Doesn't matter how it's raised or where it's from. A long-term study finds that eating any amount and any type increases the risk of premature death..
Eating red meat — any amount and any type — appears to significantly increase the risk of premature death, according to a long-range study that examined the eating habits and health of more than 110,000 adults for more than 20 years.
For instance, adding just one 3-ounce serving of unprocessed red meat — picture a piece of steak no bigger than a deck of cards — to one's daily diet was associated with a 13% greater chance of dying during the course of the study.
Even worse, adding an extra daily serving of processed red meat, such as a hot dog or two slices of bacon, was linked to a 20% higher risk of death during the study.
photo by nickcastonguay
The good news is what's good for you is good for the planet
What's interesting is that high-protein low-carb diets that only examine their effects on changes in weight, blood pressure, and lipid levels may not adequately reflect the negative influence of HPLC diets on health outcomes, such as morbidity and mortality.
Reduce meat consumption and you reduce health care costs. Stunningly, more than 75% of the $2.6 trillion in annual US health care costs are from chronic diseases. Eating less red meat is likely to reduce morbidity from these illnesses, thereby reducing health care costs.
Reduce meat consumption and you help to mitigate climate change. For me this is the biggy. What other people eat and their health care costs don't affect me that much but a person's carbon footprint affects us all.
CLIMATE CHANGE
The livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions than transportation as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent (18% vs 13%). It is also responsible for 37% of all the human-induced methane, which is 23 times more toxic to the ozone layer than carbon dioxide, as well as generating 65% of the human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide and methane mostly come from manure, and 56 billion food animals produce a lot of manure each day.
Also, livestock use 30% of the earth's entire land surface, mostly for permanent pasture but also including 33% of global arable land to produce feed for them. As forests are cleared to create new pastures for livestock, it is a major driver of deforestation: some 70% of forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.
ENERGY
More than half of US grain and almost 40% of world grain is being fed to livestock rather than being consumed directly by humans. In the United States, more than 8 billion livestock are maintained, which eat about 7 times as much grain as is consumed directly by the entire US population.9
Producing 1 kg of fresh beef requires about 13 kg of grain and 30 kg of forage. This much grain and forage requires a total of 43 000 L of water.
A quarter-pound burger with cheese takes 26 oz of petroleum and leaves a 13-lb carbon footprint. This is equivalent to burning 7 lb of coal.10
At a time when 20% of people in the US go to bed hungry each night and almost 50% of the world's population is malnourished, choosing to eat more plant-based foods and less red meat is better for all of us—ourselves, our loved ones, and our planet.