Obesity and its Impact

A recent post by Gene Baur with Farm Sanctuary reverts to two of the oldest arguments in the book related to animal rights and veganism. First he http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifaddresses cancer research and what he deems to be a scarcity of results. Ask those who benefited from improved cancer treatments whether or not this has been worth it. Ask those kids who got to know their parents, those grandparents who got to hold their grandchild. And then try and tell me that cancer research isn't worth it. And then secondly, he addresses what he views as the main cause of cancer in humans. My thoughts on that are posted below, since he still has yet to acknowledge any of my comments, which I have kept very polite over the months.

"Gene,

"I'm disappointed that your link to "leading experts" is a promo for a highly biased, non-factual film focused on reducing national meat consumption. Why not give your readers links to true professionals, factual research and statistical evidence in favor of your point. If you did, your readers would see that there is no true evidence proving any of your points. If anything, your diet recommendation's only sound advice is use of it to limit obesity. And there is no shortage of evidence that obesity leads to a plethora of health issues so this doesn't come as a surprise to anyone.

"My family has grown, eaten and sold animal products in this country for over 200 years. During that time, we've worked hard raising food for the community around us and have no family history of cancer or other health problems, because healthy living is a much deeper issue than just what you eat. Animal products provide great nutrients that are not otherwise easily obtained in green food. These nutrients, combined with an active lifestyle can lead to happy, healthy living. But maybe you don't want your readers to know that?

"For example, I actively donate blood to the Red Cross, but every time I am there, there is a vegetarian or ovo-vegetarian who is denied blood donation because there hemeglobin levels are too low. Simple solution to this issue is to consume beef which provides a healthy amount of iron to the body, promoting blood health."

Oprah goes Vegan

News that that will lead to weight loss before anemia probably didn't bother her too much in the short run, but what is important is the big way in which Oprah really hit hard and honest the fact that unhealthy diets are a part of American culture today.

Frankly, when I watched the Oprah Vegan videos, I expected to be more angry. They got in on a Cargill processing plant and didn't sit there trying to portray it for anything other than what it really is. Does everyone have the stomach for killing animals for food consumption, no, they don't, but that doesn't mean that killing animals for food is wrong and Oprah's filming of the Cargill plant didn't try to push the issue one way or the other. If you haven't seen a processing plant in video before, this was a great example of how the process works.

Then there is the video link of Oprah's interview with Michael Pollan. Of course, I have a slightly more liberal view of Michael Pollan than many of my agricultural counterparts, but I again found little fault with his critical take on the processed foods which make our trips to the grocery and fast food so cheap every day. I agree that cheap food is a curse, but without it, many people would simply go hungry from lack of ability to feed themselves. So then we end up in the current situation where elitists call for "higher quality" food which costs them more money claiming that everyone should have this because it's a factor in one's quality of life. Well, news flash, but not everyone can afford organic or health foods (note, not one and the same).

Where Michael Pollan then really still gets it wrong is by saying that he only buys meat from small farms. That's great, but that also gets back to a huge problem of whether or not we try to feed the rest of the world. The world is going hungry, and small farms aren't going to do it. He needs to wise up to that or stop making money from his controversial books so that real life can hit him in the face and remind him of just why we still need cheap food. Would farmers love to be paid more for food products? Sure they would, but they also want to make sure that people get fed. I think making more money for their labor is the attitude you see reflected in the few farmers quoted as saying they'll be ready with a higher quality product when consumers demand it in the Food INC trailer, but of course they misused these quotes as well.



Of course, there was some other crap on Oprah's show about how all meat comes from terrible places, yadayadayada, cough vegan cough propaganda cough cough. But again, Oprah was trying to show both sides of the coin, even if one side did get most of the face time. Americans are provided a safe, wholesome product every day, 24/7/365 and there are a lot of people who just don't seem to appreciate how good they have it.

Combating obesity and the red meat myth

First off, props to Mayor Bloomberg of New York City for his efforts to have sugar drinks banned from the acceptable list of food stamp purchases. It's not that I'm looking for those people on food stamps to suffer the lack of those luxury foods/drinks that most of us crave at some point or another. This represents a great opportunity for a step towards taking back the obesity issue from its current status of out-of-control. The government has itself in a hole where it provides food stamps to citizens who then purchase unhealthy foods with the stamps, thereby leading a higher number back into the necessity for increased government sponsored healthcare. This idea of using food stamps to provide healthier food products should be accompanied by educational tools for people on how to balance their diets for nutritional optimization but limiting the procurement of unhealthy sugar drinks is certainly a start in the right direction. Personally, I can say I lost weight just when I stopped drinking pop every day. It's good for me and can be good for you too.

Hand in hand with this is the topic of red meat consumption which always comes up in nutritional debates and is my main justification for this blog today. Red meat is always catching flak from its opponents ranging from PETA to registered dieticians to talk show hosts. The link I included above is just one example of an article designed to convince consumers to eat less red meat. Well, I'll let someone more qualified than myself justify the truth of the article and its "research" but I can tell you that I am skeptical of this study just like I am skeptical of so many others. People are voluntarily recruited for this study, are expected to actually be honest in their questionaires, and are expected to accurately keep records of their eating habits. This is not a controlled study and so much can go wrong. You should also be careful to note that although they blame red meat in the report, the study actually lumped both red meat and processed meat in the same bin. Of course, if I'm eating bologna or McDonald's every day of my life, I'm probably not expected to survive as long as someone who is cooking meat in their own home. Red meat wasn't killing people who made wholesome meals in their home and shared them with family and friends.


This isn't about shoving an agenda about the lack of family values or a pro-carnivore attitude down your throat. This is about making sure you consider the facts, and the factors and variables that can impact the value of a research study that claims you should limit your red meat consumption. I can bet you that the people in the study might have eaten at least 4 oz of red meat or processed meat a day, but it doesn't say whether they also maybe had days of 15 and 20 oz of red and processed meats packed in there too.

If you're a big eater like me, you'll be depressed the first, second and third time that you measure out how much you're eating, but take my word for it that portion sizing can make the biggest difference for you. Red meat is still fine for you; there's no true proof out there that it is bad for most people. Yet, there is definitely proof out there though that if you eat 3x as much as you should (including red and processed meats) that you will become overweight and possibly obese, and increase your risks for a lot of different diseases. The same holds true for you if you have already existing risk conditions and then try to eat red and processed meats every day - bad idea.

Simple take-home message here. Portion sizes will do wonders. Butter used to be "bad" for us, but now it's much better than most alternatives. Eggs used to be bad for us, but if you can manage your cholesterol, the eggs are a proven brain boost. Claims that red meat itself is bad for you are difficult to prove. I'm not going to stop eating it anytime soon.