Earlier this week, results from a study looking at the correlation of red meat consumption and mortality was released, and then we saw a bunch of articles being like “omg red meat kills you”:
All red meat is risky, a study finds
Study: Too much red meat may shorten lifespan
The Silent Killer: New Study Suggests Eating Red Meat Poses Serious Health Risks
and then of course, whenever anyone attacks red meat, butt-hole Cross Fitters feel the need to defend it with snarky articles like Will Eating Red Meat Kill You? where the main argument is “u guys r so stupid this is a correlation study that doesn’t prove causation and the study’s not perfect.”
Or you’ll just get a Facebook post from Martin Berkhan that looks like this:
Go look up the meaning of “correlation does not imply causation” before asking me to debunk the latest red meat scaremongering BS.
But can we all take a step back for a second and look at what we’re talking about? The study was led by guys like Dr. Frank Hu. I never personally met the guy, but from his picture, he looks halfway nice, and he does things like try to help people with diseases like heart disease and obesity… disease. They got a giant sample of people and noticed that there was a link between mortality and eating red meat. This is probably pretty important for people that look like this (probably also their main audience):
Then, a bunch of people that look like this were all like, “what? I eat red meat all the time, I never got mortality! You’re a charlatan!”
Look at them! They’re laughing when they deadlift! Do you have any idea how much weight that is??? One does not laugh when one lifts that much weight!
Yes, if you look like that and have that much weight on a barbell, you can probably eat red meat. Sorry if the honor of your meat choice was somehow sullied.
In defense of the study though – they weren’t trying to trick you. They did even say:
Men and women with higher intake of red meat were less likely to be physically active and were more likely to be current smokers, to drink alcohol, and to have a higher body mass index. In addition, a higher red meat intake was associated with a higher intake of total energy but lower intakes of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.
They explain that other variables are in play here, and they are not implying that red meat alone is killing people. They’re just saying that if you look like this, then you may want to reconsider some things:
A few last notes: I like Mark’s Daily Apple and Martin Berkhan, and I am a big fan of red meat, which I’ve been eating almost on a daily basis since my last asshole doctor told me it was bad for me. I also am a big fan of writing snarky responses to things, but since people beat me to the punch to write an article about how the news seems to be overreacting to it (which is way better than a blog post that I would’ve written), I had to write a snarky blog post about how people are overreacting to the news overreacting about it.
