Many in the UK will have heard on the news today that yet another study from Harvard University [1] has linked the eating of red and processed meat with an increased risk of heart disease and cancer.
This study is largely nonsense and quite irrelevant to us in the UK. There are lots of similar accusations about red meat, which really only apply (perhaps) to processed meat. The two are always lumped together just as saturated fats and trans fats are, even though the former is healthy and latter is harmful.
But there is more to this. Think of all the peoples in the world - Maasai, Inuit, Samburu, Marsh Arabs, Naga, and many more - who, when they lived exclusively or largely on red meat, DIDN'T get any form of cancer or heart disease.[2-8] There is also no evidence that eating red meat increases cancer and heart disease risk in UK or in mainland Europe.[9] (See also page 102 of T&T)
You see, all this red-meat-cancer stuff is confined entirely to the US. And it is not difficult to see why this might be so. Firstly look at the way most cattle are farmed today in the US - in concentrated animal feed operations (CAFOs), where the animals are not fed their proper diet of fibrous grasses and vetches, but starchy and omega-6 rich genetically modified soy and cereal grains. This ruins the health of the cattle so that they have to be dosed with antibiotics, it changes the fatty acid components of their body fat, and it reduces the amount of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). And CLA is a powerful anti-cancer agent, which Americans cut off and don't eat!
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