So part of understanding the comments probably lies in reading the draft DGAC recommendations and understanding the history of the red meat “science” and the political forces at work. My understanding of the restrictions on read meat have been argued as appropriate because of two things, cholesterol as you suggest and a series of weak observational studies. And at this point we know that science doesn’t support the idea that dietary cholesterol has anything to do with cholesterol levels in blood. And the studies of red meat have been criticized for “cherry picking” and demonstrating very small risks with marginal statistical significance. Richard Feinman discusses the red meat studies in his book “The World Turned Upside Down” and kindly provides a basic summary on his blog “Red Meat and the New Puritans” focusing on what was a particularly influential study by Sinha. He is not very kind with the interpretations of the study results either by the author or by the media and places like AND. Despite that I consider this aspect of the comments fairly consistent with the AND past positions.
That being said, this whole comment must have set of a total firestorm. It obviously was a departure from previous position on key things and I suspect it was not vetted broadly. And not surprisingly the letter has been taken down. It is no longer publicly available on the AND website. However I don’t necessarily enforce “take backs” so I’ve made a saved version of the comment available to our members below.
The problem with these types of diet recommendations is that they are scientifically weak.
First they are often based on self reporting of what people eat, which has been proven again and again to be inaccurate. Second it is impossible to control for other parts of a persons diet. As an example is the red meat eater a meat and potatoes type who also eats lots of fast acting carbs or are they following a LCHF diet with no fast acting carbs. Unfortunately the number of variables to control for is almost infinite. Does the person like broccoli or do they never eat it? Do they drink soda or diet soda or water? You get the idea.
There is a very good reason why people who eat certain kinds of meat may end up with bad health outcomes: much of our meat supply is filled with solutions containing inorganic phosphates. I did some research on these inorganic phosphates, like sodium phosphate, and learned that they are associated not only with worsening kidney health, but also with clogged arteries. They aren’t metabolized the way organic phosphates are–the stuff that you find in animal tissues and DNA. So they basically precipitate out as tiny bits of rock when they react with other minerals in your body. Even the prepared meats at places people think of as “healthy” like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods can have those added phosphates.
So if you are eating processed and prepared meats, you are getting these damaging additives.
The other big issue, of course, is that animals store the fat soluble pollutants they take in, in their body fat. So if they are exposed to pesticides and herbicides, which most are, even organic, since these can be in water supplies, the fat of these animals may be bad for you.
Personally, I avoid phosphates as much as possible, because the research I’ve seen on them is compelling. I do eat red meat, but only stuff I’ve bought as unprocessed meats. I also don’t eat it that often any more, mostly because I burnt out on eating so much of it during my very strict low carb years, and I never eat at fast food places.
But when I think back to my years of eating strict low carb back in the late 90s, especially, when we didn’t know as much about what was in our food, I know I was eating an awful lot of junk meat that probably wasn’t great for me. But hey, I’m still alive, and intend to stay that way for quite a while longer!
