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Comment by SamDc73

2 days ago

I see a lot of people complaining about red meat.

It’s not the healthiest food, but it’s a much weaker risk factor than diets high in processed foods (including processed meats), refined carbs, added sugar, and excess salt.

For adults (25–64), the biggest diet-linked contributors to cardiometabolic death were sugar-sweetened beverages and processed meats. [1]

also form the paper:

High sodium intake → ~66,000 deaths (9.5%)

Low nuts & seeds intake → ~59,000 deaths (8.5%)

High processed meat intake → ~57,000 deaths (8.2%)

Low seafood omega-3 intake → ~54,000 deaths (7.8%)

Low vegetable intake → ~53,400 deaths (7.6%)

Low fruit intake → ~52,000 deaths (7.5%)

High sugar-sweetened beverage intake → ~51,000 deaths (7.4%) Low whole-grain intake → ~41,000 deaths (5.9%)

High unprocessed red meat intake → ~2,900 deaths (0.4%)

(Full table is on page 5 of the linked paper)

[1] https://episeminars.web.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/754...

Agreed, much of the angst towards "meat" or "red meat" really ought to be stated as carcinogenic nitrosamines . When you cook nitrate rich red meat at high temperatures you get nitrosamines (less when you use herbs like rosemary) ...

Meat has it's own internal ranking: Fish, boneless skinless chicken, low fat red meat cuts, high fat red meat, processed/preserved red meats (like sausage, bacon, sandwich meat etc) ... We should shift left in our meat consumption.