Is Meat nutritious even though it lacks vitamin C?
How nutritious food is really depends on context. Potatoes cover a larger percentage of our nutritious needs than Bananas. Bananas however cover a few things lacking in normal western diets so we think of them as nutritious.
I think it would be fair to say meat lacks nutrition if it were advertised as an orange substitute. That’s the “context” you’re talking about. Meat substitutes aren’t true substitutes for meat without bio-available iron.
'Vegitarian Meat', if we are talking about it's role in a diet, is a flavor/texture substitute, not a nutritional substitute. If it wasn't about the flavor, there would be pretty much no reason to buy it.
If you want to pretend it is a nutritional substitute for meat, people on average suffer much more from too much, as opposed to too little, of what meat has, so it's still not really a problem.
I don't think you can really separate nutrition from flavor/texture. For instance, I cook dinner for my children every night. I want to cook tasty, flavorful food, but I also want my kids to receive adequate nutrition. Perhaps one day I'm at the store and see a meat substitute that's better for the environment. I think it's important to understand that, nutritionally, the substitute is deficient compared to meat.
This is a very common thing that comes up with nut "milks." You can find an endless stream of graphs and charts that highlight how much better nut "milks" are compared to cows milk. However, the graphs never ever ever include a comparison of the nutrient content. Sure, you can say adults get too much of everything, but the same is not true for children. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends 2-3 8oz cups of milk a day for children under 5. It would be a equivalent to give your children nut "milk" instead.
> I don't think you can really separate nutrition from flavor/texture.
You shouldn't, but you most certainly can. Cake and cookies exist.
Also, you're just hand-waving away the fact that most adults in the US don't suffer from malnutrition, and the one that do often eat lots of meat. A healthy diet is just as much about what you aren't eating.
The point is that the consumers who are purchasing vegetarian meats are probably either:
1. Already vegetarian and the vegetarian meat isn't replacing foods with those nutrients because the rest of their diet already covers it
2. Omnivores looking to remove some meat from their diets, who are still getting iron and zinc from the meat that they do consume
For a variety of reasons, essentially nobody is finding themselves subsisting on a diet where vegetarian meats replace their only (or primary) sources of iron and zinc.
I don’t think vegetarians are really looking for Iron as Spinach provides as much as Meat.
Meat substitutes are about flavor and mouth feel not nutrition, but for those with excess iron (Hemochromatosis) I am sure they will appreciate the option. Which again shows how nutrition exists in context not isolation.
> ... studies have shown that the absorption of dietary nonheme iron in rats is much higher and less responsive to dietary variables than in human subjects.
“(Bezwoda, Bothwell, Charlton et al.) the bioavailability of heme iron was measured to be about 20%, while the availability of non-heme iron varied between 6% and 18% depending on the amount of iron present in the meal.”
Spinach has dramatically more Iron than Beef does so being absorbed at a lower ratio is offset by a much larger quantity of Iron being in the food.
How did you calculate that? If it’s got 2.5x as much and Bioavailability of iron in beef is ~20% and non beef ranges from 6% to 18% then…
Worse case 2.5x * 0.06 / 0.20 = 75% as much per unit weight so you need 1/3 of a pound of Spinach. Best case was 2.5x * 0.18 / 0.2 = 225% so you need 1/9th of a pound.
I am not saying your wrong, I just don’t get how you did that calculation.
Imagine a 1 lb steak contains N milligrams of of iron. After eating you'd absorb 0.2N milligrams. In 1 lb of spinach, there would be 2.5N milligrams of iron, and you'd absorb 6%, meaning you'd absorb (2.5 * 0.06)N milligrams, i.e. 0.15N milligrams. So clearly you need to eat more spinach to get the same amount of iron in the worst case. So you need to eat 33% more spinach in this case to get the same amount of iron. But some places list absorption of non-heme iron as low as 2%.
I read it, but it doesn't provide much actual evidence. The details are just a bunch of tropes that sound like just what nutritionists keep pushing down Americans throats while we all get fatter and sicker.
The study you link then only talks about vit C degradation in cooking.
I don't see the relevance to this topic?
How about a Harvard study directly refuting your original artical's claims?
> The study you link then only talks about vit C degradation in cooking.
Are you suggesting people eat uncooked meat? Because that’s got an entirely different set of risks.
As to your study, only “37% denied vitamin supplement use.” You can get Vitamin C from vitamins that’s what they are designed to do. Similarly these people where only on an 85% meat diet, you don’t actually need many fresh sources of vitamin C and you don’t even need to eat it every week.
It’s really easy to cover your basic dietary needs. 85% cooked meat and a multivitamin is fine. 100% cooked beef + water isn’t going to cut it.
> Are you suggesting people eat uncooked meat? Because that’s got an entirely different set of risks.
This is irrelevant to the original conversation, but actually I think in some circumstances yes. Most of the real danger from uncooked or undercooked meats comes from the way we factory raise and handle animals today. I've personally drank raw egg shakes 1000s of times in my life, but I stick to high quality eggs.
Overall, the cooking vs vit C argument is irrelevant and I don't know why you've brought it up when my original assertion for which you said I was "...dangerously missinformed." was "I think eating meat also doesn't require vit C to process..."
So who cares if cooking does or doesn't degrade vitamin C?
As to the study itself 2029 participants of which:
"""
Red meat consumption was reported as daily or more often by 85%. Under 10% reported consuming vegetables, fruits, or grains more often than monthly, and 37% denied vitamin supplement use. Prevalence of adverse symptoms was low (<1% to 5.5%).
"""
It's how often they ate red meat, not how much of their diet was meat.
Given
> Under 10% reported consuming vegetables, fruits, or grains more often than monthly, and 37% denied vitamin supplement use.
There's bound to be some crossover for which the 10% that didn't eat anything but meat also didn't take any supplements.
Seeing as the belief is that meat alone is sufficient among most of those that didn't supplement and or eat anything other than meat, I think it's fair to surmise that a larger portion of people did this than had issues since
Prevalence of adverse symptoms was low (<1% to 5.5%).
And really from the way you keep dodging the original topic for which you called me dangerously misinformed, and you misinterpreted much of the abstract in your argument's favor, I'm inclined to believe you are not really arguing in good faith.
Uncooked meat is associated with several extremely serious health conditions. It’s less guaranteed to kill you than a long term complete lack of Vitamin C in your diet, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
Anyway, you replied to someone saying “I don’t believe meat actually lacks vitamin C.”
With: “I think eating meat also”
If that wasn’t agreement with what they said then never mind, but clearly you are reading stuff into that study that it doesn’t actually say. There’s a huge difference from hard data and well some people probably didn’t take a vitamin and also only ate meat.
What your doing is not gathering scientific evidence but perpetuating your own biases. This is why you believe things that aren’t true and you should take some time to think about why you’re doing it.
PS: Even just occasionally squeezing a lemon across a stake or lobster completely changes the impact of a nearly complete meat diet. Which is why self reported dietary studies are nearly useless.
consisting solely of a third hand anecdote from the 90s is totally not just `perpetuating your own biases.` /s
My original claim was _I think_ and not written in concrete, but I just gave you far greater evidence than you've given me to show that I may be at least reasonable in my thinking and not `dangerously misinformed.`
That trial was recent and included 2029 participants. At the very least we should both be willing to concede that it may be perfectly possible to live on meat alone, but there's not much evidence either way.
> Anyway, you replied to someone saying “I don’t believe meat actually lacks vitamin C.”
Fair enough, I see why you brought up cooking and vit C degradation, but it's not really relevant to my original claim for which again, you believe I'm dangerously misinformed.
> Uncooked meat is associated with several extremely serious health conditions.
And the reduction of pirates since 1800 is associated with global warming...
of course I do realize in this case an acid is used to essentially cook it.
Still, I'm perfectly happy to eat raw meat if I know and trust the source. For sure I would not go near raw meat from your average restaurant or grocery store.
I agree, Beef tartare is delicious as is many kinds of raw fish.
> associated with global warming
But that’s just wordplay. Eating a diet of raw meat results in a dramatically lower life expectancy. Knowing your sources doesn’t particularly help here it’s just a form of conformation bias because most of the time raw meat isn’t a problem. Unfortunately, a lifetime consistent of a vary large number of meals so low risks are still meaningful.
That said, if uncooked meat is your only source of vitamin C then it’s better than dying. Traditional Eskimos diet was almost completely meat for months, but included such things as chewing on raw blubber.
So, sure a carnivore diet is possible. But simply eating nothing but cooked stakes will fairly quickly kill you, this isn’t a contradiction. Healthy animal and water only diets are extremely difficult to achieve.
PS: I also standby what I said about your view of that study. There’s actual evidence and wishful thinking the difference is critical.
Is Meat nutritious even though it lacks vitamin C?
How nutritious food is really depends on context. Potatoes cover a larger percentage of our nutritious needs than Bananas. Bananas however cover a few things lacking in normal western diets so we think of them as nutritious.