I knew this answer would attract the most conservative minds and the lovers of 1970s nutritional theories spread by grandparents and hairdresser magazines. I hoped for quality arguments; instead, we got the same level as the nazi-vegans.
The rhetoric to dismantle
Quick tip: cherry-picking random studies while ignoring multiple confirmations from different disciplines is not science. It's called confirmation bias.
When a serious meta-study concludes that "vegetarians have a lower risk of dying from ischemic heart disease than non-vegetarians," some people tell me this conclusion isn't really about death, just about a higher risk of getting sick, which has nothing to do with death. I had no idea that the risk of illness wasn't causally related to death.
Or they say: "Vegetarians aren't healthier because they don't eat meat — they're healthier because they have a healthier overall lifestyle." Excuse me? So on one hand, you're saying diet can't be linked to health, but on the other, you're linking status to health? You establish causality however it suits you.
And ultimately: you're telling me that more educated people don't eat meat while others do, and simultaneously advising me to follow the second group. In what universe should I imitate those at the margins rather than those who win?
The facts
We need to stop using relativism on topics where evidence has been clear for decades. Let's repeat a rule: just because we did something as children doesn't make it right. And it's not right just because we were told nonsense to defend it. Habit doesn't make truth.
It's not that only red meat is harmful. Red meat is simply expressly carcinogenic. While other meats are correlated with lower life expectancy at varying rates depending on type.
Does eating meat harm you? No, if you eat it once a month or so.
Does eating meat harm you? Yes, if you eat it every two or three days.
Who says so? Every serious meta-study from recent years. The first one I found was from 1998. Not exactly yesterday.
Common sense
How much meat did our species eat before automated farming, near-free antibiotics, and modern capitalist economies? Little. Very little in many historical periods. None at all in others.
Meat is hard to obtain without a highly developed economy. And it costs a fortune without states subsidizing its wildly inefficient supply chain: extracting calories and protein from animals that eat plants defies the laws of thermodynamics compared to getting them directly from plants.
Look at all other primates. How much meat do they eat? Very little. Gorillas, almost none. Yet they're intelligent. They have big brains requiring lots of energy — energy better absorbed from carbohydrates than from meat protein.
Are we really the exception despite sharing 98% of our DNA with them? That would be extraordinary.
For those who don't believe in science
Go look with your own eyes at who has more risk of irritable bowel syndrome and ask oncologists who faces higher risk for certain cancers. Vegans? Ha. Right.
Is it a coincidence that when cancer arrives, the first advice is to switch to a vegetarian diet? Quite a coincidence indeed.
Seriously: let's stop fooling ourselves. Things are simple once you stop letting tradition and nonsense mess with your head.
PS: Humans do perfectly fine eating meat occasionally. The problem is Western frequency, not the food itself.
