Myths & Truths About Beef

[Guest guest]

I knew there was a reason that I should join this forum. It was to see this

article. Beef has been a central food in my health recovery. My Metabolic

Type must have it. I am working hard on accumulating local sources of

small-farm raised beef with no steroids, hormones, etc, pasture raised and

all that. It is becoming much easier to do that here in the Carolinas

because of the word getting out about beef not being the evil it has been

protrayed, because of the concern over all the wrong ways to raise cows, and

because of the programs to convert former tobacco farmers to other methods

of revenue.

 

DaddyBob

[Guest guest]

Myths & Truths About Beef

http://www.healingnaturallybybee.com/articles/meat2.php?print

 

It's the Beef by Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD

 

http://www.westonaprice.org/mythstruths/mtbeef.html

 

This article includes the following:

 

" The notion that beef is an " acid-forming "

food is another favorite

vegetarian argument. Beef contains lots of sulphur and

phosphorus, which technically

form an acid when dissolved in water, but that does not

mean that eating meat

causes the body to be too acid.

 

Actually, meat provides both high-quality protein and

vitamin D (if you eat

the fat and organ meats, that is), both of which are

needed to maintain proper

acid-alkaline balance in the body. "

 

With the exception of butter, no other food has been

subjected to such

intense demonization in recent years as red meat,

particularly beef. The juicy

hamburger, that delicious marbled steak and the Sunday

roast have been accused of

terrible crimes.

 

Beef causes heart disease, say the Diet Dictocrats. Beef

causes cancer,

particularly colon cancer, beef causes osteoporosis, beef

causes autoimmune

diseases like asthma, beef harbors E. coli leading to food-borne

illness, beef causes

Creutzfeldt Jakob disease.

 

Recently a vegetarian group called People for the Ethical

Treatment of

Animals placed billboard ads warning men not to eat beef

because it causes

impotence! Red meat is an acid-forming food, say the

vegetarians, which putrefies in

the gut because humans can't digest meat.

 

Beef production destroys the environment, according to

the zealots, and takes

away land that could be dedicated to grain for starving

millions. Let's

examine these accusations one at a time.

 

Does beef causeheart disease?

 

First is the notion that beef causes heart disease. This

actually dates back

to the 1950's when the lipid hypothesis was & taking

hold on the American

consciousness. At that time, scientists were grappling

with a new threat to public

health-a steep rise in heart disease, especially

myocardial infarction (MI)-a

massive blood clot leading to obstruction of a coronary

artery and consequent

death to the heart muscle.

 

MI was almost nonexistent in 1910 and caused no more than

three thousand

deaths per year in 1930. By 1960, there were at least

500,000 MI deaths per year

in the US.

 

Many scientists believed that the culprit was cholesterol

and saturated fats

found in animal foods like butter, eggs and beef. They

reasoned that saturated

fat and cholesterol raised the level of cholesterol in

the blood which in

turned caused the deposition of cholesterol as plaques in

the arteries, leading

to obstructions and heart disease. This, in a nutshell,

is the lipid

hypothesis.1

 

This theory was tested in 1957 when Dr. Norman Jolliffe, of the

Nutrition Bureau of the New York Health Department,

initiated the Anti-Coronary

Club. With great media fanfare, a group of businessmen,

ranging in age from 40

to 59 years, were placed on the so-called Prudent Diet.

 

Prudent Dieters used corn oil and margarine instead of

butter, cold breakfast

cereals instead of eggs and chicken and fish instead of

beef. Anti-Coronary

Club members were to be compared with a

" matched " group of the same age who ate

eggs for breakfast and had meat three times a day.

 

Jolliffe, an overweight diabetic confined to a wheel

chair, was confident

that the Prudent Diet would save lives, including his

own. The results of Dr.

Jolliffe's Anti-Coronary Club experiment were published

in 1966 in the Journal of

the American Medical Association.2 Those on the Prudent

Diet of corn oil,

margarine, fish, chicken and cold cereal had an average

serum cholesterol of 220,

compared to 250 in the meat-and-potatoes control group.

 

However, the study authors were obliged to note that

there were eight deaths

from heart disease among Dr. Jolliffe's Prudent Diet

group, and none among

those who ate meat three times a day. Dr. Jolliffe was

dead by this time. He

succumbed in 1961 from a vascular thrombosis, although

the obituaries listed the

cause of death as complications from diabetes.

 

The truth is that in spite of all the propaganda you have

heard, the lipid

hypothesis has never been proved. In fact, inadequate

protein intake leads to

loss of myocardial muscle and may, therefore, contribute

to coronary heart

disease.3

 

There are many societies where the populace consumes high

levels of animal

food and saturated fat but remains free of heart disease.

Dr. george Mann, who

studied the Masai cattle herding peoples in Africa, found

no heart disease,

even though their diet consisted of meat, blood and rich

milk.4

 

Butterfat consumption among Masai warriors, who consider

vegetable foods as

fodder for cattle, can reach one and one half pounds per

day. Yet these people

do not suffer from heart disease. Mann called the lipid

hypothesis " the

greatest scam in the history of medicine. "

 

It is a scam that has been used to convince millions of

healthy people that

they are sick and must take expensive drugs with serious

side effects, a

falsehood that has persuaded Americans to adopt a bland,

tasteless diet simply

because their cholesterol has been defined as being too

high.

 

It is true that beef consumption in the United States has

gone up during the

last eighty years, the period of huge increases in heart

disease. Today we

consume 79 pounds of beef per person per year versus 54

in 1909, a 46% increase-

but poultry consumption has increased a whopping 280%,

from 18 pounds per

person per year to 70.

 

Consumption of vegetable oils, including those that have

been hydrogenated,

has increased 437%, from 11 pounds per person per year to

59; while consumption

of butter, lard and tallow has plummeted from 30 pounds

per person per year

to just under 10. Whole milk consumption has declined by

almost 50%, while

lowfat milk consumption has doubled.

 

Consumption of eggs, fresh fruits (excluding citrus),

fresh vegetables, fresh

potatoes and whole grain products has declined; but

consumption of sugar and

other sweeteners has almost doubled.

 

Why, then, do today's politically correct dietary gurus

continue to blame

beef consumption for our ills? Is it because it is the

one wholesome food that

has shown an increase over the past ninety years?

 

What's the likely cause of heart disease?

 

The most likely causes of increased heart disease in

America are the other

changes in our diets-huge increases in consumption of

refined carbohydrates and

vegetable oils, particularly hydrogenated vegetable oils;

and the decline in

nutrient levels in our food, particularly minerals and

fat soluble vitamins-

vitamins found only in animal fats.

 

The only claim that can be made against beef as a cause

of heart disease is

that some studies have shown beef consumption to

temporarily raise cholesterol

levels in short term feeding experiments.

 

Other studies have shown that beef consumption, including

beef fat

consumption, lowers cholesterol levels. But even if all

studies show that beef

consumption raises cholesterol levels, the only

conclusion you can draw is-so what?

 

There is no greater risk of heart disease at cholesterol

levels of 300 than

at 180, and people with cholesterol levels below 180 are

at greater risk of

death from other causes, such as cancer, intestinal

diseases, accidents, violence

and suicide.5 In other words, it's much more dangerous to

have cholesterol

levels that are too low than cholesterol levels that are

too high.

 

Cholesterol is your best friend

 

The truth is that cholesterol is your best friend. It is

vital for the

function of the nervous system and the integrity of the

digestive tract. Steroid

hormones that help the body deal with stress are made

from cholesterol.

 

Sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone are made from

cholesterol. Bile

salts that the body uses to digest fats are made from

cholesterol. Vitamin D,

needed for thousands of biochemical processes, is made

from cholesterol.

 

Cholesterol is a powerful antioxidant that protects us

against cancer. It is

vital to the cells because it provides waterproofing and

structural integrity.

And, finally, cholesterol is the body's repair substance.

 

 

When our arteries are weak and develop fissures or tears,

cholesterol is

sequestered and used for repair. When cholesterol levels

in the blood are high,

it's because the body needs cholesterol. Blaming heart

disease on cholesterol is

like blaming a fire on the firemen who arrive to put out

the flames.

 

Does beef cause cancer?

 

What about the accusation that beef causes cancer, in

particular cancer of

the colon? The genesis of this myth involves more than

just muddied thinking,

but actual skulduggery. In 1965 an influential physician,

Ernst Wynder, took the

data for the mostly processed vegetable oils, called them

animal fat (which

they were not) and compared them with worldwide colon

cancer mortality.6

 

The table he produced showed high rates of colon cancer

in European countries

and low rates of colon cancer in Japan, and concluded

that there was a

positive effect, in other words, that saturated fat, the

kind found in beef, caused

colon cancer.

 

What the data actually showed was that consumption of

polyunsaturated

vegetable oils, not saturated animal fats, was associated

with the incidence of colon

cancer. And Wynder forgot to mention that Asians have

much higher rates than

Americans of other types of cancers, particularly cancers

of the liver,

pancreas, stomach, esophagus and lungs.

 

Then in 1973, William Haenszel and his colleagues from

the National Cancer

Institute reported the findings from a study that relied

on dietary recall and

lacked matched controls-in other words, a very poorly

designed study.7 The

researchers stated that they found a relationship between

beef and colon cancer

that fit the earlier work of Wynder.

 

Actually, what they really found was that among

westernized Japanese

Americans, those who said they consumed lots of macaroni,

green beans and peas, as

well as beef, had the highest rates of colon cancer;

while among traditional

Japanese Americans, those who said they consumed lots of

dried cuttlefish, Chinese

peas, bamboo shoots, rice and fermented soy products had

the highest rates of

colon cancer.

 

Thus, the researchers singled out beef as the culprit

from a choice of

several foods associated with cancer in Westerners and

ignored politically correct

foods like soy products, fish and vegetables as a

potential cause of cancer in

Japanese Americans.

 

Instead, this second-rate and inconclusive study has

become firmly fixed in

the consciousness of the scientific community as

providing evidence for the

assertion that beef causes colon cancer.

 

Two American studies conducted in the 1990's have found a

higher risk of

colon cancer among those who eat red meat.8 However, no

study done in Europe has

ever shown an association between meat consumption and

cancer.9

 

This suggests that European sausage and luncheon meat,

included in the rubric

of " meat consumption, " are prepared by

traditional methods that require few

additives, while the similar products in the United

States contain many

carcinogenic preservatives and flavorings.

 

Unfortunately, the American Cancer Society's 1996

recommendation that

Americans cut down on their consumption of

meat-particularly fatty meat-in order to

avoid cancer makes no distinction between fresh meats and

those that have been

embalmed with modern chemicals.

 

While two US studies have implicated meat consumption as

a cause of colon

cancer, there are several that contradict these findings.

In 1975, Rowland

Philips compared Seventh-Day Adventists physicians, who

do not eat meat, with

non-Seventh Day Adventist physicians, and found that the

vegetarian doctors had

higher rates of gastrointestinal and colon-rectal cancer

deaths.10

 

National Cancer Institute data show that Argentina, with

very high levels of

beef consumption, has significantly lower rates of colon

cancer than other

western countries where beef consumption is considerably

lower.11

 

A 1997 study published in the International Journal of

Cancer found that

increased risk of colon and rectal cancer was positively

associated with

consumption of bread, cereal dishes, potatoes, cakes,

desserts and refined sugars, but

not with eggs or meat.12

 

And a 1978 study published in the Journal of the National

Cancer Institute

found no greater risk of colon cancer, regardless of the

amounts of beef or

other meats ingested.13 The study also found that those

who ate plenty of

cruciferous vegetables, such as cabbage, Brussels sprouts

and broccoli, had lower

rates of colon cancer. So just because it's all right to

eat beef doesn't mean you

shouldn't eat your broccoli.

 

Actually, we know one of the mechanisms whereby colon

cancer is initiated,

and it does not involve meat per se. Colon cancer occurs

when high levels of

dietary vegetable oils and hydrogenated fats, along with

certain carcinogens, are

acted on by certain enzymes in the cells lining the

colon, leading to tumor

formation.14

 

This explains the fact that in industrialized countries,

where there are many

carcinogens in the diet and where consumption of

vegetable oils and

carcinogens is high, some studies have correlated

meat-eating with colon cancer; but in

traditional societies, where vegetable oils are absent

and the food is free

of additives, meat-eating is not associated with cancer.

 

Riding piggy back on the alleged association of beef with

colon cancer are

supposed links with other cancers, such as breast cancer.

Here the evidence

shows a similarly inconsistent pattern.

 

Cancer is a disease of rich countries where numerous

factors can be fingered-

altered fats, fabricated foods, low levels of protective

nutrients, high

levels of carcinogens-and rich countries consume lots of

beef.

 

But association is not the same as cause. Countries where

there are more

telephones have more cancer, but that does not mean that

telephones cause cancer.

Fat consumption in general also gets the blame for high

rates of breast

cancer. But a recent survey showed that women on lowfat

diets have just as much

breast cancer as those on high fat diets.15

 

High protein diets are said to cause osteoporosis and

Americans are now being

advised to avoid beef in order to protect their bones.

Once again, it's

important to look at the studies carefully.

 

Research that showed a link with bone loss and protein

consumption was done

with purified protein powders.16 With meat, a natural

protein food, there was

no negative calcium balance. New evidence indicates that

women who eat lots of

meat had fewer hip fractures compared to those who

avoided it.17

 

High protein diets are said to contribute to kidney

problems but, again, the

evidence is contradictory. Although protein restriction

can be helpful for

those who are suffering kidney failure, there is no

evidence that eating meat

causes kidney disease.18 The fat-soluble vitamins found

exclusively in animal

fats are very important for healthy kidney function.

 

Does beef cause autoimmune diseases or asthma?

 

What about the accusation that meat contributes to

autoimmune diseases and

asthma?

This hypothesis is predicated on the fact that meat

contains arachidonic

acid, a fatty acid from which the supposedly

pro-inflammatory Series Two

prostaglandins-local tissue hormones-are formed.

 

This is one of the nuttiest notions to take hold in the

scientific community

for a long time. It was promulgated by Barry Sears,

author of The Zone, and

taken up with a vengeance by the anti-meat forces.

 

These people know nothing about prostaglandins. Some of

the prostaglandins

that the body makes from arachidonic acid do indeed

promote inflammation-which

is a very important protective response when you have

injured yourself.

 

But the same arachidonic acid also forms the basis of

anti-inflammatory

prostaglandins that the body uses, when appropriate, to

reduce inflammation.19 And

besides, the amount of arachidonic acid in beef is very

low-less than half a

percent of total fat content.

 

It is much lower than the amount of omega-3 fatty acids,

the current darlings

of the nutritional community, yet none of the voices

promoting omega-3 fatty

acids ever tell us that we can get them from beef.

 

What about " Mad Cow Disease " ?

 

Beef consumption in England plummeted recently with the

'Mad Cow Disease "

scare. Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform

encephalopathy (BSE), is a wasting

disease of cattle characterized by nervous disorders and

weakness, said to be

related to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans.

 

Scientists have not been able to link a virus to this

disease, so they

theorize that an abnormal protein particle called a

prion, found in the brains of

cattle with BSE and humans with CJD, is the cause.

 

The theory is that these prions are infectious agents,

passed along to cows

though the practice of animal part feeding and then to

humans who eat infected

meat, particularly meat from the nervous system, like

brain.

 

There's a lot wrong with this theory. For one thing, BSE

is nonexistent in

the USA, where animal part feeding has been going on for

almost one hundred

years.

 

Another is recorded cases of CJD among vegetarians; yet

another is the

absence of CJD in the Shetlands where scrapie, a disease

similar to BSE, is common

in sheep and where potted sheeps brain is a national

dish. The research of Mark

Purdey, a diary farmer in England, indicates that the mad

cow disease

epidemic in England occurred in areas where farmers were

forced to treat their cattle

with organophosphate pesticides in a warble fly

eradication program.20 The

warble fly makes holes in the cows' backs-not dangerous

in itself, but it

reduces the value of pelts sold to leather manufacturers.

These holes are open doors

to the spinal cord and organophosphate pesticides are

very toxic to the

nervous system. By a complex process, these compounds

seem to cause certain

proteins to fold in pathological ways-these are the

prions that are found in the

brains of animals with BSE and humans with CJD. Mineral

deficiencies are also

involved, particularly magnesium, which is a mineral that

protects the nervous

system. Finally, a similar disease occurs among wild

animals living in areas