Reddit reviews Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It
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>Is anyone aware of any studies that could put this one to rest?
First, they seem to be making the assumption that if research on the health risks of red meat hasn't been done on the particular kind of meat they eat, that it doesn't cause that health risk. There's no reason to believe this.
The health benefits are only in comparison to grain-fed beef and are not impressive.
>[Grass-fed beef] usually has higher concentrations of some nutrients: antioxidants, some vitamins, a kind of fat called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and the long-chain omega-3 fats mostly found in fish. It also has less fat overall.
>Most health claims focus on the omega-3 fats, which are generally regarded as healthful. The other nutrients are less relevant, says Alice H. Lichtenstein, a professor at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy: Either their amounts are too small to be significant or evidence of their value is equivocal. (Read the research on CLA, for example, and you find that a lot of “further research is warranted” and “findings are inconsistent.”)
>As to the omega-3s, we need to look at amounts. Omega-3 levels in grass-fed beef generally are about 50 percent higher than in regular beef. But because the levels in regular beef are so low, that’s not much of an advantage. Concentrations can vary widely, but according to the USDA, a 100-gram serving (a little under four ounces) of grass-fed top sirloin contains 65 milligrams of omega-3 fats, loin has 40 and rib-eye has 37. So even that 65-milligram amount is only about 22 milligrams more than that for regular beef and still far below levels in low-fat fishes such as tilapia (134 milligrams) and haddock (136). The omega-3 powerhouse king salmon has 1,270 milligrams. (The same logic applies to milk from grass-fed cows. It’s higher in long-chain omega-3 fats than milk from grain-fed cows, but a cup still has only 18 milligrams.) Recommendations on how much of these fats we need vary; most are in the range of 300 to 1,000 milligrams per day.
Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It by Dr. Garth Davis, is a good resource for this kind of question. From the book,
>a 2009 study out of Uruguay found a definite association between meat consumption and colon, gastric and pharyngeal cancer. Interestingly, their animals were grass fed and hormone free ... yet the cancer risk was still strong... The heterocyclic amines, PhIP, acid, IGF1 and so on, occur in grass-fed meat as much as they do in animals from industrial farms.
His book has a great deal more information on health risks of meat, such as heme iron (which grass-fed beef has lots of) possibly causing type 2 diabetes; Neu5GC, a kind of sialic acid that's in the meat of other mammals but not humans, so humans make an immune response to it, causing inflammation and perhaps raising the risks of some kinds of cancer; and generally the health risks of consuming a lot of animal protein.
Coming soon to a bookstore near you!