Why you should reduce your red meat consumption?
In the past few decades, scientists and researchers have discovered that people who regularly consume red meat (steak, pork, burgers) have higher risk of developing heart disease, cancer, and obesity.
Studies on more than half a million elderly and middle age Americans suggest that people who consume hamburgers, pork or steak on a regular basis are 30% more likely to die from heart disease or cancer within 10 years. Red meat is high in saturated fat, iron and bad cholesterol that can promote plague buildup in the arteries, and cause heart disease. Red meat can also cause breast cancer as well as colorectal cancer. In fact, women who mostly can afford to eat a diet high in red meat and dairy get breast cancer. (One glass of milk can increase the excess estrogen in the blood and increase the risk of breast cancer).
Cooked red meat can also produce cancerous compounds and free radicals in the blood that can result in high blood pressure and dangerous cholesterol level.
Processed meat can also cause many health problems including cancer and heart disease.
- Processed meats like sausages and hot dogs have nitrosamines that are linked to cancer.
- Non-organic Chickens are injected with hormones and have arsenic. Arsenic is a dangerous chemical added to the diet of chickens and small dosages of arsenic over a long period of time can cause cancer.
- Pork might be known as white meat but consuming pork on regular basis can increase the chances of cancer.
- Farmed fish has high mercury level and PBC that can cause hormone imbalances, so eat wild Sockeye salmon (with 0.09 mercury) instead.
Studies show that men who consume red meat on a regular basis are 31% more likely to die prematurely, 27% are more likely to die from heart disease and 22% are more likely to die of cancer.
Also women who consume red meat are 36% more likely to die prematurely, 50% more likely to die of heart disease and 20% more likely to die of cancer.
The risk of death goes even higher in both men and women who consume processed meat like hamburgers, sausages and hot dogs on regular basis. Studies suggest that people shouldn’t just reduce their red meat consumption but they should completely eliminate it from their diet.
Drastic Changes in our Diet in the Last 50 Years
Somehow in the last 50 years we decided to change our diet drastically compared to what we were eating in last 10,000 years. Since we started agricultural farming, we have made radical changes in our diet. We used to eat wide variety of fruits and vegetables but we narrowed our diet to grains and wheat andd that made us very sick at the beginning. And even since then we have been narrowing our diet even more by eating fewer food varieties. It’s been taking us thousands of years to get back to the same physical size and shape as we were ten thousand years ago.
But somehow in the last three decades, we stared changing things ever more dramatically by genetically modifying foods we knew little about as well as using hormones and antibiotics in our live stock.
We narrowed our diet from eating wide variety of raw fresh fruits, herbs and vegetables to foods that have high level of sugar, salt, GMOs and toxic additives and preservatives including MSG, corn syrup, herbicides, pesticides, chemicals, aspartame, formaldehyde and heavy metals.
We learnt the technology to invent food that never dies. Somehow we started killing all the remaining nutrients in our food by overheating, frying, cooking, freezing, microwaving and caning but that wasn’t enough.
We took the whole thing into a new level by feeding our livestock with genetically modified corn and soy and injecting our cows, turkeys, pigs and chickens with all kinds of hormones and antibiotics so they could fatten up a lot faster and cheaper. We turned the whole agricultural industry into agribusiness and made corporate profit a priority; even more important than the health of our children and nation. The reality is that our diet is making us sick and currently we cannot afford the cost of our health care as it is. Statistics show that if obesity rate goes up as the current rate, by 2030 between 40% to 60% of Americans are going to be obese. Currently we are spending 150 billion dollars on health consequences of obesity and by 2020 that number will double. We need to make healthy nutritional diet a national priority and make it available in our schools & communities otherwise we will pay a serious price both as individuals and as a nation.