Hacker News Reader

Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

You won't like this news (https://english.news.cn/20230204/ee58b5835c9e49a7921d11ab481....)

"adding that liver, gastric, esophageal and cervical cancers accounted for the majority of all registered cases."

I wonder if people will ever stop rationalizing their red meat addiction, despite the decades of clear evidence of the impact it has on the GI tract in particular. Our ancestors didn't gulp down so much of it because they were so healthy, but because getting calories and dying of cancer after reproduction was a better deal than starving.

View on HN

The important factors with meat consumption are: 1) how they're prepared ('low and slow' is the best method of cooking, i.e., at a relatively low temperature and for a relatively long time in order to avoid creation of AGE's and trans-fats); and 2) how they're preserved, whether through salting, smoking, application of nitrites (different from nitrates!), &c.

> The important factors with meat consumption are: 1) how they're prepared ('low and slow' is the best method of cooking, i.e., at a relatively low temperature and for a relatively long time in order to avoid creation of AGE's and trans-fats)

I daily eat beef that has been cooked by sous-vide at 155F for 48 hours and then crisp up in an air fryer at 400F for 20 minutes. Is this over doing it with regards to carcinogen production?

I think the eating beef daily part is more concerning than how it's prepared and that seems to be overdoing it.

That doesn't sound like well balanced protein sources and it's certainly not what our ancestors would have had access to. i.e. some days there'd be little to no food available, some days might only be grains/fruit/legumes/veg and then the occasional feast of meat which might last days or weeks after a hunt.

I agree with that paleo approach to diet, and your conclusions. In my case my gastroparesis prevents me from eating any significant amount of fiber and diabetes II from eating many carbs. Meat is what's left. I tolerate beef best so eat it the most.

I think that the ease of digestion and my health improvements are evidence that this is an eating pattern that we're well adapted to.

I would say your cooking approach is A-OK for the most part. Frying meat in oil is probably the most egregious creator of AGE's and trans-fats.

Interesting!

> getting calories

It's not the calories. It's the fats, trace nutrients, amino acids, cholesterol, etc. Otherwise we'd all have no trouble being vegetarian.

In any case, it's easy to agree that microplastics and pesticides are probably bad. Even if meat eating does cause cancer, it's harder to characterize it as an "addiction" and more as a biological tradeoff that our bodies made millennia ago.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com