Will red meat really kill you?

A recent study in the Archives of Internal Medicine correlates eating any type of red meat with a higher risk of mortality. This 20-year study followed 110,000 adults and concluded that eating red meat of any kind may be risky. The lead author of the study, An Pan, said in an interview that "Any red meat you eat contributes to the risk."

Does this mean we all have to stop eating red meat at the risk of dropping dead? Probably not. The authors of the study themselves suggest modest dietary changes (eat red meat a couple times a week instead of every day) rather than red meat abstinence. Despite what may be suggested by many news organizations' headlines, this study does NOT establish a causative relationship between eating red meat and death. Instead, they have correlated these two things. Other factors may be at play.

There are other valid criticisms of the study, or at least limitations on what can be concluded given the data at hand. The authors do not differentiate between unprocessed and processed meat (things like bologna, bacon, and hot dogs) in the study. Since processed meats have already been shown to increase your risks for certain diseases, these specific types of meat may be more to blame than the unprocessed sort. Also, the study relies on self-reported data, which is not always the most accurate way to judge human behavior. Via BoingBoing, a great explanation of the study, what it has found, and what it has not found, is located here. It's recommended reading for all carnivores.

The take home message seems to be that, for now, although we're not certain that eating red meat will harm you, it seems to be correlated with an increased risk of death. We do know that consuming certain types of red meat is likely to increase your risk of certain diseases, so it's a good idea to reduce your intake to no more than a couple times a week, and to balance it out with other types of protein as well as lots of fruits and vegetables, the consumption of which seem to be correlated with good health outcomes.

Since meat is also expensive, calorie-dense, and producing it is environmentally taxing, that seems to be pretty good advice for your health, your wallet, and the environment.

(Image: Beef!, a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 image from Michael Cannon's photostream)

Pizza is still a vegetable.

Today the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) introduced new guidelines for school lunches, intended to make the lunches healthier. These new guidelines, including limiting the caloric range for school lunches and requiring that each lunch have at least two servings of vegetables, seem like a step in the right direction. Despite all of the general pats on the back I see going around the internet, however, the guidelines are still far from perfect. Thanks to agri-business lobbies in congress, the tomato paste in pizza is still counted as a vegetable, and the proposal to limit servings of french fries (another "vegetable") did not make the cut. Baby steps, congress, baby steps...

A Rose by Any Other Name...

Sorry I have been absent for so long, fair readers, but I return to you with a victorious new title: Dr. ScienceandtheCity! Now that the thesis writing is over, the science can re-commence.

Interesting news comes to us from all over the interwebs, that the US Corn Refiners Association (USCRA) has petitioned the FDA to change the name of "High fructose corn syrup" to "Corn sugar." This move angers many who are against the corn industry and highly processed foods, many of which contain this highly processed sweetener. HFCS has been in the news many times before, and has been covered previously on this blog.

Although HFCS is, as BoingBoing points out, not particularly high in fructose and so not really well named, this name change is obviously a rebranding effort by HFCS producers now that the majority of Americans think that HFCS is not desirable in their food. In spite of its already misleading name, allowing the USCRA to rename corn syrup is just allowing them to further confuse an already confused food-consuming populace.

HFCS is made by milling and processing corn to produce corn starch, then further processing this starch into syrup by breaking up the starch into its component sugars with the enzymes alpha-amylase and glucoamylase. This corn syrup is composed mostly of glucose, a mono-saccharide. Xylose isomerase is then added, which is an enzyme that converts the glucose into fructose, another mono-saccharide. The syrup is now about 42% glucose, and it is subjected to liquid chromatography to further purify the fructose-rich portion so that is it about 90% fructose. This syrup, now called HFCS 90, is then back blended with higher-glucose syrups to the desired fructose concentration (usually 42 or 55%). There are also several other filtration and purification steps that I have left out.

Of course, any refined sugar is bad for you in excess. Some groups have called for banning HFCS, but I think that's going too far. Far be it from me to say the government should tell us all what to eat. So, what is so bad about HFCS, and why is it seemingly in everything?

Let's be clear: HFCS, no matter what it is called, is bad news. In terms of health effects, it has been linked to obesity over the course of the past three decades that it has been in use (1), and studies in laboratory animals have suggested that it is less healthy than sucrose (2) (table sugar), although it remains to be seen if HFCS is any worse than any other refined sweetener in humans. It has also been linked to mercury contamination, possibly from the manufacturing process. However, no refined sweetener is good for you in excess, and eating too much sugar of any kind can increase your risk of diabetes. From a health standpoint, I don't think a little HFCS is going to make you sick. The problem is, it's in almost every type of processed food, so Americans have trouble eating just a little bit of HFCS. Because it is so cheap, some suggest that this causes overconsumption of HFCS-sweetened foods (a bottle of soda is often cheaper than a bottle of a healthier beverage).

Why is HFCS so prevalent? There is a simple answer: it's cheap. However, as with most things, there is also a more complicated answer. The root cause of HFCS's inexpensiveness, and thus its overuse, is grossly bloated corn subsidies paid to the one or two companies that control all of the corn production in the US as well as tariffs on import of sugar. In effect, US taxpayers are paying to subsidize something that has become so overused that it makes us sick. However, another effect of these subsidies is to allow us all to enjoy cheap beef, dairy and processed foods, which most Americans like. The issues surrounding the politics of the corn industry are worth discussing, but are too complex for me to to justice to  here, so I'll leave that for another post.

So, what can we do? The only real solution to this problem is to educate and encourage consumers to purchase more non-processed foods and also to cut corn subsidies. The first part of this plan is already at work. More and more people are paying attention to what they purchase and eat. The USCRA's response is to try to pull the wool over our eyes one more time by renaming HFCS, but consumers have already been tipped off. Hopefully public pressure to stop our tax money from funding this questionably ethical business is on the horizon, as well as a solid federally-funded nutrition education program in all of our public schools. After all, HFCS, by any other name, still tastes as sweet, and still is bad for all of us.


(1) Hilary Parker (March 22, 2010). "A sweet problem: Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain". Princeton University.
(2) Hilary Parker (March 22, 2010). "A sweet problem: Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain". Princeton Unveristy.

Marion Nestle and the Future of Food

The Kitchn has a rundown of a recent talk by Dr. Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at NYU. Apparently, good news - she thinks we (meaning our society) are not all doomed to die of diabetes, as long as we stop eating so much processed corn by-products. Word.