A recurring theme in professional health literature for many years, the role of red meat in a healthy diet continues to be at the forefront, due in part because of the scientific debate: Is red meat necessary in a balanced diet or is it detrimental to good health? In a Nursing Standard article, “The Role of Red Meat in a Balanced Diet,” Carrie Ruxton claims that a balanced diet that includes small amounts of lean red meat contributes to good health. Ruxton, a free-lance dietician, states that “lean red meat is unlikely to increase the risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, obesity and colorectal cancer” and that those diseases are due to eating processed meats that are salted or smoked, overeating and lack of exercise. While Ruxton covers the nutritional composition of raw lean meat and aims to offer insight on why red meat consumption is not contributing to obesity and disease, she falls short of being convincing for several reasons: she discounts a mountain of scientific studies that show a connection between red meat consumption and cardiovascular disease, obesity and cancer due to what she states are “methodological limitations of observational studies (that) make it impossible to establish cause and effect,” she does not account for economic limitations that preclude most consumers from being able to buy leaner cuts of red meat, and she barely mentions what makes a balanced diet, or that a combination of vegetables, fruits and whole grains, supplemented by vitamins and possibly eggs and milk products will provide an equally nutritious diet at a reduced cost, perhaps because the article was supported by a grant from the UK Meat Advisory Panel.
First, it is disturbing that Ruxton would summarily write off the r...
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Ingrid Newkirk in the essay, “I’m About to Eat Meat for the First Time in 40 Years (2012),” argues that eating meat is unethical because it causes unnecessary suffering to livestock and health problems to meat eaters, instead Newkirk advocates the consumption of vitro meat. Newkirk supports her argument by mentioning an anecdote of her childhood experience of hunting, preparing, and eating meat with her father who enjoyed to eat large proportion of meat; the purpose of mentioning this story is to connect to the toll of heavy meat consumption had on her father’s health and the brutal methods they harvested meat. Ingrid Newkirk’s purpose is to deter her audience on the thought of consuming meat by highlighting the health effects it might have,
However, Hare’s pro demi-vegetarian argument provides an unequivocal view on the discussion of economic, ecological, and moral topics. While the look into market trends of meat is lacking Hare discusses a reality of the meat industry and its food competitors, that being the cost behind animal rearing and husbandry. While the high costs incurred does not entail permissibility the surrounding circumstances do. If fodder is grown on terrain only suitable for a pasture, then as a result husbandry and animal domestication (and later slaughter) is permissible because the economic consequences of harvesting crops would greatly outweigh the benefits and as such the community improves more from the meat/animal byproduct industry. This economical and ecological argument is one of several that Hare provides in his article Why I Am Only A Demi-Vegetarian, in addition to the market term being coined and reasoning behind
The people they used for the big stories in this film had some sort of health issues already. They picked from ones that had high risks for heart disease or type two diabetes. They didn’t use people who aren’t at a high risk and don’t need to switch their diet. They failed at showing a direct link between how someone’s health is increased from eliminating meat. It only used people whose diets were full of junk food, not just meat. HB (1991), “Canadians are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of nutrition in their long-term health prospects. With this increased awareness, however, has come an abundance of misconceptions including the notion that meat is "bad" for you. In their haste to avoid saturated fat, physicians and the public alike have lost sight of the fact that lean meat in reasonable serving sizes poses no threat to health and is an extremely important source of many nutrients.” We heard plenty of stories of people who were on the verge of getting a heart disease, or had even had a heart attack or two. No one they used was on a normal diet who ate meat. Forks Over Knives (2011), “On my way over I drank these two red bulls, I also had a twelve-ounce coke and another half of a twelve-ounce coke. I haven’t always lived the healthiest life style, and I’ve eaten more than my share of fast food.” But one thing that stood out to me was the people they showed the results
Jonathan Safran Foer wrote “Eating Animals” for his son; although, when he started writing it was not meant to be a book (Foer). More specifically to decide whether he would raise his son as a vegetarian or meat eater and to decide what stories to tell his son (Foer). The book was meant to answer his question of what meat is and how we get it s well as many other questions. Since the book is a quest for knowledge about the meat we eat, the audience for this book is anyone that consumes food. This is book is filled with research that allows the audience to question if we wish to continue to eat meat or not and provide answers as to why. Throughout the book Foer uses healthy doses of logos and pathos to effectively cause his readers to question if they will eat meat at their next meal and meals that follow. Foer ends his book with a call to action that states “Consistency is not required, but engagement with the problem is.” when dealing with the problem of factory farming (Foer).
Roughly over 20% of 121,000 middle-aged men and women died over a period of 28 years during a study of red meat effects on the body (Harding). Beef, pork, lamb, mutton, and veal are all red meats. While these meats are rich in vitamins and protein, they can lose much of their benefits through cooking and processing. Limiting how much red meat an individual eats could add years to their life by avoiding heart disease, certain cancers, and diabetes. By simply replacing one meal weekly, that consists of red meat, for a meal that is poultry, fish, nuts, or vegetable based could reduce the risk of dying in middle aged years by 7 to 9% (Harding).
“The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that their treatment has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality."(Schopenhauer). I always wondered why some people are not so drawn to the consumption of meat and fed up with only one thought about it. Why so many people loathe of blood, and why so few people can easily kill and be slaughter animal, until they just get used to it? This reaction should say something about the most important moments in the code, which was programmed in the human psyche. Realization the necessity of refraining from meat is especially difficult because people consume it for a long time, and in addition, there is a certain attitude to the meat as to the product that is useful, nourishing and even prestigious. On the other hand, the constant consumption of meat has made the vast majority of people completely emotionless towards it. However, there must be some real and strong reasons for refusal of consumption of meat and as I noticed they were always completely different. So, even though vegetarianism has evolved drastically over time, some of its current forms have come back full circle to resemble that of its roots, when vegetarianism was an ethical-philosophical choice, not merely a matter of personal health.
In the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, the author talks about, not only vegetarianism, but reveals to us what actually occurs in the factory farming system. The issue circulating in this book is whether to eat meat or not to eat meat. Foer, however, never tries to convert his reader to become vegetarians but rather to inform them with information so they can respond with better judgment. Eating meat has been a thing that majority of us engage in without question. Which is why among other reasons Foer feels compelled to share his findings about where our meat come from. Throughout the book, he gives vivid accounts of the dreadful conditions factory farmed animals endure on a daily basis. For this reason Foer urges us to take a stand against factory farming, and if we must eat meat then we must adapt humane agricultural methods for meat production.
Today’s medical experts say that avoiding meat helps you avoid saturated fat. They have found out from studies that women who eat meat daily have a fifty percent greater risk of developing heart disease than vegetarian women and a sixty-eight percent greater risk in men (staff writer). People may not know about serious diseases meat can cause such as, mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth disease. In the September 1999 issue of the Emerging Infectious Diseases, approximately 76 million food-borne illnesses- resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths occur in the United States each year from improperly cooked or diseased meat (Licher). That is a lot of fun!
Is it morally permissible to eat meat? Much argument has arisen in the current society on whether it is morally permissible to eat meat. Many virtuous fruitarians and the other meat eating societies have been arguing about the ethics of eating meat (which results from killing animals). The important part of the dispute is based on the animal welfare, nutrition value from meat, convenience, and affordability of meat-based foods compared to vegetable-based foods and other factors like environmental moral code, culture, and religion. All these points are important in justifying whether humans are morally right when choosing to eat meat. This paper will argue that it is morally impermissible to eat meat by focusing on the treatment of animals, the environmental argument, animal rights, pain, morals, religion, and the law.
Many Americans are eating unhealthy diets in the typical American style characterized by lack of moderation. This average diet is defined by high contents of red meat and other fatty foods. Eating these types of food, and the following factor of being overweight, can lead to heart disease and other health problems. A vegetarian lifestyle, on the other hand, limits the intake of meat and other fatty animal products and is known to confer a wide range of health benefits. However, there are many different types of vegetarianism. First, there is the semi vegetarian, who is someone who simply limits meat intake to some degree, the lacto-ovovegetarian, who cuts out all meat, but not animal products such as cheese and eggs, and then the vegan, who chooses not to eat any animal products or byproducts such as honey or gelatin. Each type of vegetarianism has specific benefits, all of which outweigh the benefits of the average American’s diet. I am going to look primarily at the benefits of the lacto-ovovegetarian lifestyle. By eating this type of diet, Americans can balance out their food intake with more fruits, vegetables, and grains and create a diet that is healthier overall. A typical vegetarian diet closely matches expert dietary recommendations for healthy eating, being low in saturated fat and high in fiber, complex carbohydrates, and fresh fruit and vegetables (VSUK). A more balanced diet leads to a healthier lifestyle and a longer, happier life. Therefore, more Americans should be eating a vegetarian diet, specifically a lacto-ovovegetarian style.
The health benefits of a vegetarian diet are hard to ignore. Vegetarians have a lower chance of developing many diseases, such as cancer and diabetes. Women who eat meat daily are more likely to develop breast cancer. According to an article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, “consumption of well-done meats and, thus, exposures to heterocyclic amines (or other compounds) formed during high-temperature cooking may play an important role in the risk of breast cancer.” Men are also more than almost more likely to develop prostate cancer than those who do not include meat in their everyday diets. “Up to 80 percent of prostate cancer is attributed to dietary practices, and international comparisons show strong positive associations with meat consumption” (Alexander, 2010). Vegetarians have also shown to have lower blood pressure, better digestion, and more energy than humans with a meat based diet. The effects of a vegetarian life style ...
Let me begin with the words by George Bernard Shaw: ‘Animals are my friends and I don’t eat my friends’. This indicates the ethic aspect of meat consumption. In fact, people often don’t realize how animals are treated, but they can see commercial spots in their TV showing smiling pigs, cows or chickens, happy and ready to be eaten. My impression is that there can’t be anything more cruel and senseless. It is no secret that animals suffer ...
The only way to stay healthy and continue eating meat is to put a limit on the amount of meat we consume. Unfortunately, nowadays most people are often tempted by the taste and appearance of the meat products on the market and it is very difficult for them to resist. That is why the solution to a balanced diet can not be practically used. Moreover, it has been recently proven that many diseases are commonly prevented, consistently improved, and often cured by a low-fat vegetarian diet. Among them are diseases such as kidney stones, prostate cancer, breast cancer, stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, colon cancer, arthritis, osteoporosis, strokes, diabetes, peptic ulcers, obesity, hemmorrhoids, salmonellosis, and many others (American Heart Association)....