Talk:Red meat

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[edit] Removed quackery

The following statement is 100% make believe, and the reference points to a site promoting quackery, so I have taken it off the page:

By the age of fifty, the average American has five pounds of undigested red meat in their bowels. [1]

Nova SS 03:05, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

And if you look at the site, it doesn't even make that claim: it's only a quotation from a movie. I removed the statement again after someone re-added it. Wmahan. 17:50, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Wow, a holistic quack site with a flaky quote. What a surprise. Nova SS 18:26, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Emus?

The Emu article lists that bird as a red meat, with sources (here and here). Are there other exceptions? Does anyone know enough to describe the distinction in more detail? Blurble 19:42, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Buffalo or Bison

They are a red meat. Can someone add more on them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.80.179.151 (talk) 14:45, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This page needs to be balanced out a lot

I'm surprised the obvious bias in this page has been tolerated. One editor has even gone so far as to add an absurd section on dietary habits in relation red meat, almost as if implying that there might be some chemical in the meat which stops people from eating vegies. The section on globins paints a false picture of total scientific agreement as to the deadly and dangerous potential of red meats, especially, we are told, because of a scary sounding process that red meat triggers off in the gut. This air of scientific certainty did not seem to be present in the BBC article that the entire section seems to be based off, I can only assume that it is deliberate.

Anyhoo, I'll try cleaning it up a bit.


Also, the Health Benefits section is ridiculous. ONE line on positive benefits, along with 25+ negative ones, under headings such as 'Cancer' etc. Not impartial whatsoever. Red Meat is not poisonous to humans as this article seems to suggest...


Health Effects? This section just seems to be all about how bad red meat is, like a vegetarian wrote it, I am pretty damn sure red meat has some affects which are benificial, since when did an effect mean a bad thing? Doesn't Red meat help brain development with proteins not found anywhere else? Have you seen how sickley vegetarians look compared with people whom eat red meat? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.101.156.88 (talk) 01:48, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Red or white?

I'ved moved the following statement here as it's not only poorly sourced but likely false:

The meat of young mammals such as veal and milk-fed lamb, and that of pork is usually considered "white"; while the meat of duck and goose is considered "red",[1] though the demarcation line has been shifting.

The demarcation line shifted long ago! --Amit 02:58, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

See discussion in Talk:White meat. It's amusing that you consider OED 2 a poor source, and seem to think that 18 years ago is a long time. Are you basing your judgement on personal experience (i.e. original research)? What about a world perspective? Have you investigated European (not to mention Asian, etc.) positions? As a compromise, I will add the word "traditionally". --Macrakis 19:04, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questions

I read an article recently about a link between "red meat" and colon cancer. It's not clear to me, even after reading this article, what all constitutes "red meat" in that context. Beef? Pork? Turkey? Chicken? Lamb? Buffalo? Alligator? Frog? --TheCynic (talk) 18:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The term is used loosely, as the article says. It almost certainly includes beef and excludes chicken, but you'll have to read the scientific research on which that article is based to see if it includes pork, for example. I suspect that there are few good studies on lamb and game simply because not that much is consumed in the countries (North America, Western Europe, etc.) where most epidemiological studies are performed. --Macrakis (talk) 03:59, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Irrelevant health effect comparison

Why are non meat-eaters being compared to people who eat red meat regularly in an article specifically about red meat?

The correlation is useless even with a comparison of vegetarians to general meat-eaters because there are so many variables likely to drastically influence the result. Comparing them to red meat eaters is even worse.

And even if it was a useful correlation, it belongs either in an article about vegetarians or about meat eating in general. Or ideally, on a pseudoscientific pro-vegetarian website outside of Wikipedia.

One study has determined that the death rate of non meat-eaters due to heart diseases is 0.72 compared to meat eaters, although the study stated that no firm conclusion as to the reason for this difference can be made based on the data.[16]

Overall, the relative risk of developing a fatal cancer in non meat-eaters is 0.61 compared to people who eat red meat regularly.[16]

--71.181.32.247 (talk) 09:33, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that the way to determine if there are health effects - both positive or negative - associated with a particular diet is to compare followers of that diet to a totally different diet. There may be statistics comparing people who eat lots of meat to those who eat little, but the variables would be even greater in that case. I think having these comparisons keeps articles balanced - otherwise each article would just be a fluff peice for its topic.Bob98133 (talk) 13:20, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


It's not about meat eaters, it's about red meat eaters. The way to determine if there are health effects associated with red meat is to isolate the variable in question: meat that comes from a mammal. Which a comparison between a vegetarian diet and a diet consisting of lots of red meat completely fails to do. You could also say that the risk of heart disease is low among red meat eaters compared to people who eat nothing but margarine, but that's not a useful comparison either. --71.181.32.247 (talk) 03:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


Since you reverted the change (Unexplained removal? Really?), I'm adding tags. --71.181.32.247 (talk) 07:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Your tags are not appropriate. The cancer section clearly states that "that red meat could pose a notable increase in cancer risk." It doesn't suggest a causal relationship. It is well documented. The LCBA reference under cardiovascular diseases certianly is misleading. As I recall, the subjects in this study all had relatively high cholesterol levels which stayed the same whether they ate low fat red meat or white meat. While the beef producers would like this to mean that red meat has a place in a low fat diet, it could easily claim the same thing for low fat white meat. As well, one has to be somewhat suspect when a study performed by the LCBA shows how good red meat is for you. Please remove the tags or be specific about what your problem is with the article. Your rationale for scientifically detemrining things differs with the references.Bob98133 (talk) 14:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I have been specific. I'm not debating that red meat could pose a notable risk for cancer or heart disease. I'm debating that two statistics provided are not relevant to the article because they don't properly isolate the role of specifically red meat enough. Again, you could also say that the risk of heart disease is low among red meat eaters compared to people who eat nothing but margarine (also a non meat-eating diet, by the way), but that wouldn't be a useful or relevant study either. --71.181.32.247 (talk) 20:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't particularly disagree with you - it's just that using your criteria no "scientific" evidence could be used for most topics. For example, saying that smoking cigarettes increases your risk of lung cancer. There is no way to isolate all human behaviors so that you only have people who smoke and people who don't smoke, since people do all sorts of other things that could affect getting lung cancer. However, whoever did these studies had sufficient evidence to suggest that there could be a relationship, and since these were serious studies I think that it is acceptible to include that info - as long as it says "could pose a threat" and not "poses a threat." Bob98133 (talk) 20:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, that is a problem with a lot of drug studies. (Cannabis comes to mind, where cannabis users may be likely to take other drugs as well.) But in the case of smoking studies, theres not a lot else that the average person will take into his lungs, unlike no meat versus frequent red meat where there's a lot of potential variation in diet.
In fact, the article as it is now even agrees with me on that: "the study stated that no firm conclusion as to the reason for this difference can be made based on the data."
And in smoking studies, they modify the appropriate variable: whether the person smokes tobacco. In this article though, you have non meat eaters compared to general meat eaters, which is like comparing non drug users to general drug users in a tobacco article. It would rather belong in an article about drugs, just as that tidbit belongs in an article about vegetarianism or meat. --71.181.32.247 (talk) 23:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, skimming the source cited, I don't see any mention of red meat at all. It's about non-meat eaters vs meat eaters, does not mention red meat at all, and even lists all the nonrelated reasons for the results. This means that the results are inconclusive (as I've been saying) and irrelevant to this article (as I've also been saying.) --71.181.32.247 (talk) 23:41, 18 March 2008 (UTC)