We horses don't eat red meat

But humans can and it does not hurt them.

Our friends Jenny and Chris from Wiltshire have been staying for a while at the ranch. We learnt a lot from them, of course most of all about the state of affairs in Britain. Last night, I was just standing behind the fence, when on the other side the ranchers, cowboys and guests had formed a circle around the smoker. “The brisket has been in there for long enough now, let’s open her up,” Bob said, and he took a piece of smoked brisket out onto the chopping board. He mixed it with homemade barbecue sauce, whereupon all lined up to compose smoked brisket sandwiches.

There is seldomly more excitement then when we can say “Drop the brisket on the board!” Well, admittedly, ribeye might be the exception to the rule. Photo by Isaac Taylor.

“Just absolutely delicious,” Jenny said, “I’m sure Gordon Ramsay would agree!” Bob joined in and said “We’ve had guests from far and wide over here. They all praise our meats. We even cater the meat to events in the Town Hall.” “That wouldn’t be possible anymore where we live,” Chris said. “All municipality meetings must cater strictly plant based products.” Cowboy Jack reacted in shock to that news: “What nonsense. Why on earth do they do that?” Chris replied: “Because meat is seen as an environmental pollutant and because they claim that recent research has found it to be unhealthy and to cause diabetes and cancer.” “What !?” Jack shouted in bewilderment, “I’ve been dating a girl who said she mainly ate meat for health reasons, because she followed a ‘paleo’ diet. Both can’t be true, right?”

(If you care for what really is true too, please consider to subscribe)

So, I started to wonder too about what was going on. I dug in, and I actually found research to support both sides. I thus need to give you my own interpretation on which statements I find more credible. Let’s start with a recent study published by Harvard scientists, who claim to have identified a link between red meat consumption and type II diabetes (T2D). They derive their conclusions from data collected in the Nurses Health Study, a protracted observational study on dietary habits, exercise habits and health outcomes in over 200 000 nurses. That study was not originally set up or designed to understand diabetes, nor is it a randomized control trial, but it may still produce valid signals in such a large sample.

In the publication, the authors report the effect of “haem iron consumption.” Haem iron is iron encapsulated in a haemoglobin complex, which is only found in animal blood and thus serves as a proxy for red meat. The authors fit a spline regression model to explain the hazards ratio associated with T2D as a function of haem protein consumption. They postulate that that relationship is statistically significant and that on average, haem iron intake leads to a 1.26 times higher hazards ratio to develop T2D. Moreover, they proceed to analyze multivariable models and assess the significance of the interaction with several other factors and find few significant ones, except for body mass index (BMI) and waist-hip ratio. However, they report that adjusting the data for these two factors leads to almost the same conclusion as the effect of unadjusted haem iron. In summary, the paper’s conclusion is that consumption of red meat, but not white or processed meat, increases the risk of T2D by about a quarter.

Figure 1. Hazards Ratio for Type II diabetes as a function of Haem Iron intake. Data plotted from files in the original publication’s supplementary materials.

In essence, what the paper reports, are the results of data mining performed by the authors on the data from the Nurses Health Study, in which they uncovered a correlation between red meat consumption and T2D. However, the paper also raises a few questions. At first, the biggest elephant in the room is: sugar consumption. The regression models do not directly account for it, so we are left to wonder how significant the haem iron – T2D relationship would be if the models also contained a variable for sugar. Would haem iron’s impact still be significant? The study does not answer that question. The primary regression model only fits the relationship haem iron – T2D, for data adjusted in different ways. The authors report that adjusting for socio-economic status does not change the results. However, I would like to see direct impact of sugar consumption, preferably even subdivided into saccharose, fructose and high fructose corn syrup. In simple terms, we don’t know if the persons who reported to have eaten a lot of burgers didn’t also drink gallons of high energy soda, in which case I would expect the latter to have a much more direct impact on diabetic outcome than the burgers.

Which of these two dishes do you associate with diabetes? Picture by Jonathan Borba.

Moreover, the largest fraction of the population was not followed up closely and only had to report their dietary habits every four years. While the authors argue that the reproducibility of such questionnaires is well documented, the resulting numbers become a highly imprecise measurement of dietary intake. I do not see confidence intervals reported for the input data, nor do I see that uncertainty being propagated into the regression models. I don’t know what outcome we would have gotten if the authors had done so, but it could well be a hazards ratio that has a confidence interval [0.6,1.4], which would not allow to make any statement on the relationship between red meat consumption and T2D.

For each of these reasons, I conclude that the study above, cited in many mainstream media sources, is an indication of a possible relationship between red meat consumption and T2D at best, but much more research is needed to truly establish a causal relationship. We could classify these research results under the umbrella of “correlation is not causation,” which establishment aligned scientists are all too keen to do for some results on other topics, yet somehow not this topic.

(If you like what you are reading, please consider that as causation to subscribe)

The paper’s findings about the effect of unprocessed red meat being more pernicious than processed meats is also not aligned with some previous findings. A recent review paper broadly discusses potential health impacts from read meat consumption. Regarding diabetes, the paper cites several recent studies that have linked processed meat consumption to T2D, yet not red meat. They also end the paragraph on diabetes by citing a study that concludes that there is a “lack of clarity” surrounding the link between meat consumption and diabetes, and that randomized control trials would be needed. Likewise, regarding a potential link between meat consumption and colorectal cancer, which has been reported to be stronger for processed meats, the authors conclude that “considerably more research is needed.”

The review paper does not solely focus on health hazards, though. It also focuses on a few facts that may be better known among the broader public, yet get much less attention in present academic research: red meat consumption may be an excellent source of food to gain and maintain muscle and bone strength, both of which are most important for children and elderly persons, but not unimportant for other adults. An older paper directly confirms that observation. It states that red meat is an excellent source for both macro- and micronutrients. In fact, red meat is a source for all eight essential amino acids, or all nine for children, as well as vitamin D3, which is thought to be present in meat due to the animals’ exposure to sunlight and therefore much harder to consume in a plant-based diet.

As important as the macro-nutrients proffered by red meat, it is also an excellent source of micro-nutrients. As meat both has a high protein content and is a source of potassium and magnesium, its consumption should be recommendable to either stimulate bone growth or avoid bone loss, which most of all benefit children and aging females. However, the high protein content in meat, combined with resistance training, has also been reported to be beneficial for muscle growth. From a health perspective, the capability to retain muscle mass is strongly correlated with quality of life for the elderly. It isn’t difficult to corroborate this in the broader public by asking around in a gym if body builders find it easier to build muscle based on a vegetarian or a meat based diet?

Arnold Schwarzenegger while Pumping Iron is being filmed (1975). Do you think that this amount of muscle is built up easier by a meat eater or by a vegan? Image from Los Angeles Times UCLA collection, CC-BY-4.0 license.

Finally, as we started reporting potential negative health outcomes associated with red meat, but not white or processed meat, let’s end by doing the same for health benefits. Haem protein encapsulates iron in the blood stream and is therefore … an excellent source for bio-available iron. It has even been reported that non-haem iron is digested more efficiently by people who also consume haem iron. Iron is an essential micro-nutirent and in fact, iron-deficient anaemia (IDA) is the most common cause of anaemia, which is manifested in a low red blood cell count. Anaemia is not uncommon at all, and in fact the World Health Organization reported that 30% of the world population suffers from anaemia, predominantly affecting women and children. Iron deficiency is not contained to developing countries, either. For instance, in the UK, 54% of teenage girls are estimated to be iron deficient. When considering dietary habits, the most efficient way to counter iron deficiency, is to consume red meat, as reflected in Table 1.

Table 1. Typical iron concentrations in a range of meat types. Source: Public Health England.

Based on observations like the ones in Table 1, I would say that we should actually recommend red meat as a dietary ingredient, particularly for those population segments most at risk for iron deficiency. Likewise, for population segments at risk of any of the other deficiency related illnesses mentioned herein, such as loss of muscle strength in the elderly. To advocate for inclusion of red meat in dietary guidance, is, in fact, exactly what some of the publications cited above do.

In spite of the established health benefits, there appears to be a recent wave of publications that identify health hazards associated with red meat, a trend that seems to be on the rise since about 2015. I cannot help but subjectively observe that research on red meat has joined the club of politicized topics, for which the balanced research from before the early 2010s has given way for research with what look like preset conclusions. If institutions that fund academic research have been ideologically or financially captured by political interests, such as the climate change lobby, then of course, those institutions only fund work in favour of the respective lobby’s interests, which then results in an “overwhelming” number of publications that advocate for those same interests. We can observe such trends for climate change itself and, more recently, the existence of a “climate emergency.” But now other culprits have been convicted by the climate lobby in juryless trials without due process, such as gas stoves or cows.

Let’s conjecture where this leads. A glimpse of the greater scheme of intentions can be found in proposed Canadian Bill C-293, better known as the “pandemic preparedness act.” In a reasonable world, pandemic preparedness would constitute of having both a security stockpile and a warm manufacturing base of antibiotics and antivirals, such as ivermectin. However, you would be mistaken if you expected that that was what Bill C-293 was about. In fact, Section (l) of the Bill reads as follows:

(l) after consultation with the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Minister of Industry and provincial governments, provide for measures to

(i) reduce the risks posed by antimicrobial resistance,

(ii) regulate commercial activities that can contribute to pandemic risk, including industrial animal agriculture,

(iii) promote commercial activities that can help reduce pandemic risk, including the production of alternative proteins, and

(iv) phase out commercial activities that disproportionately contribute to pandemic risk, including activities that involve high-risk species;

The remainder of the Bill makes for an interesting read as well … but let’s get back to cows. From the above text, we can infer that “authorities” now see cows not only as a biological pest whose burps destroy climate and need to be taxed, but also as a factory of carcinogenics, as the cause of rampant diabetes in the West, and since recently, as a mechanism that causes pandemics. No matter that cows, when left to their natural act of grazing, sequester carbon, give nutrients back to the earth and support a healthy soil microbiome. No matter that their meat is a prime source of micro- and macro-nutrients. No matter that the purported solution is to produce unnatural meat substitutes, which can be up to 25 times (not 25 percent!) more costly for the environment than beef.

We urgently need to return to objective standards. Therefore, we need to make funds available for blue sky research, that allows the recipients to investigate what they deem most important, without strings attached. After all, if science is to be revered as the single source of truth, should actual scientists not be in a better position to judge what research society needs than a politically tainted bureaucracy?

I sincerely hope that we get science back on track, I really do. But even if we don’t, I’m quite sure that we will still be eating our ribeyes here at the ranch. We’ve even had visitors from Japan over here who will attest that they never had a better リブアイステキ. In case you wonder, that sounds like “ribeye steak,” but not quite.

We horses don’t eat grass substitutes, we graze. We’ll even stick our neck out of the fence for some fresh grass. Picture by Aleksandr Drimov.

As to myself, I’m will still be eating grass. Trust me, I won’t eat a single ounce of grass substitute manufactured by a holding company of the Open Ag Foundation, that is thirty times as costly to the environment as natural grass. Not only because it tastes like moose poop, but also because I am quite sure that a switch to “grass alternatives” will do nothing to prevent bio-engineered pathogens from escaping from Chinese labs.

(To the interested reader: I have recently been posting short comments and preview snippets on X. A warm welcome to every reader who joins the herd there!)