The only thing that seems to turn people off it are cholesterol and heart surgery.
Don't get me wrong a good steak is fucking delicious. But for me it's like cake. I can't and don't want to have it often. A good burger is good but to borrow a cliché: too much of a good thing...
Can we ever eat insects? Well... can you make it look and taste like a classic cheeseburger? Will I still get my Sunday bacon?
Consuming meat at the scale that Americans (for instance) do is not manly, it's extremely irresponsible.
Steak as cake. I like that. I'm genetically susceptible to cholesterol more so than others. I like this way of thinking about it.
Now, I would probably eat steak more often than cake, I don't really eat cake that much.
Many studies have shown that replacing fat or carbs 1:1 (by calories) with protein leads to better body composition and (sometimes) slight weight reduction. (http://authoritynutrition.com/how-protein-can-help-you-lose-...)
That's not to say that everyone should be eating bodybuilder levels of protein, but the evidence seems to support that focusing on it ahead of fat/carbs is probably a wise move.
The very first one I opened said,
> Funding sources: Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, The Beef Board, Kraft Foods, National Science Foundation (PI: Layman). Dr Layman has participated in speaker bureaus for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Dairy Council.
Another reported,
> Supported by a Medical Research grant from Meat and Livestock Australia.
Another said,
> Supported by the Dairy Farmers of Canada, The Dairy Research Institute
I am horrified some authors are brazen enough to report the following, and still be taken seriously,
> AA acts as consultant or member of advisory boards for The Global Dairy Platform, USA; McCain, USA; Pathway Genomics, USA; Dutch Beer Knowledge Institute, Netherlands; McCain, USA; McDonalds, USA.
Or how about,
> DP-J, EW, RDM, RRW, AA, and MW-P have received compensation for speaking/consulting engagements with The Beef Checkoff through the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. DP-J has received compensation for speaking engagements with the National Dairy Council. AA has received speaker's fees and/or research grants form the Danish Meat Council and Arla Foods and Campina. RDM has received speaker's fees from the National Dairy Council.
These disclosures of competing interests do not inspire confidence in the works.
Attacking conflicts of interest is an easy out (ad hominem); do you have some actual citations refuting the science in some of those references?
Could you cite any examples of purportedly biased "low-protein" researched funded by that group you've mentioned? I'd like to take a look.
The high-protein diet fads are not new. You can find a lot of information discrediting their authors and methodology. Here is just one example,
> There are two kinds of high-protein diets popular today: Those that limit calorie intake by causing the body to develop a metabolic state known as ketosis; and those that make stringent rules which limit the dieter’s intake of food.
> The “ketogenic diets” cause the body to produce ketones by severe restriction of carbohydrate intake while allowing unlimited fat and protein intake. With insufficient intake of the body’s primary fuel, carbohydrate, the body turns to fats from foods and from body fat for fuel. Byproducts of this metabolism are acidic substances called ketones (acetacetic acid, B-hydroxybuteric acid, and acetone). The metabolic condition is known as ketosis. Ketosis is associated with loss of appetite, nausea, fatigue, and hypotension (lower blood pressure). The result is a decrease in food (calorie) intake. Ketosis is the key to the diet’s success, by allowing the body to starve while reducing the suffering of severe hunger pangs.
> This same condition, ketosis, occurs naturally when people are literally starving to death or seriously ill. During starvation this metabolic state is a kindness of nature allowing the victim to suffer much reduced pains of hunger while dying. During illness the suppression of the appetite frees the person to rest and recuperate, rather then be forced by hunger to gather and prepare food. Because ketogenic diets simulate this metabolic state seen with serious illness, I refer to them as “the make yourself sick diets.” As we will see below, another reason low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets deserve this title is they contain significant amounts of the very foods — the meats — that the American Cancer Society and the Heart Association tell us contribute to our most common causes of death and disability.
https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/education/health-science/...
"Reviewing McDougall's book, The McDougall Program for Maximum Weight Loss, nutritionist Frederick J. Stare and epidemiologist Elizabeth Whelan criticized its restrictive regime and "poor advice", concluding that the diet's concepts were "extreme and out of keeping with nutritional reality".
The quotes you referenced were specifically talking about a ketogenic diet; not a high protein one per se. Ketogenic diets typically try to keep protein low-moderate, as protein is anti-ketogenic. Even still, or perhaps as a direct result of the protein, high protein keto diets still fare better: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/87/1/44.abstract
Attack the data if you have a problem.
1: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413114...
People who concern themselves with building lean muscle mass, like me, do not seriously entertain the thought of plant-based diets, let alone high-carb ones. All of the data says otherwise: if you want to build lean muscle, eat quality protein that the human body will use most effectively. That means animals.
If you are a non-athletic, sedentary person then I imagine a vegan diet would work, though I question the use of the word "thrive".
Which data, exactly? You can get sufficient amount of protein to build muscle on a vegan diet.
EDIT: And as mentioned elsewhere: government subsidies in many countries (and/or import/export controls).
There is increasing pressure to lower farming subsides in most of the world in part because food costs have already fallen so much. 1935 1/lb chicken $5.07 (inflation adj), 2011 1lb chicken: $1.34 But, also from a wide range of more politically charged issues.
Removing those subsidies would not affect only meat.
And yes, I'm pretty much aware of current industrial farming processes and what that does to the environment, but maybe you're missing the forest from the trees, as in maybe it's industrial farming that we should get rid of. Plants and animals are basically engines storing and converting the sun's energy into nutrients and natural ecosystems are very much sustainable. Add fossil fuels in the equation, like what the industrial age did and you get the current clusterfuck. Our grandparents seemed to have no problem in raising their own livestock with sustainable practices. Surely we can do better than them, since we live in the information age and all that.
And for people worried about efficiency, cost and over-population, we are wasting about one third of the food we produce right now. And we spend much less of our income and time on acquiring food. There is room for taking a step back in terms of throughput and maybe focus on quality rather than quantity. Which might be a good idea given that even though the calories in our food is at an all times high, for the first time in history we're seeing overweight children suffering from malnutrition.
The real problem I'm having with your argument, as it's what vegans usually say, is that if you want cheap, you can't beat a combination of corn and soy grown through an industrial process, as these are the most efficient farmed plants we have. Whereas many fruits are very inefficient, consume a lot of water and are not sustainable at scale. Just saying, if you want efficiency, start eating corn.
In short, it is because an animal will always eat more food to be food, than would be needed to just feed people on plants directly.
> maybe it's industrial farming that we should get rid of
"Free-range" farming practices are even more damaging and unsustainable than confined breeding operations, for the simple reason it takes more land and more resources.
> Plants and animals are basically engines storing and converting the sun's energy into nutrients and natural ecosystems are very much sustainable.
Not quite, plants are the nutrient producers - they synthesize solar energy into every amino acid essential to animals, into phytonutrients, etc. Animals, on the other hand, are nutrient consumers. I.e., animal derived foods are only nutritious because the animals ate plants.
> calories in our food is at an all times high
That's mostly from animal products and refined, packaged foods.
> Whereas many fruits are very inefficient, consume a lot of water and are not sustainable at scale
This is simply conjecture. Are you absolutely sure growing fruit is inefficient compared to modern animal agriculture?
> start eating corn.
Gladly. Starchy vegetables - complex carbohydrates - are the foods our ancestors ate for many years; they are regarded as a diet staple of several ancient societies.
Imagine mass extinction events, global war disrupting supply chains, space colonies, etc.
These are instances where you would go.. "thank goodness we developed some decent insect food".