I mean, even without this, processed red meat being a problem isn’t exactly news. It’s one of the very few things in IARC Group 1 which can legally be sold as food, for a start.
That would be a short and brutal war resulting in the total defeat of the Vegan army. If it somehow were to develop into a longer conflict the Carnivores would target the supplement factories and storage facilities in Vegania upon which they could just wait before the Vegan army succumbed to malnutrition.
The Vegan Army were beaten back by the initial Carnivore attacks. But they started to turn the tide. By using the fallen Carnivores as mulch in their gardens, the plants became more fruitful.
The Vegans knew they only had to hold out long enough, time was on their side as the Carnivores began to die from Heart Attacks and Strokes and various metabolic diseases. They only needed patience as the carnivores succumbed to their own bad habits.
Sadly, most Carnivores were also well armed, and being Carnivores, could eat the Vegans. So the battle carries on, with the Vegans, while healthier, remain hiding in small enclaves.
The failure of the supplement denial strategy puzzled the Carnivore leadership at first so they sent out spies into Vegania. It did not take them long to find the reason for this failure: Vegania's veganism turned out to be no more than a façade, a mock religion pushed and promoted by the leadership of the country in an attempt to hide their failure and abuse of power and privilege. They used this discovery to deadly effect when they released video recordings of lavish parties held by Vegan leaders where they indulged in all that is forbidden according to Vegan standards. From pit-roasted boar to flame-broiled burger, they captured them all in grisly detail and caused these images to be distributed far and wide.
While most inhabitants of Vegania also violated the rules and regulations of their creed - which explained the failure of the supplement denial campaign - they had assumed that their leaders at least would show restraint. They felt betrayed by their betters, they were promised a better world but that promise turned out to be hollow. What started with a trickle soon became a flood and within a few short months Vegania was but a side note in the history books. Some Vegans joined the Carnivores, most turned to the Vegetarians. The world was at peace, for a while...
Scene:
A father and son, standing on a dock about to board a ship, distant explosions startle the boy. The Vegania Army is in collapse and the Carnivores were closing in, and looked hungry. Many Vegenia solders whispered amongst themselves ('they have a lot of guns, but they sure look fat and winded. Maybe we should have taken those record gun sales more seriously')
boy: "Father, why are we leaving"
father: "They have started rounding up scientist and sending them to re-education camps to force them to learn how to BBQ, and cook steaks correctly".
boy: "I'm scared".
father: "I heard that one guy cooked a steak well done, and they forced him to eat hot dogs".
- boy whimpers, as another explosion sounds close by
boy: "but papa, is it true what they say about supplements? Tell me the truth".
father: "no son, B12 is produced by the plants that the cows eat".
boy: "but what about collagen and creatine, surely those are only from animals"
father: "son, we are animals, and we produce our own collagen and creatine. When eaten in a suppliment, the body breaks them down into amino acids that can also be found in plants directly".
father: "we were sabotaged by our own people. junk food vegans distorted the studies. and the agriculture industry over-farmed the soil so it no longer has all the minerals that went into the plants of our forefathers, nor into the animals that eat the plants"
boy:(looking up wistfully with a tear) "Why can't we tell them. Is there nothing we can do to let them know"
father: "We will be back. They are collapsing, dying in droves, their health care systems collapsing under the weight of the dead. They wont survive long. Maybe the next generation can learn"
son: "papa, do you really think so".
(Sadly the father looks around, as explosions come closer, he hears the ravenous yells of the hungry carnivores. He puts his hand on his sons shoulder to quickly guide him onto the ship that will take them out to sea in search of more enlightened lands. His own shoulders slouch as he knows that ignorance grips most of the world and there is little hope of finding a friendly port).
I can see by your coat, my friend
You're from the other side
There's just one thing I got to know
Can you tell me please, who won?
Say, can I have some of your purple berries?
Yes, I've been eating them for six or seven weeks now
Haven't got sick once
Probably keep us both alive
Horror grips us as we watch you die
All we can do is echo your anguished cries
Stare as all human feelings die
We are leaving, you don't need us
Go, take your sister then, by the hand
Lead her away from this foreign land
Far away, where we might laugh again
We are leaving, you don't need us
And it's a fair wind blowin' warm
Out of the south over my shoulder
Guess I'll set a course and go
Did the Carnivores knew most livestocks are heavenly supplemented? Their attack on the B12 temple broke the nutriments source of their future meal and soon the only live-meat remaining was the 100% free range one, basically almost nothing. Some carnivores became defacto vegan, some other fight against each other for who gonna get the meat.
Vegans tried to eat some dirt, hopping to get some holly B12 bacteria from it.
Sadly, this is another garbage study that you should ignore.
Why garbage? For 2 main reason.
First reason: the methodology. They way those correlation studies work is that they study large number of people (here 130k) over long period (here "up to 43 years").
They want to study "effect of X on Y". Here X is "consumption of red meat, processed or not" and Y is "dementia".
So what they do is they periodically ask "how much of X do you do". In this case apparently "how many servings of processed red meat you eat per month", "how many servings of unprocessed red meat".
Would be able to tell a precise "how many servings of processed red meat you eat per month"? Like, what is "processed meat"? What is "serving"?
If you're not taking meticulous notes you have not hope of answering this precisely, from memory. And let's face it, those 130k people are not fastidious scientists, they just answer a periodic survey that has no importance to them.
The opposite of "precise" is garbage. And garbage data leads to garbage conclusions.
Second reason: confounding of factors. No controlling for other variables. What if dementia is affected by heavy drinking, heavy smoking, drug use, lack of muscles or excessive sugar / carb intake?
What if heavy drinking is the real causation with 54% increase in dementia and the 14% correlation is purely coincidental i.e. in this particular 130k population, heavy drinkers are also eaters of processed meat?
You should ignore all those kinds of studies. They are all garbage.
There's also a general strand of anti-meat studies.
When you study "effect of eating X on bad outcome Y", then you'll find a correlation to something at some point. It's just a matter of time. The more studies you do, the more likely you'll find a spurious correlation.
Somehow the studies of "eating meat causes bad Y" get a lot of press, including landing on HN page. When was the last time you've seen a similar study for vegan diet or drinking soda or eating candy?
> Would be able to tell a precise "how many servings of processed red meat you eat per month"? Like, what is "processed meat"? What is "serving"?
If I were to do it every month for 43 years, I'd probably become pretty good at it.
Your complaint is that it's a self-reporting study. Sure, not very rigorous, but the article doesn't say it was only based on self-reporting.
> And let's face it, those 130k people are not fastidious scientists, they just answer a periodic survey that has no importance to them.
How do you know?
> Second reason: confounding of factors. No controlling for other variables.
What's your source? The NYTimes page doesn't link to the paper (claiming it's not published yet,) and since they're not even mentioning who the author is, it seems strange that they would go into confounding variables.
This is a terrible article, because I can't say anything about whether the study is worth following up or not, and I agree with others it shouldn't be on HN (until published). You had a much more tangible take-away, and I'm curious how.
I don't see how you can draw that conclusion. The article about the study is garbage for sure, but that's hardly evidence that the study itself is garbage.
Maybe the article is so bad because the study is bad, or maybe it's just NYT misrepresenting it.
"Somehow the studies of "eating meat causes bad Y" get a lot of press, including landing on HN page. When was the last time you've seen a similar study for vegan diet or drinking soda or eating candy?"
This study was on processed food. NOT MEAT.
Junk Food Vegan studies also find problems with processed foods.
There are plenty of studies posted on soda and candy. Probably so many that it isn't news anymore.
Right from the article, plenty of references for your 'vegan' bias to chew on:
"like soy protein isolate, high fructose corn syrup, modified starches, flavorings or color additives. Many of these foods also have high levels of sugar, fat or sodium, which have long been known to adversely affect health. sodas, flavored yogurts, instant soups and most breakfast cereals, make up a huge part of the American diet."
I expect this "red meat inherently bad" paper to be rebuked faster than the previous one, which lasted quite a while. Of course even retracted if there are still people with integrity in academia.(which I'm sure exist but as a tiny minority when we're talking industries of mass consumption: tobacco, foods, pharma, etc.)
28 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 65.5 ms ] threadIt isn't 'all' meat that is bad.
Either Vegan or Carnivore can be good as long as they are un-processed.
You can be a junk-food vegan and unhealthy And You can eat bacon all day and be carnivore, and unhealthy.
This puts more emphasis on whole foods. Eat as close to source as possible.
Here's how to make a smoke sausage:
This matches the definition of "processed meat".The other way to make sausage, the industrial process, involves adding a bunch of chemicals to make it more shelf stable and god knows what else.
It's the chemicals that are harmful, not the meat or salt.
can be a problem, at least from a carcinogenic pov.
That would be a short and brutal war resulting in the total defeat of the Vegan army. If it somehow were to develop into a longer conflict the Carnivores would target the supplement factories and storage facilities in Vegania upon which they could just wait before the Vegan army succumbed to malnutrition.
The Vegans knew they only had to hold out long enough, time was on their side as the Carnivores began to die from Heart Attacks and Strokes and various metabolic diseases. They only needed patience as the carnivores succumbed to their own bad habits.
Sadly, most Carnivores were also well armed, and being Carnivores, could eat the Vegans. So the battle carries on, with the Vegans, while healthier, remain hiding in small enclaves.
While most inhabitants of Vegania also violated the rules and regulations of their creed - which explained the failure of the supplement denial campaign - they had assumed that their leaders at least would show restraint. They felt betrayed by their betters, they were promised a better world but that promise turned out to be hollow. What started with a trickle soon became a flood and within a few short months Vegania was but a side note in the history books. Some Vegans joined the Carnivores, most turned to the Vegetarians. The world was at peace, for a while...
boy: "Father, why are we leaving"
father: "They have started rounding up scientist and sending them to re-education camps to force them to learn how to BBQ, and cook steaks correctly".
boy: "I'm scared".
father: "I heard that one guy cooked a steak well done, and they forced him to eat hot dogs".
- boy whimpers, as another explosion sounds close by
boy: "but papa, is it true what they say about supplements? Tell me the truth".
father: "no son, B12 is produced by the plants that the cows eat".
boy: "but what about collagen and creatine, surely those are only from animals"
father: "son, we are animals, and we produce our own collagen and creatine. When eaten in a suppliment, the body breaks them down into amino acids that can also be found in plants directly".
father: "we were sabotaged by our own people. junk food vegans distorted the studies. and the agriculture industry over-farmed the soil so it no longer has all the minerals that went into the plants of our forefathers, nor into the animals that eat the plants"
boy:(looking up wistfully with a tear) "Why can't we tell them. Is there nothing we can do to let them know"
father: "We will be back. They are collapsing, dying in droves, their health care systems collapsing under the weight of the dead. They wont survive long. Maybe the next generation can learn"
son: "papa, do you really think so".
(Sadly the father looks around, as explosions come closer, he hears the ravenous yells of the hungry carnivores. He puts his hand on his sons shoulder to quickly guide him onto the ship that will take them out to sea in search of more enlightened lands. His own shoulders slouch as he knows that ignorance grips most of the world and there is little hope of finding a friendly port).
Vegans tried to eat some dirt, hopping to get some holly B12 bacteria from it.
So why is this here?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/31/well/eat/ultraprocessed-f...
Why garbage? For 2 main reason.
First reason: the methodology. They way those correlation studies work is that they study large number of people (here 130k) over long period (here "up to 43 years").
They want to study "effect of X on Y". Here X is "consumption of red meat, processed or not" and Y is "dementia".
So what they do is they periodically ask "how much of X do you do". In this case apparently "how many servings of processed red meat you eat per month", "how many servings of unprocessed red meat".
Would be able to tell a precise "how many servings of processed red meat you eat per month"? Like, what is "processed meat"? What is "serving"?
If you're not taking meticulous notes you have not hope of answering this precisely, from memory. And let's face it, those 130k people are not fastidious scientists, they just answer a periodic survey that has no importance to them.
The opposite of "precise" is garbage. And garbage data leads to garbage conclusions.
Second reason: confounding of factors. No controlling for other variables. What if dementia is affected by heavy drinking, heavy smoking, drug use, lack of muscles or excessive sugar / carb intake?
What if heavy drinking is the real causation with 54% increase in dementia and the 14% correlation is purely coincidental i.e. in this particular 130k population, heavy drinkers are also eaters of processed meat?
You should ignore all those kinds of studies. They are all garbage.
There's also a general strand of anti-meat studies.
When you study "effect of eating X on bad outcome Y", then you'll find a correlation to something at some point. It's just a matter of time. The more studies you do, the more likely you'll find a spurious correlation.
Somehow the studies of "eating meat causes bad Y" get a lot of press, including landing on HN page. When was the last time you've seen a similar study for vegan diet or drinking soda or eating candy?
If I were to do it every month for 43 years, I'd probably become pretty good at it.
Your complaint is that it's a self-reporting study. Sure, not very rigorous, but the article doesn't say it was only based on self-reporting.
> And let's face it, those 130k people are not fastidious scientists, they just answer a periodic survey that has no importance to them.
How do you know?
> Second reason: confounding of factors. No controlling for other variables.
What's your source? The NYTimes page doesn't link to the paper (claiming it's not published yet,) and since they're not even mentioning who the author is, it seems strange that they would go into confounding variables.
This is a terrible article, because I can't say anything about whether the study is worth following up or not, and I agree with others it shouldn't be on HN (until published). You had a much more tangible take-away, and I'm curious how.
To the GP's point, that would make this garbage.
Maybe the article is so bad because the study is bad, or maybe it's just NYT misrepresenting it.
/s
There are set questionnaires that are filled out on some short period, weekly, monthly, etc... so there is a lot of data.
Self reporting has problems. But this is more to get broad trends, such that more detailed studies can zero in on any interesting findings.
Joking?
So science without observation? No exploration?
Sure, correlation isn't causation, how pedantic, but it can be an indicator.
Yes, canaries in coal mines are not killed by evil spirits, but dying was indicating something to investigate.
This sounds more like an anti-science bot.
This study was on processed food. NOT MEAT.
Junk Food Vegan studies also find problems with processed foods.
There are plenty of studies posted on soda and candy. Probably so many that it isn't news anymore.
Right from the article, plenty of references for your 'vegan' bias to chew on:
"like soy protein isolate, high fructose corn syrup, modified starches, flavorings or color additives. Many of these foods also have high levels of sugar, fat or sodium, which have long been known to adversely affect health. sodas, flavored yogurts, instant soups and most breakfast cereals, make up a huge part of the American diet."