I’m going to start this out with some backstory and honesty. I ate red meat and (some) processed meat almost my entire life; I turn 23 in March and made this official at the start of the new year. Many common household dinners while I was growing up were meat based, as holds true for many people. I never saw anything “wrong” with the way I was eating, until I could feel it weighing me down – literally. I want to follow that sentence up by saying that your body is your body, and though many people think there is a wrong way to eat, it is ultimately your decision and I will always support others personal choices. Above all, I encourage you to listen to your body. I simply hope to help shed some light on why I made this choice, and why you can benefit from it too.
What qualifies as red meat?
“Red meat refers to all mammalian muscle meat, including, beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse, and goat.” -World Health Organization
Basically this refers to anything coming from a cow/calf (ground beef, sirloin/tenderloin/flank – steak, ribs, veal), a pig (pork, ham, bacon), sheep (lamb, hogget, mutton), horse, and goat. Red meat differs from white meat in that it has more myoglobin, which are the cells that transport oxygen to muscles in the bloodstream. This means that muscles used more frequently are darker, hence classifying them as red meat. What does this really mean? Red meat has a higher level of fat, whereas white meat is a leaner protein source.
They do not look impressed. Can you blame them?
Just a little side-note: I have never consumed horse or goat. I honestly didn’t even know that was a thing.
What qualifies as processed meat?
“Processed meat refers to meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavour or improve preservation.” -World Health Organization
This includes bacon, cold cuts, hot dogs, sausages, corned beef, or any canned meats (including canned fish). Want to hear something nasty? Many processed meats contain animal by-products such as blood – and I don’t mean the blood that’s already in the meat, I mean ADDED blood. Sounds delicious, for vampires. Want to see something really nasty? Watch this video on how hot dogs are made. NO THANKS.
Why I stopped eating it
This was not a decision based on animal rights or disturbing videos like the one above. Though that definitely helped make this decision easier. The main reason I cut out all red and processed meat was because it made me feel like utter crap. I cannot remember a time I felt energetic and motivated after eating it.
Here are the side effects I experienced after consuming red meat, EVERY TIME:
- Tiredness
- Grogginess
- Bloating
- Feeling weighed down
- A LACK of energy
- I literally felt like the red meat in my stomach was sucking all the energy out of me and into digesting this
- Bowel issues
- That backed up feeling, that sometimes manifested into actual constipation
I have never felt all this after eating anything else. It makes me want to curl up in fetal position on my bed for the rest of the night and just sleep. I don’t see anything productive in that, so I finally said enough is enough.
Health Facts and Statistics
It’s about to get really real. I will be the first to admit that I had NO idea how red and processed meats were affecting my body, as well as YOURS. Guys, this stuff is poison, and I mean that quite literally.
Fact #1:
Under the World Health Organization (WHO), processed meats are a GROUP 1 CARCINOGEN. What is a carcinogen? It’s essentially anything that causes cancer and promotes cancer cell growth. Group 1 is as bad as it comes; in this same group is tobacco, asbestos, and plutonium. Let me say that again – processed meats are in the SAME carcinogen categorization as ASBESTOS. And we’re eating it?!
Fact #2:
WHO has also classified red meat as a GROUP 2 CARCINOGEN. This is in the same category as lead compounds, anabolic steroids, and Human papillomavirus (HPV) type 68. Who’s up for a steak with a side of lead and steroids?!
Fact #3:
Eating red and processed meat has been directly linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer (specifically colorectal cancer – that’s cancer of your rectum, because you can’t even dispose of this healthily). Experts have concluded that each 5o gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%. In addition, just ONE SERVING of processed meat a day has been shown to increase the chance of diabetes by 51%.
Fact #4:
This may be my favorite fact of all as it is the most repulsive. So I’m just going to leave it here and let you gag in peace… A study showed that 88% of pork chops and 90% of ground beef sampled were contaminated with fecal bacteria. Yupp, almost ALL red meat is contaminated with animal shit.
Fact #5:
Raising animals for food causes more greenhouse gases than the ENTIRE transportation sector. This is the leading cause of rainforest destruction, species extinction, ocean dead zones, and fresh water consumption issues. Seriously, cow farts are horrible for the environment; they expel methane every time they fart. Now that’s some hard core gas.
So I pretty much just rained down some harsh facts, but it’s the reality of red meat and processed meat. It’s simply not good for you in any way. There is nothing you get from red/processed meat that you can’t get from other food sources. If anything, I hope I’ve made you think a little or at the very least provided some insight. Cutting this out is not in everyone’s lifestyle plan, but I highly recommend looking into it. There was so much I thought I knew, but didn’t actually know.
I will leave you with one final note: the town of Duplin County, North Carolina is in a whole new kind of a state of emergency. There are 10 million pigs in NC, almost all being farmed for food. The big companies farming these pigs have no regards for the citizens of this town and as such spray feces into the air, as well as let it run into their rivers and water supply. Almost every single person in this town has asthma or cancer as a direct result of this. So if doing it for your own health isn’t enough, do it for the people this industry is quite literally killing.
Sources:
Films, A.U.M. “Facts.” What the Health, link.
“Known and Probable Human Carcinogens.” American Cancer Society, 3 Nov. 2016, link.
McAnlis, Carolyn. “White Meat vs. Red Meat.” Fit Day, link.
“Q&A On the Carcinogenicity of the Consumption of Red Meat and Processed Meat.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, Oct. 2015, link.
