Should You Eat Red Meat?

There's nothing like a good T-bone steak. Imagine the taste, juicy, tender and satisfying. Should you indulge yourself?

Fred Flintstone sure would rip into it, or at least his version of it. And Fred's meaty serving would be much larger than the recommended dietary amount. He would probably not only eat a giant bronto steak (or whatever his version was) but he would, gulp, charbroil it while eating pickled dinosaur eggs with Barney.

Oh, the saturated fat content he would consume in one meal! Did Fred really give a flying extinct animal crap? Course not. And did he care about the carcinogens from that barbecue? Very doubtful. Does he have steak and burgers more than three or four times a week? He probably ate it six nights a week. His only exception was bowling one night a week when he might have consumed a sausage and pepperoni pizza.

It's true that Fred needed to go on a diet. What is unclear is the reason for his demise. Was it cancer linked to red meat? Or did he simply take an extended vacation with the Jetsons? Who knows, maybe Fred is up there in a Hanna-Barbera time warped galaxy.

Fred's cholesterol levels would make Oprah's Dr. Oz physically ill himself. He never would have worked off his over abundant servings from one night bowling. His caloric intake was nothing less than astounding.

It is unfortunate we never saw Fred eating many fresh vegetables, fish or fruits. His diet was, to say the least, somewhat unbalanced. It's a safe bet that poor Fred died of a diet related illness or cancer.

A key fact is if Fred did die of cancer it was probably not because of red meat alone. It was his lack of portion control and not rounding out his diet properly.

According to the chair of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, Walter Willett, "...studies associating red meat consumption with disease don't actually prove cause and effect." He further went on to say, "It could be that people who eat more red meat eat less of something else that has beneficial health effects, like vegetables and fish. We simply don't know."

Too bad Fred didn't have the resources we have today. If only he could have gone to the website www.mypyrimid.gov for a whole host of daily recommendations and diet tools.

Most of our meat police agree one serving of red meat is the size of a pack of playing cards. No more than one serving a day is recommended. Fred Flintstone, most wrestlers and pro football players would agree this amounts to a mere piddling amount.

Now that you now are aware of this, of course you can eat that T-bone steak. Just stretch it out for seventeen meals. Seriously, it is unlikely you will be risking your health if you show common sense with amounts and daily servings of red meat.