The link between food and health is often painted in broad sweeps and generalizations. Fats are bad, salt is bad, lean protein is good. You know what I mean. While over-simplifications like these may reflect a level of truth, they span too wide a spectrum and encompass more than they should. If we hope to discuss the link between food and health in a meaningful way, and to create meals that nourish us without being unnecessarily limiting, generalizations should give way to distinctions.
Consider the question of meat and whether or not its consumption is linked to a variety of cancers. The National Cancer Institute says that it is. So do the National Institute of Health, Harvard University, the World Health Organization, and the American Institute for Cancer Research.
To these and others, I say, we should all say, tell us what you mean by meat. For as long as there have been people, there have been meat eaters, and these meat eaters didn’t always get cancer. So, we need qualitative distinctions that will help us make sense of the link:
How were the animals raised? Are we talking about meat from cows that spent their lives on concrete under artificial lighting, eating genetically-altered corn and soy, and receiving antibiotics and hormones before being trucked long distance for slaughter? Or do we mean meat from cows that lived on grass in the sunshine, without medication or grain supplements, who were then slaughtered on the farm or nearby? These are sources of two very different meats.
What varieties of meat are we referring to and was the meat processed? Do we mean muscle meat, organs, or stock made from bones? Are we discussing processed meats like cold cuts and sausage, or unprocessed meats without additives or preservatives?
How was the meat cooked? Was the meat charred on a grill? Baked or broiled at high temperatures? Or was it boiled or roasted at a low temperature?
How much meat was consumed? Do we mean large portions of meat served as an entree or small portions served as an accompaniment? Meat eaten daily, weekly, or only now and then? Which of these is linked to cancer?
With so many unanswered questions, and with an obvious need for solid information, it can be a challenge to resolve this issue for ourselves. Whenever I’m unsure of what to eat or what preparation methods to use, I look to the past, to a time when people didn’t get the diseases we’re trying to avoid. In this case, the past provides a key piece of information. The incidence of cancer among traditional people, hunter-gatherers and those living in non-industrial cultures, was exceedingly rare. These people ate both cooked and raw meat and, because our genes still bear traces of our hunter-gatherer heritage, they were also our genetic brethren.
Inuits
Let’s start with the Inuits, who have been widely studied. As I learned from Stephan Guyenet, Ph.D., Vilhjalmur Stefansson was a 19th century anthropologist and arctic explorer who undertook a search for cancer among the Inuit in Canada in Alaska. These are people who, at the time, consumed a diet of 80% fat, nearly all from raw and cooked fish and meat. They were physically active for part of the year, and relatively inactive in the coldest months. They also tended to be lean. Stefansson found no trace of cancer among them. American and European physicians were inspired by these results and conducted their own search from 1850-1920, studying 25,000-50,000 Inuits a year. They also found no trace of cancer. Incidentally, they also found no heart disease, obesity, tooth decay or diabetes. You may be wondering if the Inuit had physiological differences that allowed them to eat this way. Stefansson wondered this as well and so in the early 1900s, under the supervision of the American Medical Association, he and his fellow researchers subsisted for several years on the Inuit diet, remaining healthy and strong with no sign of disease.
Other Traditional Cultures
Hundreds of other hunter-gatherer cultures have been studied, and while all obtained a portion of their calories from meat, many up to half their calories or more, cancer was rare if it existed at all. Take Sir Robert McCarrison’s study of the Asian Hunzas; he found the 11,000 people he examined to be entirely cancer-free. In contrast to the Inuits, they ate a plant-based diet but supplemented it with grass-fed dairy and a small amount of meat, including organ meat. There is also Dr. Eugene Payne, who over 25 years studied 60,000 natives in Brazil and Ecuador and found no evidence of cancer. And in 1913, Dr. Albert Schweitzer set up a hospital in Gabon, West Africa where he examined more than 10,000 natives and likewise found them to be cancer-free.
My Conclusion
There are many more studies and examples, but we all possess common sense and can ask questions and seek answers ourselves. My own research turned up this information. The world’s highest levels of beef are currently consumed in Uruguay, Argentina, and Hong Kong. I looked at beef because red meat is the variety most often implicated in cancer studies. But the world’s highest rates of colorectal cancer, the type most often linked to red meat consumption, are reported to be in Hungary, South Korea, and Slovakia. If meat is carcinogenic, shouldn’t the highest rate of meat-related cancer be in Uruguay or Argentina? Uruguay is 16th on the list and Argentina isn’t even in the top 25.
We all need to be wary of generalizations when they conflict with common sense, with regard to this question and all questions. No matter what experts tell us, our current understanding of food and its link to health is rudimentary; there is much we still don’t know. When we have questions, it can help to look to the past, and to respect and value the wisdom within the food ways and lifestyles of people who didn’t contract the diseases we’re trying to avoid.
It’s likely there is a link between the consumption of certain kinds of meat and cancer: meat that is charred or cooked at a high temperature, for example, or meats like cold cuts and sausages that are highly processed. It might be the chemicals in the meat, or it could be the processing methods or the way the animals are raised. It is also possible there are other factors at work when modern meat eaters get cancer. Regardless, the studies of traditional people and our common sense tell us that it is possible to be a meat eater and remain cancer free.
Copyright, Ellen Arian, Ellen’s Food & Soul