Is red meat OK after all?

2nd October 2019

The Sun’s headline states that “Bacon’s safe... no ifs or butties!” But before you turn on the grill, we look behind the headlines at this controversial coverage.

A study has concluded people don’t need to cut back on red and processed meat for health reasons – but most experts believe this conclusion is wrong.

This ‘research’ is not based on new data, but five reviews analysing previously published evidence on how eating red or processed meat affects your health. “For the majority of people, but not everyone, continuing their red and processed meat consumption is the right approach,” says lead author Bradley Johnston, an associate professor of community health and epidemiology at Canada’s Dalhousie University.

But many experts disagree. While some praise the “meticulous analysis”, others suggested the reviews could be “unhelpful”, “misleading” and “harmful” to the public.

The BHF view

Tracy Parker, Senior Dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, said: “How much red and processed meat we should be eating has been up for debate for decades, but our advice hasn’t changed.

“Most of us could benefit from eating less meat and including more plant-based protein in our diets, such as lentils, nuts and seeds, as well as fruit, vegetables and wholegrains.

“These foods make up the traditional Mediterranean diet, which has been linked to a reduced risk of heart and circulatory diseases.

How much red meat should you eat?

The current recommendations for the UK (in terms of effects on human health rather than the environment) aim to keep our intake of red and processed meat to 70g or less a day. This is largely based on the relationship between red meat and bowel cancer. However, red and processed meat is a source of saturated fat and processed meats are often high in salt. Too much saturated fat is linked to increased non-HDL (‘bad’) cholesterol and a high salt intake is linked to raised blood pressure – both risk factors for heart and circulatory disease.

The current recommendations for the UK...aim to keep our intake of red and processed meat to 70g or less a day.

Red meat includes beef, lamb, pork and goat, whereas chicken and turkey are white meats. Processed meats include salami and sausages and contain added salt and other preservatives.

The World Health Organization has classified processed meat as a carcinogen, with strong links to bowel cancer.

Dr Giota Mitrou, Director of Research at World Cancer Research Fund, says “The public could be put at risk if they interpret this new recommendation to mean we can continue eating as much red and processed meat as they like… The message people need to hear is that we should be eating no more than three portions of red meat a week and eat little, if any, processed meat.”

Eating meat can have an impact both on our health and the environment, which is why it’s important to make the right choices – and why more people are choosing to cut down.

How good are the reviews?

The reviews were compiled by a panel of 14 people, led by Dalhousie University and McMaster University in Canada. Three of these reviewers voted against the final recommendations.

The authors summarise existing research, but use different methods to assess its quality. They used a system to rate the quality of the existing evidence, giving more weight to randomised controlled trials – where one group receives an intervention and another group doesn’t. But most nutrition research is observational, since it is ethically and logistically difficult to ask people to change their eating habits for the extent and time they would need to in a randomised control trial. This meant the authors had to dismiss large amounts of data.

The authors admitted that their findings don’t seriously challenge current recommendations

Dr David Nunan, Senior Researcher at the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, University of Oxford, said: “Overall, the science that tries to answer the question ‘What is the effect of red and processed meat consumption on health outcomes?’, at present, is weak and as such is open to different interpretations.” The authors admitted that their findings don’t seriously challenge current recommendations, and they don’t recommend an increase in meat consumption.

The reviews also looked at research on people’s views about meat consumption. This – perhaps unsurprisingly – suggested that people who eat meat are generally not willing to reduce their consumption, but used this to justify that experts shouldn’t recommend change.

Professor Susan Jebb, Professor of Diet and Population Health at the University of Oxford, said: “On this basis we wouldn’t make many – if any – dietary recommendations. How many people want to eat less chocolate or fewer biscuits, or drink less alcohol either? This information serves to emphasise that dietary change is difficult to achieve because it isn’t always popular, but it is not a good justification for inaction given that a poor diet is the greatest modifiable risk factor for ill-health.”

How good was the news coverage?

A lot of the news coverage did reflect the fact that many experts disagree with the conclusions the researchers drew. But the Sun headline “Bacon’s safe... no ifs or butties!” is not an accurate summary of the story, although it did include more detail in the article itself.

The Express coverage mentioned the fact that a different study published in May, from Oxford researchers, found that even small amounts of red and processed meat – such as a rasher of bacon a day – can increase your risk of bowel cancer.