresh unprocessed ingredients, in a good range of foods, grown in healthy soils, or meat grazed on pasture on those same soils, with good sun, rain and fresh air? And did we really need to be told that staying active throughout life, with a variety of activities, will help us reach a healthy old age?

 

[Mbaker]

The quality of evidence usually ranks RCTs and meta analysis of the same as top of the evidence tree. They are evidently very difficult to run because they are expensive and can't be done 'blind' nor be done over the period of time it takes to develop chronic illness.

Food frequency questionnaires are just the tools of the observational study which looks forward or backwards at one cohort of people. Those studies are frequently confounded by the 'Gwyneth Paltrow; effect i.e. healthy people do plenty of healthy things as well as NOT eating meat (non smoking, yoga practice, living in California etc.) - see also The Mormons in Lomalinda CA . The converse is true - that those who truly don't care about dietary advice might be eating red meat in a burger but they're also eating plenty of vegetable oils too and not much salad.

The ancestral health idea does makes sense but isn't as reliable as an RCT because we don't really know what our ancestors ate. We do know they ate a wide range of diets with varying amounts of meat/fish and grains/tubers. The unifying factor seems to be lack of processed foods and very little sugars (fruit in season and honey).

Like those observational studies based on food frequency questionnaires either side can cherry pick their hunter gatherers of choice to make the point for or against red meat. If you like keto you'd go for Kalahari bush men and Eskimos. If you are anti red meat choose Mormons or the Okinawans (though as it turns out they ate quite a lot of pork) or others in the 'Blue Zones'. The only eating pattern not supported by the ancestral health evidence is veganism. I agree with your concerns about the questionnaires being unverifiable!

Interesting question though and I agree that it is worth asking how evidence is gathered in food science!
We do need better reasons than we've been given to stop eating meat especially if you've got metabolic disease.

Excellent contribution. I think I needed another descriptive heading for Ancestral / History, as I wanted to include present day traditional hunter gatherers; I think the evidence here is crystal clear, where the stricter meat eaters are healthier, with great blood glucose levels and teeth compared to tribes close by who have taken in some of the world diet. Observers such as Brian Saunders have been able to interview Grand Parents who have better teeth health than younger family members.

I still need the anti-meat people to explain the longest living Hong Kong population, who eat the most meat per capita and whose numbers dwarf all blue zones combined.

The blue zones are interesting, as when these are visited there is plenty of animal protein, such as Greece.

 

[Mbaker]

I'd agree that we will do what we need to do to survive but going on the basis of those that did survive to produce future generations there are no vegans possibly because they require supplementation and perhaps this meant in t he past they couldn't have successful pregnancies being deficient in iron and B12 for example.
Keto doesn't require supplementation and there are still hunter gatherers who eat t this way without access to supplements. I agree that those peoples might well have eaten grains had they been able to not having the luxury of choosing to only eat m
As for the fruit I live in the UK and there's apples, pears . plums and berries in late Summer/Autumn I think. Back in the days before agriculture those fruits would have been pretty small and bitter too.

It is a shame that ASDA in particular were on a recent TV programme, actively being happy to increase the sugaryness of tomatoes.

 

[Mbaker]

It's our modern world/lifestyle that needs supplementation. In our natural environment, and without current sanitation, B12 would've been abundant. That it no longer is is the reason why most animals bred for human consumption are fortified with the vitamin (The animal's health and for those who eat the animal). In our modern world , B12 deficiency is certainly not reserved for vegans.

Iron deficiency is also a bit of a red-herring. Iron issues aren't solely the preserve of a vegan minority. Firstly, it seems there is a possible genetic component to the rise of this deficiency. Secondly, it seems pretty volatile in terms of absorption and co-factors needed for improved absorption. But a lot of it, especially on the vegan side of things can just be down to not knowing how to eat health-fully.

But the point seems moot. None of our ancestors were thinking about the philosophical implications of their diet (There weren't any, really) , so wouldn't have even attempted it.



Not going to take an over-arching position on this, but in all my years around this diet-sphere (Including doing Paleo.Primal) I've come across lots of people who supplement while on keto. How much of that is a need and how much is 'just in case', I'm not sure.

I take B12, VitD and an occasional multi (Will probably drop them at the end of this bottle). I think these 2 are wise choices and because I am not making any claims to the naturalness of my diet (As you can see, quite the opposite) there's no detriment.

The supplementation of animals for B12 was a point the lead (British) gentleman made on Joe Rogan against Chris Kresser; this has been fact checked and does not appear to be a broad as the commentator stated. Apparently supplementation is down to the poor quality of some pastures.

 

[Mbaker]

Just for clarity ancestral diets are not just restricted to tribes in the Amazon or Africa. I prefer cross referencing health status against time and food used.

When Meat and 2 Veg was prevalent in the UK disease rates were down (significantly). We have interventional studies of the Aborigines, who within a generation went from full health to 50% levels of Type 2. When some had an opportunity to go back to witchetty grubs and other ancestral foods - diabetes reversal was the result. For me this type of evidence is interventional with something than can be measured.

Added sugar in (all) processed food...

and when mixed with this:


In the context of this thread, does this observable significant change hold more weight than an RCT as a major contender, especially as mechanisms have been shown that the oils can have oxidative affect. Correlation not causation, but if it quacks like a duck and all of that.

 

[Goonergal]

I don't understand what is being asked.

As I understand it, @Mbaker is asking which form(s) of evidence are best for assessing the benefits (or otherwise) of eating red meat. He can correct me if I’m wrong!

 

[Mbaker]

As I understand it, @Mbaker is asking which form(s) of evidence are best for assessing the benefits (or otherwise) of eating red meat. He can correct me if I’m wrong!

Thanks @Goonergal,your assessment is spot on. I am trying to understand why the avalanche of nutritional epidemiology is so prevalent, why it does not align with real life e.g. I am 53 from a West Indian background, so meat and fish I have eaten for over 50 years. Although I went through a period (after Type 2 diagnosis), where I flirted with more veg, I continued to eat red meats.

For around 2 to 3 years I have increased red meat by over 100% and improved multiple aspects of my health and bio markers, with less physical effort (unless an increase in LDL is seen as bad). But epidemiology studies say I am at risk, and eating red meat will increase my risk of diabetes!? Whilst my medical records say I am getting better and I can eat some higher carb carrots, squash and the like and stay in remission.

I look at anecdotes from Atkins, on the ground intergenerational studies by Western A Price and the common sense longevity of say Icelandic populations, the height of the Dutch and the body composition of say the Maasi Warriors (and similar without gyms) / general disease incidence when meats were more prevalent.

It worries me that population advice such as eat eggs, cut back on eggs, now eggs are safe again, is being driven by evidence (especially epidemiology), when we could review what has happened over centuries (and today in smaller populations that still eat "clean"), and then real world tests on people who eat alot of eggs. Why not test for example the members of Zeroing in on health, 20 year plus carnivores, or people like Rob Wolfe, Loren Cordain or Mark Sissons who have been on this adjacent path for over 20 years - there are 1000's of these people who "real" assessments such as blood tests, CAC scans, muscle biopsies, everything.

If I can get (at my age) fbg's between 3.8 and 4.7, then why would I need to rely on an RCT or contradictory study to the results. I am seeking to see what others feel about "experts" being more wrong than right, as my results are not extra ordinary, so what "evidence" carries more weight.