OAN Brooke Mallory
UPDATED 12:24 PM – Monday, May 1, 2023
Scientists have recently banded together to warn that meat is essential for a healthy diet, while simultaneously urging those they referred to as “zealots” to quit imposing vegetarian and vegan eating habits on people.
An initiative that claims cattle farming is too vital to “become the victim of zealotry” has nearly 1,000 academics from top universities across the globe as signers and endorsers.
This knowledge comes at a time when proponents of vegan and plant-based diets are making a much stronger push, with campaigns like “Veganuary” and “Meatless Mondays” that have been adopted at universities and high school cafeterias all throughout the United States.
Numerous experts investigated the evidence supporting recent claims that eating meat is bad for the environment and causes a multitude of diseases, as part of a collaboration effort between professional animal science societies that was published in “Animal Frontiers,” an academic journal.
The four included animal science societies are the American Meat Science Association, the American Society of Animal Science, the Canadian Society of Animal Science, and the European Federation of Animal Science. Animal Frontiers is their official scientific journal.
The medical journal, The Lancet, had reported in the past that a red meat-majority diet was to blame for 896,000 deaths worldwide, in a publication titled “The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factor Study published in 2020.”
Alice Stanton, a professor and scientist from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and one of the authors of the review, indicated that peer-reviewed evidence demonstrated that the Global Burden study’s claim was “fatally scientifically flawed.”
It is now being reported that unprocessed meat provides our bodies with retinol, vitamin B12, omega-3 fatty acids, and crucial minerals such as iron and zinc, according to the published research in Animal Frontiers.
The new research also showed that the nutritional value of meat is extremely challenging to duplicate, especially in lower income areas.
Individuals who consume very little meat and reside in less affluent neighborhoods frequently have a variety of nutrient-deficient issues like stunted growth, anemia, and low weight-for-height, according to The Telegraph.
The study claimed that when red meat was included in a balanced diet, the relationship between red meat and disease was almost completely eliminated, leading to the concurrent hypothesis that health problems are actually caused by other factors in someone’s diet and lifestyle.
“Animal-source foods are superior to plant-source foods at simultaneously supplying several bioavailable micronutrients and high-quality macronutrients that are critical for growth and cognitive development,” said Adegbola T. Adesogan, director of the University of Florida’s Global Food Systems Institute.
“Removing fresh meat and dairy from diets would harm human health. Women, children, the elderly and [people on] low income would be particularly negatively impacted,” Stanton maintained.
“Livestock-derived foods provide a variety of essential nutrients and other health-promoting compounds, many of which are lacking in diets even among those populations with higher incomes…. Well-resourced individuals may be able to achieve adequate diets while heavily restricting meat, dairy, and eggs, however, this approach should not be recommended for general populations,” the declaration stated.
Professor Wilhelm Windisch of the Technical University of Munich, another research author of the report, included more findings and information as well.
“One-size-fits-all agendas, such as the drastic reductions of livestock numbers, could incur environmental and nutritional consequences on a massive scale,” Windisch concluded.
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