28 June 2012

Pass this information around; help stop people eating meat. Instead on bringing up issues of morality and compassion, just let people know eating meat kills them!


Study: Too much red meat may shorten lifespan

By Anne Harding, Health.com
updated 10:40 AM EDT, Tue March 13, 2012
In addition, a diet rich in red meat is likely to come up short in other areas, says Robert Ostfeld, M.D.
In addition, a diet rich in red meat is likely to come up short in other areas, says Robert Ostfeld, M.D.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • A new study is the first to estimate the effect of red meat on a person's lifespan
  • Each additional daily serving was associated with a 20% higher risk of dying
  • Charring red meat at high temperatures can produce carcinogens on the surface
Editor's note: Read this story in Arabic.
(Health.com) -- Want to live longer? Trade some of the red meat in your diet for fish, nuts, whole grains, and other healthier protein sources, Harvard researchers say.
That's the conclusion of a new study, published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine, that found that the risk of dying at an early age -- from heart disease, cancer, or any other cause—rises in step with red-meat consumption.
Eating too much red meat, which is high in saturated fat and cholesterol, has long been seen as unhealthy, especially for the heart. The new study, however, is the first to estimate the effect of swapping out red meat on a person's lifespan.
Dangers of eating red meat
Is eating red meat bad for health?
Using data from two long-running studies of health professionals, researchers tracked the diets of more than 121,000 middle-aged men and women for up to 28 years. Roughly 20% of the participants died during that period.
On average, each additional serving of red meat the participants ate per day was associated with a 13% higher risk of dying during the study. Processed red meat products -- such as hot dogs, bacon, and salami -- appeared to be even more dangerous: Each additional daily serving was associated with a 20% higher risk of dying.
Based on these findings, the researchers estimate that substituting one daily serving of red meat with fish, poultry, nuts, legumes, whole grains, or low-fat dairy products would reduce the risk of dying in this stage of life by 7% to 19%. If everyone in the study had slashed their average red-meat intake to less than half a serving per day, the researchers say, 9% of deaths among men and 8% of deaths among women could have been prevented.
"Our message is to try to reduce the red meat consumption to less than two to three servings per week," says lead author An Pan, Ph.D., a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston.
"We don't want everyone to be a vegetarian," Pan says, though he adds that avoiding processed red meat altogether may be a good idea. "It's better to go with unprocessed products and plant-based foods."
Dean Ornish, M.D., the founder and president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, in Sausalito, California, says a plant-based diet provides a "double benefit" in that it reduces a person's exposure to the harmful substances in meat while also providing valuable nutrients.
"There are literally hundreds of thousands of protective substances that you find in fruits and vegetables and whole grains and legumes and soy products that prevent disease," says Ornish, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study.
Why is red meat, and especially processed red meat, potentially harmful? In addition to the high saturated fat content, which can contribute to heart disease, charring red meat at high temperatures can produce carcinogens on the surface, Pan says. And processed meats contain certain additives that in high quantities are believed to promote cancer as well.
In addition, a diet rich in red meat is likely to come up short in other areas, says Robert Ostfeld, M.D., a cardiologist and associate professor of clinical medicine at Montefiore Medical Center, in the Bronx, N.Y.
"If you eat more red meat, on average, you may be eating fewer fruits and vegetables, so you're getting the bad things from the red meat and you're not getting the good things from the fruits and vegetables," says Ostfeld, who did not participate in the study. "My preference is for people to have as little red meat as they can, and I think it's ideal to avoid red meat."

21 comments:

  1. I have never encouraged people to not eat meat.
    But something strange was going on in my surroundings. When i come to new people (like job), someone asks "oh don't you eat meat?" during lunch and i answer "no", and someone asks "why?", i answer "i don't know". And then some time passes, like half a year, and all people around me starts not eating meat. why? i don't know. Cool part is that those people who ridiculed in the beginning, started not eating meat themselves... ;D

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    1. Arvydas, you are a gentle powerhouse. You seem to influence people toward change merely by your presence and example. I enjoy reading your posts. Very nice. Mike

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  2. That study is just plain old bad science, replete with flaws and false assumptions. There is a huge difference between causation and correlation. Perhaps you could publish this to give your readers a more fair and balanced assessment of eating red meat:
    http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/06/28/grass-fed-beef-a-healthy-diet.aspx

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    1. The cigarette industry came up with that same notion of "causation and correlation" in its effort to keep people from not quitting(or to virtually encourage kids to take up the habit). But then when the anti-smoking crusade swung into full gear you see these heart rendering stories on TV about people with terminal lung cancer or emphysema. And it ain't a pretty sight!

      Mark

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  3. How is this a bad study? It had a huge number or people involved over a long period of time. Evven though all the variables cannot be controlled in such a situation, statistically it is still valid.

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  4. How on Earth can it be valid with so many uncontrolled variables? Such reasoning could be used to demonize any of the variables, but they chose to single out red meat.

    Here's an interesting article on statistics and deception:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics

    I certainly agree that the meat industry in the modern world is an abomination of nature, twisted and greedy to the core, with less than no respect for the slaughter of millions of innocent beings.

    So how do we square this with Robert's admonition that 'All is well and everything is unfolding as it should' ?

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  5. I don't think that Robert was using this statement as a vehicle for escapism, though this is what I used it for for several years.

    My guess is that the majority of those to whom he was addressing needed something of this sort to help them to cope with what they could not understand. Sort of a placebo for what you don't know ails you.

    Everything unfolding as it should (which by the way is hardly ever the way you want it) also includes this post that Ed made and whatever you, me, or others choose to do about it. That may be just refusing to eat meat for whatever reasons you choose or something on a much larger scale such as encouraging those who have a voice to lobby for taxes on meat and those monies to come with tastier meat substitutes. (This is Ed's idea, not mine, but I think it is a great one.)

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  6. http://freefromharm.org/videos/educational-inspiring-talks/philip-wollen-australian-philanthropist-former-vp-of-citibank-makes-blazing-animal-rights-speech/

    Love?
    Dennis

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  7. For whom is all this? The personal-I.

    What about the correlation of knowing
    your karma and when you are going
    to die and whether eating meat affected that.

    It really doesn't matter what you eat, it's all
    based on karma.

    What has this got to do with pure awareness?

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    1. Unless I'm mistaken(and I'd leave it to Ed to correct me if that were the case), in the Ultimate sense, there's no Karma anyway in Pure Awareness simply because there's no discernible person. So in that sense, Karma's just another illusion and we've bought into it because we accepted the apparent reality of there being "real" people all along.

      Mark

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  8. I wonder if those cows think about karma, the nature of reality or pure awareness while they are being murdered...

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  9. No real Sage has ever eaten meat. Not because they are particular about it but because they follow a sattvic diet. It appears to me that the higher you go in consciousness the less food you eat. And the food that you do eat is pretty pure. Not for any particular reason, but that's the way it is. But still when you think of all the turkeys... (laughter) ...that were slaughtered, millions of turkeys, seems strange. Robert Adams :)

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  10. If that's the case then as Ed pointed out Nisargadatta kept eating meat.
    Was he not a real sage?

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  11. Most Sages have taught moral vs immoral values only because
    the majority of people are not able to understand the higher
    spiritual truths.

    It seems that to be morally good helps a person go through
    the stages of life so that they can then get to the
    place where they can then ask the question "Who Am I?" or
    whatever form of practice they are to do.

    So Robert taught from his experience, Nisaragadatta from his.

    But these two Sages were absolutely free one being a vegetarian
    the other not.

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  12. Jacques, how do you know that no real sage has ever eaten meat?

    First you must have an idea of what a real sage is and then secondly you must have known all the real sages in order to know that they haven't eaten meat. Look at what you are doing, repeating what you have heard someone else say.

    I don't mean to be direct, I'm just a little overdosed with bullshit right now. No harm intended.

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    1. Me I don't.
      No I have no idea what a true sage is. And you?
      I do not repeat I quote only Robert Adams: is there a problem?
      I only trust Robert, even if he says bullshit...

      You should believe nothing that I say.
      I maybe telling you a lie, why should you believe me at all.
      But what you should do is to experiment with yourself.
      The factory of experimentation is within you.
      Work on yourself, find out for yourself and see what happens.
      Practice on yourself.
      Do not believe anything, but practice on yourself and find out what happens, see what happens.
      Then you will know, the guru, God, consciousness are all within you.
      You are that.
      Check it out, find out for yourself.
      ♥ Robert Adams ♥

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    2. Why not Joan? I agree Jacques. Why not stick
      on a proven method like Robert Adams uses.

      What Robert has done is turned Advaita into a
      spiritual teaching directed at Westerners with
      simplicity and clarity in the plainest English
      possible.

      When you know him in the silence he speaks
      through you. Every word he utters is what
      moves through you in fullness and in emptiness.
      And just by living his teaching when you express
      your Self, he expresses him Self, the Self.

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  13. Anonymous, how do you know they were absolutely free? Because someone told you they were?

    What does absolutely free look like?

    Seriously, how do we know this stuff? How do I know this stuff?

    Why do we keep repeating this stuff? What does it do for us, for you, for me to make such statements?

    You know, I feel happier the less I know.

    I came to Ed with a trunk load of treasures I had gathered from the many spiritual fields that I had gleaned from. I would proudly speak 'my', excuse me, 'another's' truth. He was never impressed. And I was often crushed and frustrated because I had come to 'get' and all he ever did was take, take, and take some more.

    I came with intellectual riches and I am finding myself poorer and poorer with each passing day and I am grateful.

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  14. Sure Joan, I love you too!

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  15. A poetry on the real sage,

    The real sage is absolute choiceless pure awareness.
    The real sage eat no meat.
    The real sage can walk over water.
    The real sage never masturbate.
    The real sage is a bunch of shit.

    Love,
    Dennis

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    Replies
    1. What, never EVEN masturbate??? Well, it would also be true he won't identify with the illusory body but if he'd allow THAT thought to stop him then he's not to be envied.

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