Dr Alice Stanton, of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, one of the authors of the review, said: “The peer-reviewed evidence published reaffirms that [the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Risk Factors Report] which claimed that consumption of even tiny amounts of red meat harms health is fatally scientifically flawed.
“In fact, removing fresh meat and dairy from diets would harm human health. Women, children, the elderly and low income would be particularly negatively impacted.”
Since I like the taste of meat, I already knew this.
Whenever someone claims that something has been peer reviewed as a way of shutting down argument just remind them that the Sokol Squared hoax papers were peer reviewed.
@BiND: And presumably the original flawed report was also peer-reviewed, wasn’t it?
Julia,
Indeed. The whole public health thing is a house of cards.
Women, children, the elderly and low income would be particularly negatively impacted.
No impact on men, unsurprisingly, but a surprise that the BAME and alphanumeric communities aren’t negatively impacted.
Peer review has become the scientific equivalent of getting your mates to mark your homework. It has long since lost any credibility.
Since removing the pie from my chicken pie and just eating chicken, I’ve lost six pounds over the last two weeks. I feel just as full, but I noticed that a 300g chicken pie was labelled 450kcal whereas 300g of cooked chicken pieces was labelled 150kcal.
@ jgh
Pastry is high-calorie and unltra-low in protein. If one wants to lose weight the first things to go are chocolate and sweets, swiftly followed by cakes and pastry, even before one tries to substitute artificial sweeteners for sugar.
@ TMB
The visible impact on men will have a time lag because most of us have a sensible diet so are at no immediate risk of anaemia and by the time it hits us there will already have been outcries about women suffering severe, life-threatening, anaemia and children with stunted growth due to protein deficiency. Those who have been half-starving themselves to fit into a flattering dress or bikini will be particularily vulnerable to a protein-deficient, iron-deficient diet.
even before one tries to substitute artificial sweeteners for sugar.
You really fall for that one? Jeez! You missed out on basic biochemistry at school?
Sugar is a carbohydrate. No different from starch. In fact starch has to be transformed to a sugar by the digestive system before it can be metabolised. So by not consuming a few grams of sugar you’re foregoing the calories of a small piece of bread or potato. Worth the trouble?
Dietary science is no more a science than alchemy.
“If one wants to lose weight the first things to go are chocolate and sweets” Nope.
I am on a high-toffee diet of my own invention and it works a treat.
First you eat your meat or fish, your tatties, and your veggies. Then you think to yourself “What calorie-packed dessert shall I scoff?” Then you don’t, you satisfy your craving for sweetness with a single toffee. (Average weight about 9 grams, in my experience.) And that’s it. You lose weight slowly and steadily.
I explained this to a doc a while back but he was too stupid to understand.
P.S. I don’t eat much chocolate but when I do I count it as one of my three-a-day. It’s from plants and it’s not all starch, so obvs.
And another thing: the risk factor baloney. It’s a shame this girl stopped blogging.
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/05/greatest-myth-of-health-risk-factors.html
@dearieme
That’s actually a pretty good tactic for people who have problems controlling their appetite. Something cloying & sweet can be much more satisfying than plainer fare. So if you want to cut down on your calorie intake go for a sugar laden pastry & youé less likely to want to eat anything else.
It’s the total calorie intake that’s important, not what they’re contained in.
Been some time since I bought sweets in the UK but the ones in the shops here all seem to say “sin azucar”. Well they must be making it of something to stick the artificial sweeteners in, so unless its plastic, it must be some sort of modified starch. In which case it has a similar calorific content as sugar.
So not surprisingly it turns out that I the 60’s the sugar lobby paid for the research that found that heart and health problems is all the fault of saturated fats and nothing to do with sugars
Something cloying & sweet can be much more satisfying than plainer fare.
For a short time, perhaps. Or not. But then your blood sugar dips following the insulin response and you’re soon hungry again.
This doesn’t happen with a high fat, low carb diet.
“It’s the total calorie intake that’s important, not what they’re contained in.”
That’s simply wrong. Different type of food have entirely different metabolic effects.
Eat fat and modest animal protein and you use all of it for energy and for making parts of your body, whilst staying satiated.
Eat carbs and your body rushes to store the sugar as body fat, with that fat locked away and increasing daily as your insulin remains elevated; leaving you hungry again and eating still more.
Hence, a meal of a given amount of calories may make you fat or keep you slim, depending entirely on its composition.
Plus, whereas fat and protein are nutritious, sugar is a poison which causes damage throughout the body.
sugar is a poison which causes damage throughout the body
That has to be the stupidest bollox I’ve read this week. And the rest of it was competing. Since I get through over 2kg a week in coffee alone, I should have died several decades ago. As it is, I’m a man in his 70s with a 30 year old girlfriend & we’ve just spent the weekend disco-ing. One more night left to do as well. I love this weekend. Best fun of the summer.
Dunno with people. Not enough to occupy their minds, so they comfort eat then worry about their weight & their diet. FFS! get a life. Enjoy yourself. You aren’t going to live for ever. Why make it feel like it?
For a short time, perhaps. Or not. But then your blood sugar dips following the insulin response and you’re soon hungry again.
How can you be hungry again? You recently ate something. Your problem is you have no control over your own body. It controls you. You have a psychological problem. Deal with it.
@ bis
It was called “biology” not “biochemistry” at my school: presumably we weren’t as pretentious as your school. Replacing sugar in coffee with saccharin or another artificial sweetener in coffee is an easy way to reduce calorie intake with negligible side-effect. Over a period of months or years it has a substantial cumulative effect. Since the trouble is negligible, it *was* worth the trouble.
But, as I said, cutting out sweets, chocolates and pastry is much more significant although the advertising industry would like you to think that hermesetas or whichever is a miracle cure for your weight problem.
@ dearieme
One toffee after your meal doesn’t sound like a high-toffee diet to me – it is equivalent to a small fraction of a Mars Bar – and if it works for you fine!
Of course what works for each of as individuals isn’t necessarily the same and generalisations are just generalisations so my comments are suggestions not prescriptions.
@john77
At my school, at 12, it was called General Science. Later one could study Chemistry, Physics & Biology as separate subjects.
And it was in GS we learned about sugar & starch molecules & how the digestive system transforms one into ‘tother. Culminating in a neat little experiment conducted with a piece of bread, one’s own spit & a chemical changes colour in the presence of sugar. Pheno-somethingorother. Which showed the process commences when you start chewing. From that, it’s possible to easily deduce that it doesn’t actually matter what you eat, it all ends up the same*. And that if you’re overweight you are technically a “fat bastard” with poor self control & “dietary science” is cobblers. But keep kidding yourself if it helps. Personally, I avoid artificial sweeteners like the plague. On the other hand I am not a “fat bastard” & a slave to my appetite. I only eat when I need to. My problem’s remembering to.
*There’s another similar process involving proteins & amino acids.
All this is fairly obvious as we can be confident that dieticians didn’t evolve as a separate species. There’s nothing in the fossil record to indicate it.