Red Meat is a Healthy Dieting Staple
We live in a world with a plethora of different dieting fads, trends and information that is always vying for the attention of consumers to choose the right foods to live a long, happy, and healthy life. One of these popular dieting choices that has been analyzed and scrutinized for years is the decision on whether to eat red meat, whether in bulk consumption or just in small amounts every so often. Through the years under the lens of the public and scientific eye, red meat has come out victorious and has become a surging dieting recommendation among all age groups as people search for the perfect staple to their diet to keep them healthy and lower risk of adverse effects to their health by what they are consuming on a day-to-day basis. Recent research and studies conducted by meat companies and various health experts have proven that red meat is good for you based on the high value of nutrition it provides, the source of the meat consumed as well as the quality of the diet the animal was fed prior to consumption.
The rising trend in meat-based diets, specifically red meat, has shown that red meat provides a high value of essential nutrients that are necessary for a healthy lifestyle. Many companies, including "Australian good Meat" are advocating for more red meat in your diet because of the nutritious properties that red meat affords the consumer to obtain higher levels of protein, iron, zinc, omega'3s, B-vitamins (B12, B6, B5, niacin, riboflavin), magnesium, selenium and phosphorus (Australian Good Meat, 2021). These meat focused companies that are focusing their efforts on producing healthier options for daily food intake take very seriously their job to inform the public just how important meat is for their consumption. Paul Saladino who is known for a strict animal-based, red meat only diet on many social media outlets and his personal website, doubles down on the healthy nutrients found in red meat through his research that states a large presence of creatine, carnitine, anserine, taurine and vitamin B-12 and vitamin K (Saladino, 2023). Dr. Saladino spends a large piece of his time helping the lay person understand some of the more complex nutrients found in red meat that may go unnoticed to those not familiar with the wide scope of nutrition and it shows in his research and media posts. It is no wonder that red meat is becoming a larger dieting staple when we have so many valuable sources and people willing to educate their consumers on all the great nutritious benefits found inside this once lesser chosen food.
In addition to all the nutritional value that is available in red meat, there are many articles written about the further health implications that red meat is reducing the risk of many adverse health conditions associated with poor diet. When Paul Saladino reviewed an article by the Mayo Clinic earlier this year, he took to his social media platform to help debunk an alternative dieting method that was being compared to red meat by informing his audience that research done on red meat has proven to reduce inflammation, by replacing wheat in your diet, as well as decreased cardiovascular disease and cancer risk because of how nutrient rich red meat is when consumed regularly (Saladino, 2023). This stance by Dr. Saladino is extremely helpful to link the ideas that nutrients are not just a bonus to promote the ingestion of meat, but that they provide a trackable and viewable result in the longevity of human health. The Food Manufacturer in the UK also wrote an article defending red meat against a large array of prolific global studies that were attempting to assert the notion that red meats were responsible for non-communicable disease risks. Their defense insisted that removing fresh meat from diets for certain people groups such as woman, children, the elderly and low-income homes would have a particularly negative impact on their health (Ridler, 2023). If these articles were not written to help combat the global studies that make assertions against red meat, we could be putting a large people group at risk for maintaining diets that are not ideal for their long-term health. The work that these meat experts are doing to keep the public informed about the health benefits of red meat to improve their overall longevity of health is crucial to maintaining the integrity of such a healthy staple to our everyday diet.
Another key component to consider for the consumption of red meat that makes it good for a healthy diet is the source of the meat, namely the animal is it derived from. One of the top sources for red meat according to SC Lucan in his research paper where he studied the type of meat and what the animals eat, is centered around the quality of meat that comes from elk, venison, and moose (Lucan, 2012). In most of the studies he reviewed, it was clean that the information being used would have showed greater health benefits for red meat if they had considered some of the wild game choices that comes from these animals. Recipes.co also wrote an article for pregnant woman to encourage the consumption of venison and lamb to help them and their nursing babies to get the proper iron needed for development (Recipes.co, 2023). There was a clear distinction in this article that made sure to point out that red meat was important, but that the focus was specifically on these more unique sources. Not only is red meat good for you, but it offers a plethora of different options to make sure you are getting the proper quality for the type of diet you chose.
Should you choose to consume a red meat diet that involves eating meat from sources that are wilder than mass produced, you will also notice there are more health benefits based on how lean the meat is, either by cut or by animal. The Mayo Clinic posted an article in 2023 that helped to direct consumers to the proper types of cuts from any animal that would be leaner and thus, would provide additional benefits over some of the fattier pieces (Mayo Clinic, 2023). The fatty pieces have their benefits too, but the Mayo Clinic took the stance of focusing on the portions of meat that are more highly sought after based on taste of often containing other nutrients than fat filled cuts. According to the information provided by the meat company Australian Good Meats in 2021, there are some lean pieces of lamb and goat that have similar fat content to a skinless piece of chicken. Information like this is provided to help combat the notion that all red meat is full of fat and at some rate, too much fat (Australian Good Meat, 2021). Leaner cuts of red meat help to bolster the confidence of consumers to know they can make wiser meat selection choices if they are concerned about their overall fat intake for their diet of choice while still enjoying the rest of the benefits of red meat.
As if the health benefits and the type of animal wasn't enough, you can also garner even greater benefits from red meat when you take into consideration the diet that the animal ingested before it became a meal for you to consume. Organically derived red meat retains more of the nutrients that make red meat so healthy to a daily dieting regiment. Beacom identifies in her article from 2022 that for meat to be considered organic, the animal must consume less than 30% of its diet from dried grass or forage (Beacom, 2022). This means that an animal is not just being fed processed or dead food with little to no nutrients, so it is able to pass on nutrients to the person who consumes its meat. SC Lucan also helps his readers understand that the difference between "factory-farmed" beef and organically pastured beef is quite pronounced (Lucan, 2012). The former comes from animals raised on mixtures of genetically modified corn, chicken manure, antibiotics, hormones, and the ground up parts of other animals; thus, the meat becomes densely marbled with fat of the saturated type. Commonly, saturated fat is what researchers use to try to propagate the negative aspects of red meat, so if you aren't considering the quality of red meat, you could be assuming all red meat is bad for you.
Organic meat is great for you, but many meat producers take feeding of livestock to a whole new level to increase the health benefits by ensuring that their animals are fully grass-fed. We once again look to Lucan who informs us that taking the animals diet a step further than organic to open grazers who eat all their food from natural vegetation with no intake of molecular make up of genetically modified compositions would provide greater health benefits than typical surveys done on standard unprocessed red meats (Lucan, 2012). Not every source of red meat comes directly from the wild with natural vegetation, but many producers of beef and other red meats do control the diet of their animals very strictly to obtain these further benefits and nutrition. An article on Health published in 2023 by Sass stated that some of the extra benefits of grass-fed beef were the higher content of key nutrients such as vitamins, beneficial fats called conjugated linoleic acid that has been tied to improved immunity and anti-inflammation benefits. This type of grass-fed beef also contains more antioxidants than other grain-fed sources which can lower your risk for certain heart diseases and cancers (Sass, 2023). All these health benefits from grass-fed beef are a large reason these companies and meat advocates take the time to write these articles to educate the public. If you want the highest and best quality of red meat for your diet, you would be wise to choose grass-fed beef.
There once was a time when red meat had a pretty bad wrap and people thought of this food as more of a junk food than a health food. Thankfully, with the outpouring of meat companies, doctors and independent sources, we can learn to appreciate all the positive benefits red meat brings to our bodies. At the end of the day, all the research and articles I was able to find were a huge proponent for keeping red meat as a staple for any dieting strategy that had a vested interest in improving one's health. Whether or not the meat is from a general store, a wild game hunt or a special pasture raised, grass-fed farm, you can always count on red meat to provide some of the highest levels of nutritious value and to help fight off some of the most common diseases know to the food industry.
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