Red and Processed Meat

There has been a recent report of a scientific study that says eating Red and processed meat shortens you life. Now these proclamations by “food experts” come out leading to rather simple statements regarding food.

The classic two one study that showed drinking a glass or two of red wine per day helped health, then out came another saying drinking more than half a glass of red wine per day was bad for your health. Therefore people end up with mixed messages and grow to distrust and ignore the health messages.

As I was a vegetarian for twenty five years, and my reason for avoiding meat was that the animals were being feed or given, chemicals, drugs, additives and foods that were dubious to say the least, I was not prepared to consume them. Therefore, I was left wondering if factory farming was or could have been a factor that had effected the results. The further I looked into this Epidemiological study, the more I realised that it was. As it looked at meat consumption and eating habits over 28 years.

We only have to look at a list of the chemicals that have been banned for use in foods, but were previously allowed, to see that these would have had an effect on the studies results. Equally, this applies to the industrial farming practices, including the routine use of drugs, that have now been stopped, to see a similar effect in the results.

If anything the study shows that we were eating to much red meat and processed meat in the past.

I personally know that some additives still used in foods effect me. I get an allergic rhinitis from eating processed cheese. Therefore, I prefer to buy a good quality cheese, in all its wonderful variations. However, sometimes when eating out I can get caught out and latter get a reaction from what I have eaten.

Therefore, if governments really want to improve health and nutrition they should “Regulate” (I know that's a dirty word to many) the chemicals that are allowed in the processing of foods. If those of us that are old enough to remember, things like Peanut allergies were so rare when I was young, but has developed into something that’s quite common. I strongly suspect that it is something that is being used frequently in food. It may not be a single additive, but combinations of them interacting to induce this once rare condition.

Here in Britain over the past thirty years, food policy has been characterised as “Leave it to Tesco”. In other words it has been left to the supermarkets and major food processors. During the same time frame, we have seen a growth in Obesity and Diabetes Et Al. As the supermarkets are cynical and will sell their customers any old rubbish as long as it makes them a profit. They will dispute this, but the telling thing is how many of the managers and executives would regularly eat the low nutritional value foods they sell? Not many if any.

The bast way of avoiding health problems is by eating a healthy balanced diet, and avoiding over processed foods. As the government and regulators will not help by controlling what big businesses do.