We’ve been bombarded with warnings over the past couple of decades about how harmful Red Meats can be to our heart health. The much-vaunted Mediterranean Diet recommends White Meats over Red overwhelmingly. But now, they’re telling us White Meats may be just as bad…
A mouthwatering, Old Fashioned Roast Chicken Dinner, complete with
Roasted Root Veggies. Now science is telling us it’s no Heart
healthier than a good, Old Fashioned Roast of Beef…
A new study by researchers at the University of California – Fan Francisco has revealed that White meats such as Poultry appear to have the same negative effects on our systems as much-vilified Red Meats. Why didn’t we know this much earlier in the ‘healthy eating’ game? Seems nobody asked the obvious questions or performed the necessary experiments until now.
What they did
Investigators simply looked at what survey participants reported eating and where their cholesterol levels were.
What they found
Turned out, those who ate mostly Poultry had cholesterol levels similar to those who ate predominantly Red Meats. Only those study participants who ate mostly Vegetable Proteins or Fish had lower blood cholesterol levels. Not only that, but it didn’t seem to matter whether participants’ diets were high or low in Saturated Fats. High levels of Saturated Fats increased blood cholesterol by an equal degree, apparently unconnected with which kind of Proteins subjects favoured.
“When we planned this study, we expected Red Meat to have a more adverse effect on blood cholesterol levels than White Meat, but we were surprised that this was not the case – their effects on cholesterol are identical when saturated fat levels are equivalent,” said Study Senior Author Dr. Ronald Krauss.
The takeaway
As we mentioned at the top of this post, it’s been routine over the past 20 years or so for doctors to recommend restricting consumption of Red Meats while expanding consumption of White Meats to improve heart health. Now, that advice may be called into question.
“Our results indicate that current advice to restrict red meat and not white meat should not be based only on their effects on blood cholesterol,” Krauss said. “Indeed, other effects of red meat consumption could contribute to heart disease, and these effects should be explored in more detail in an effort to improve health.”
My take
Well, I’ve been heeding the call for more Poultry and less Red Meat in my family menu planning. And, as mentioned previously, the immensely popular Med Diet has also been a prominent champion of lower Red Meat consumption in favour of Poultry and Fish.
I’d gladly lower our Poultry consumption right now if I didn’t have half a dozen whole Chickens, bought on a ‘special’, in the freezer. About eating more Fish and Seafood… I’d also gladly do that, except for the cost, which equals or exceeds that of Red Meat depending on what kind of Fruits de mer you choose.
That leaves Veggie Proteins, and that presents a problem in that my elderly mother (and many other older folks, I suspect) would have a hard time switching to Foods as foreign to them as Tofu or Quinoa, or tolerating an increased presence of Beans and Rice or more than the occasional Veggie Main dish on our dining calendar. While Veggie Proteins are definitely attractive as an alternative to any kind of Meat cost-wise, they’re simply not practical in my life right now. And I’m thinking that many other families which have members over the age of, say, 40 are in the same boat.
“What about products such as Beyond Meat?” I hear you saying. They would solve the acceptability problem for older folks, but they cost, on average, 20 to 25 percent more than plain old Veggie Proteins.
*Sigh*
~ Maggie J.