Nutritionist Lera Krasovskaya: The Most Harmful Food of All Is Meat
Throughout the developed world, governments consider promoting healthy eating one of their main responsibilities. Ministries of health and other agencies are responsible for providing the public with reliable information about healthy eating. Millions are spent on this from public budgets every year, because treating chronic diseases caused by poor nutrition costs governments more than preventive measures.
Almost every country has official guidance for its citizens on how to eat. In plain language, it explains how much of what one should eat each day and why. For those who want to explore the subject in depth, serious scientific research underpinning the recommendations is publicly available. Agencies responsible for promoting healthy eating often create visual guides in the form of pyramids, plates, rainbows and so on, showing what we should eat during the day. These guides are understandable to children and to people who cannot read.
So developed countries recommend that their citizens eat meat “in moderation.” This amount is usually expressed in grams. The recommendation of the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), which developed countries follow, is no more than 500 grams of red meat per week. To be precise, red meat means the muscle meat of mammals, including beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse and goat.
Where did this recommendation come from, and why this amount? More than half a million scientific studies indicate that regular meat consumption substantially increases the risk of cancer. By how much? As noted above, 50 grams of meat a day increases the risk of illness by 18%.
Let's continue.
It is recommended that processed meat products be avoided completely. These are meat products made by processing meat through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking or other preservation methods intended to enhance flavor or extend shelf life. Most meat products contain pork and beef, but some may also contain other types of red meat, poultry, offal or by-products such as blood. Examples include frankfurters, ham, sausage, corned beef, dried beef, canned meat, meat-containing convenience foods and sauces. Even in small amounts, these products are considered carcinogenic.
There is no element in meat that our bodies need and cannot obtain from other foods. What about protein?
Worldwide, the recommended protein intake is considered to be 0.8 g per 1 kg of body weight. So, if you weigh 60 kg, 48 g of protein a day is enough for you (this does not refer to professional athletes or special population groups). Meat is far from the only source of protein. Fish, dairy products and eggs are other examples of animal protein foods. Developed countries strongly recommend that their citizens get protein from plant foods whenever possible. Good plant sources of protein include soy and other legumes, lentils and, to a lesser extent, grains, nuts and seeds.
People in the West, including Belarusians, consume far more protein than recommended. Protein deficiency undoubtedly harms health, but so does excess protein. High-protein diets raise uric acid levels, which can in turn trigger or worsen kidney disease and cause joint inflammation in people predisposed to gout.
Here is another fact: producing animal protein requires five times more land than producing the same amount of plant protein.
Now, cholesterol. Meat contains saturated (that is, harmful) fats. The fattier the meat, the more of these fats it contains. Saturated fats raise blood cholesterol. Cholesterol is essential to life, so regardless of our diet, our liver produces a certain amount of this substance each day. The rest is obtained from food through the intestines.
The daily recommended intake of dietary cholesterol is about 300 mg. Cholesterol harms health when its level is too high, that is, when more cholesterol accumulates in the blood than the body needs and can process. Excess cholesterol can lead to deposits in blood vessels. For reference: 100 g of chicken liver contains 565 mg of cholesterol, while 100 g of lean red meat contains 185 mg.
Not long ago I was in Minsk, giving a lecture on vegetarianism at the “ЦЭХ” venue. At the beginning, some audience members argued passionately and at length: they could not believe the shocking facts about the meat industry and tried to convince me that I had misplaced the zeros. But they immediately went online to check the information and then listened attentively. This was after I said that producing 1 kilogram of beef requires more than 15,000 (fifteen thousand!) liters of water, while producing 1 kilogram of pork requires 9,000 liters. Producing the same amount of chicken requires 4,325 liters (data from World Watch). Water is only one aspect of the environment.
Here are a few more facts, which I find alarming.
According to the World Wildlife Fund data, we have lost more than half of the world's wild animals over the past four decades. This is the result of our insatiable hunger. Almost one hectare of tropical forest is cleared every minute to feed cattle.
For every 100 calories of grain fed to livestock, we get only 40 new calories of milk, or 22 calories of eggs, or 12 calories of chicken, or 10 calories of pork, or 3 calories of beef (data from the National Geographic report).
Another literally very dirty problem is excrement. The animals we eat produce 130 times more excrement than the entire human population. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency data, a farm with 2,500 cows produces as much feces as a city of more than 400,000 people. With all the consequences that entails.
At present, globally, we produce enough units of energy or calories to feed 11 billion people (there are about 7 billion of us now). Paradoxically, most of these calories go to feeding animals rather than people who are hungry (800 million people).
For example, people who regularly eat beef, the most resource-intensive meat, use on average 150-160 times more of the planet's water, land and energy resources than vegetarians.
So why am I saying this? I believe the environment is not something external and independent of us. What we see around us and breathe is the result of our actions. I personally feel troubled when I come to Minsk and see someone leave the tap running while brushing their teeth, or systematically throw away food because they cannot judge their appetite.
What we see around us is us. We walk around gloomy but want people around us to smile. We think negatively but want everything around us to be positive. We drive cars but want to live in a city with fresh air. Each of us has an enormous influence on the environment. Each of us makes a choice. I am sure that an individual's conscious choice can change everything around us (and within us, when we are talking about health). Partially giving up meat can have a positive effect on your health and the health of the planet.
https://people.onliner.by