It’s something of a cliché when people claim they need to eat healthier, by eating less meat and more vegetables. We’ve all heard it. Maybe you’ve even said it or at least thought it. It’s conventional wisdom. For instance, Mayo Clinic has a webpage attesting to the benefits of eating less meat. Harvard School of Public Health advises, eat a little less red meat, any way you can.
Several years ago, the New York Times ran a headline, Eat Less Red Meat, Scientists Said. Now Some Believe That Was Bad Advice. While nobody is suggesting Americans eat fewer vegetables, which are undoubtedly healthy, there is more evidence that meat isn’t the boogeyman we once thought it was. According to the article, Meat or not to meat:
Plant-based diets (PBDs) have been shown to positively impact cardiometabolic health due to the presence of a wide range of bioactive constituents, e.g., vitamins, dietary fibers, carotenoids, and so on. Despite the advantages, long-term compliance by habitual omnivores can be complex because meat consumption is deeply rooted in culture, history, and societal norms.
Yet, a recent study found that plant-based meats are not necessarily any better for you than, well, meat. So what were the results of a study comparing the health benefits of plant-based meat analogs versus actual meat?
No significant effects were noted on the lipid-lipoprotein profile; however, both dietary regimes were associated with lower fructosamine and higher HOMA-β over time. No apparent differences were noted between the [animal based meat diets] ABMD and the [plant based meat diets] PBMD groups. The results did not show any clear benefits of PBMD on cardiometabolic health relative to ABMD.
Apparently, plants are good for you if eaten as plants. They are not necessarily better for you if you turn them into meat in a lab than if you feed them to a cow and eat the cow.
In sum, despite the growing popularity of PBMAs as a source of alternative protein, the results documented here do not support the hypothesis of superior cardiometabolic health benefits linked to PBMDs relative to an omnivorous diet comprising animal-based meats.
Incorporating PBMAs into the diet could affect nutritional intake and potentially compromise glycemic management. This implies that the health benefits of PBDs should not be conflated with PBMD because PBMDs are distinct from PBDs in terms of their nutrition and impact on cardiometabolic health.
It’s not just plant-based meat diets that the experts were wrong about. It’s meat diets. Going back to the New York Times article, it said:
The evidence is too weak to justify telling individuals to eat less beef and pork, according to new research.
If there are health benefits from eating less beef and pork, they are small, the researchers concluded. Indeed, the advantages are so faint that they can be discerned only when looking at large populations, the scientists said, and are not sufficient to tell individuals to change their meat-eating habits.
There have been numerous flip-flops in dietary guidelines over the past decades. Recall how butter and lard were bad? They were replaced with trans fats that clogged your arteries. Back in the 1950s a scientist sounded the alarm, but his views were dismissed. Now butter is making a comeback. Two decades ago, wine was the elixir for heart health. Now we’re being told that no amount of alcohol is healthy. I recall when eggs were bad for your cholesterol. People with heart disease were told to avoid eggs. I just read that most people can easily eat two eggs for breakfast without worrying about cholesterol. Some of the other nutritional advice was coffee was bad for you, now coffee is good for you. Chocolate was bad for you, but maybe dark chocolate is good for you.
Years ago, I read that intermittent fasting was really good for you. Yet, the other day I read it doubles your risk of mortality.
What I really find odd about the entire discussion of healthy foods versus unhealthy ones, is that there are better ways to improve health. A sensible diet and moderate exercise is far better than trying to eat your way to health by picking super foods or a burger made with fermented soybean curd.