zlacker

There’s a substantial body of evidence that consuming the average American diet while also being mostly sedentary is terrible for you. I’m unclear how much of the data gathered about red meat specifically can be meaningfully decoupled from all the confounding factors, though.

A study of people who eat almost exclusively whole foods that do not include red meat vs people who eat almost exclusively whole foods that do include meaningful amounts of red meat would be really interesting.

When so much red meat is consumed as greasy burgers coupled with white bread buns and deep fried potatoes, I don’t know how to decouple the impact of the red meat from the rest of it. I fear the “red meat bad” stuff might be the inverse of the “oh, it’s clearly the wine” silliness for why French people are healthier.

>>dpark+(OP)
Don’t drink water, if you drink too much, it’ll kill you!

>>dpark+(OP)
You don't think studies control for this?

>>idiots+xp1
I believe that they try to, but I have serious doubts about how effective it is. Dietary science is littered with examples of incorrect guidance driven by data we misinterpreted. Remember when a generation of people were told to eat low fat and they all got fatter? Remember trans fats replacing saturated? Remember when we told everyone that drinking alcohol in moderation was healthier than not drinking at all?

Most dietary studies are observational, which means there is no control group and no blinding. It’s a deep dive into data (largely self-reported) with an attempt to control the endless variables by slicing and dicing the data to hopefully end up with groups that can be meaningfully compared.

>>dpark+DK1
There are plenty of studies that take place outside north america saying the same thing.[1], for example. If you insist on this not being true thats fine, everyone gets to think whatever they want, but you're clearly not supported by the data in saying so.

[1]https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1741-7015-11-63?ut...

>>idiots+3U1
This is exactly what I’m talking about. You cited a study that does not support the claim that red meat is unhealthy.

> After correction for measurement error, higher all-cause mortality remained significant only for processed meat

This is in the abstract. You don’t even have to open the actual report to see this. Without even getting into whether or not this study controlled correctly for all possible variables, even they themselves had to acknowledge that the link between red meat and mortality is at best weak.

There is so much of this sort of misinterpretation when it comes to dietary science that it’s really hard to know what information is accurate and what information is being misrepresented or misunderstood.