Eating less red and processed meat may not improve your health—but there’s a catch, Study suggests

Most of us have heard that red meat and processed meat is not great for your health and should only be consumed in small amounts.

Previous studies have linked red and processed meat intake to an increase in certain cancers and heart disease. The rise of plant-based meat alternatives, such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, has made reducing or eliminating red meat from your diet easier than ever.

But new guidelines published in October in the Annals of Internal Medicine flip this long-held understanding on its head.

The new analysis was conducted by NutriRECS, an independent group of nutritionists and health researchers, who says its mission is to “produce trustworthy nutritional guideline recommendations based on the values, attitudes and preferences of patients and community members.”

NutriRECS determined that there’s “low- to very low-certainty evidence” that reducing red and processed meat consumption will reduce the risk for developing heart disease or dying from cancer. The group essentially recommends that adults should “continue current unprocessed red meat” and “processed meat” consumption, rather than scale back.

But a large number of nutrition experts and physicians are not board with NutriRECS’ findings. Most of the pushback has to do with the way that the findings were construed and the severity of the recommendations.

In fact, experts from the Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health said in a blog post that the paper’s aim is “puzzling” and the reasons for their recommendations are “problematic.” 

A separate group of physicians and public health experts from the True Health Initiative, an organization aimed at “fighting fake facts,” wrote a collective letter pleading the authors not to publish the paper “for the sake of public understanding and public health.”

The American Cancer Society also issued a statement clarifying that, despite the news, they still “recommend limiting consumption of red and processed meat in order to save lives from cancer.”