Right now it is easy for us to stay < 10% calories from sat fat and < 50 g a day processed meat, but limiting red meat to 350-500g a week with the lack of availability of poultry in our area is proving a bit difficult; fish helps but can’t completely fill the place of chicken/turkey.
My understanding of what makes red meat red meat is the presence of myoglobin. I’ve also read (maybe from bad sources?) that it is the chemical reaction in the digestive system of this myoglobin that leads to the potential increase in digestive cancers and a reason it should be avoided (only reason to avoid red meat if sat fat level is < 5% of calories?).
Looking at a couple sites it seems beef is significantly higher in myoglobin than pork (roughly 4 to 1). Would it be a bad conclusion to believe if we were going to exceed the 350-500g a week of red meat guideline that choosing pork tenderloin to do that with over round steak may be less bad? Or should we just say fuck it and get w/e we feel like because they’re both, approximately, equally bad?
Thanks Jordan. I’ve read the article and was looking to understand if the relative level of myoglobin among types of red meat can be used to adjust the acceptable quantities of red meat consumed each week.
I have not been able to find information on this–either in the article above or other searches.
Myoglobin levels determine whether or not something is red meat (that’s my understanding), by definition there is a point at which it decreases enough to not have an association with measurable negative health outcomes (i.e. chicken is not included).
By that rationale it would seem eating a meat that is lower in myoglobin generally would be associated with better, though not measured, health outcomes.
But, that is all speculation and without studies to prove the hypothesis/antithesis, it’s just idle speculation.
Given that this is a reductionist take on the possible risks of high red meat intake, I’d kind of doubt it. This is especially true given there are a number of other mechanisms described in the article that associated with red meat and deleterious health outcomes.
Understood. So provided the <350-500g of red meat a week guideline is followed, there is no reason to believe it is better to eat pork over beef for that poundish of meat a week.
This is getting somewhat frustrating, as the article I wrote about this topic goes into substantial detail about red meat and food choice considerations, yet the above comment is quite reductionist. Additionally, I think that dietary patterns are much more important than any single food item inclusion or exclusion, which is also mentioned in the article.
In any case- I don’t think it matters if you eat. pork or beef for your red meat servings per week provided you hit the other recommendations for a healthy dietary pattern.
Sorry to frustrate you; my goal wasn’t to over simplify the nutrition advice from the article but to understand if there was any further research done between types of red meat as they pertain to the increased risk of cancer. Thanks for your time.