How much meat do you eat?

[lanya]

Recently I've noticed in my circles that pretty much everyone is cutting back on meat due to environmental/ climate reasons.

Most people I know aren't vegetarian, but are more aware/ more careful about the amount they eat, e.g. only once or twice per week.

I am wondering whether this is the case generally across the UK, or if most people are carrying on as normal?

YABU: We are eating the same amount of meat as we always have.
YANBU: We have reduced our meat intake over the last few years for climate reasons.

Disclaimer: This isn't any kind of brag or meant to be condescending - I'm just curious.

Heh I love these threads me. They always end up with militant vegans giving each other lovin

My husband is actually in his home country at the family farm right now. They're growing beans under contract. M&S farm to fork sort of thing. Or field to fork or whatever they call it.

We've also got sheep and goats and beehives.
I know about farming.
Photo time!! (The babies are so cute!) Screenshot of messages and videos my husband has sent me to keep me updated to date.

Being intolerant to a certain food or group of foods doesn’t automatically mean you have an unhealthy body

Beehives. Plan is to increase to 200.

OK. But in an unstable world if you are relying on imported foods, you are potentially putting yourself at risk. Look what happened to wheat and oil prices when Ukraine was invaded, or when crops fail due to weather or disease. We have to be more self sufficient, and UK self sufficiency relies on meat production as part of the mix as our climate and topography and land mix does not enable a diet based purely on fruit, vegetable and grain.

I eat meat every day, no red meat though as it disagrees with me.

Not strictly true...in a rush so won't commenting at length but for anyone interested, the book 'Outlive' by Peter Attia (MD from Stanford) which summaries the reputable research done on diets and also refutes many of the claims which are based on epidemiological data which is very difficult as so many co-founding variables and effect sizes often very small.

No but I'm wondering if you are enough to make things up and exaggerate.

Again, human beings as a species do not need meat. That is what is called a fact. I'll try and break it down. There is a wildlife rescue centre near us that has a badger with a deformed mouth that can't be released, so will live out its life at the centre. So while badgers as a species are known to live in the wild (fact), not every single badger in the world lives in the wild. It's not "arrogant" to call them wild animals though. Probably masses of similar examples. I am not sure why I am having to explain this as if you are a child?

I don't know what allergies and intolerances you are talking about, but I have never heard of any. Assume they are incredibly rare or actually there are other dietary alternatives that could be considered. If you are talking about the Carnivore Diet, then that is controversial, has no reliable research to back it up and is considered unhealthy and may be downright dangerous long-term.

I am not here banging the drum for vegetarianism. I often cook meat during the week. And I really don't care. But if I see someone spouting twaddle on here I'm going to call it out.

The problem that can happen if you switch to foods like quinoa, hemp, chia etc is that they are extremely high in oxalate content. Meat doesn't contain oxalate, only plant-derived foods do. It's a poison, basically, and our bodies can't do anything with it. If we have a good gut population with bacteria that can degrade oxalate, that helps, but often our body just stows the oxalate away anywhere it can.

If you suddenly ingest far more of these high oxalate foods then you may begin to experience all sorts of painful problems. You may start 'dumping' oxalate as your body tries to get rid of it. This can manifest in many places, perhaps via the skin where oxalate crystals will emerge (causing rashes and itchiness) or worse, via the urinary tract (stones, cloudy urine, painful going to the loo), via stools (sandy, grainy, burning, causing bleeding), via the vulva (yes really) causing painful vulvodyna, via the tears causing gritty irritated eyes.

Not all veg/grains are high in oxalate (lentils and chickpeas are low for example) but very many are. Just something to bear in mind if you are embarking on replacing meat.

I suspect you're being obtuse on purpose @Mothership4two but I have time to kill between jobs so I'll try again 🙄

If someone has multiple allergies or intolerances, or a digestive disorder, then it is often the case that meat is the best way for them to get the nutrients they need.

Red meat, for example, is often recommended for people with anemia, and fish, chicken and turkey is often recommended for people who have IBS.

Neither of those conditions are "incredibly rare" but if you think it's "twaddle" then I suggest you take it up with the NHS.

https://www.gloshospitals.nhs.uk/media/documents/FODMAPdietsheettforwebsite.pdf

@fieldsofbutterflies Continuing to be hung up on a small number of people who might be medically advised to eat more meat, doesn't negate the fact that the vast majority of human bodies can function perfectly well on a vegetarian diet.

Continuing to draw attention to this small number of people is just distracting from the point.

To a pp about food intolerances. There are many, many, people who can't tolerate pulses, or grains, or Fodmaps. In the same way you can be intolerant to Lactose. It's odd how dairy intolerance is widely accepted, but veggy intolerance is not. It exists, and restricts what many people can eat. I can't eat pulses, and grains aren't great, eggs are also a challenge, but I can eat a steak or a fish and a salad, so that's what I do.

Yep. I can't eat any gluten-containing products or indeed anything wheat-related (including oats, sadly), and anything high oxalate is out for me or I dump fiercely.

I do think if you were to enforce a strictly veggie diet on everyone on the planet you'd quickly see a lot of these unfortunate intolerances come into the public view.

@lanya except they're not a particularly small minority - IBS is on the rise and many people are diagnosed well into adulthood 🤷‍♀️

As PP says, why is it accepted that you can be lactose intolerant or gluten intolerant, but not veggie intolerant?

Accusing me of being obtuse is hilarious @fieldsofbutterflies when I am trying to explain it very simply to you.

"the best way" and "often recommended" does not mean essential or necessary. So it's not a 'need' then. I assumed you meant some incredibly rare allergy to certain types of vegetables.

The file you attached just shows an error code. However, NHS advice for anaemia is to eat more dark-green leafy vegetables like watercress and curly kale. cereals and fortified bread. The NHS advice for IBS doesn't mention meat at all, but does recommend oats and linseeds for bloating, etc and oats, pulses, carrots, peeled potatoes and linseeds for constipation. So I have no need to take anything up with the NHS as we seem to be in agreement.

Human beings are omnivores, they can eat a plant based diet or a meat based diet or both. Species of carnivores have to eat mainly meat. Species of herbivores have to eat mainly plants. We omnivores can survive on plants alone. Which was my original point.

Okay @Mothership4two and how would you eat fortified bread if you were gluten intolerant? How would you eat loads of leafy greens if you had IBS and it meant sitting on the toilet for hours or pooing blood?

You can bang on about humans being omnivores all you like but that doesn't mean every single human can survive on an omnivorous diet.

Unless you think that intolerances and deficiencies are just "twaddle" of course 🙄

Maybe half our meals contain meat, but usually less than we’d have had some years ago. E.g. any mince based dish will be bulked out with lentils and a lot of finely chopped veg.

And I only will buy U.K. origin meat, inc. free range chicken, and higher-welfare pork, not that we eat much of that - M&S or Waitrose only. I won’t touch anything from the EU, especially not from factory-farming-central Denmark.

Oh, and an estimated 13 million people in the UK have IBS so it's hardly unusual or rare.

I'd be interested to know how many of the people banging on about how nobody needs meat actually suffers from IBS or anaemia 🤷‍♀️

As Judge Judy often says "you just can't argue with stupid"

The irony 😂

I don’t eat meat, but the vast majority of people I know that do, have cut back a lot, mainly due to awareness of animal cruelty and health.

I didn't say that. I meant that I don't feel healthy. I don't feel I'm getting enough goodness in me. That's why upped meat and its helped

When I see lambs. I always think 'dinner' but they're adorable

@fiefieldsofbutterflies I'm not used to being so restricted. I really hope my daughter grows out it so can go back to dairy!!

I think for some particularly bad iron harvesters the heme/non heme makes a big difference.

Me and OH have been vegetarian and vegan at different times. I don't notice anything particularly good or bad for myself except I found I ate loads more over all and more frequently. Currently I eat one proper meal a day and prefer to keep it this way.

OH on the other hand, when she's been vegetarian and vegan was initially fine but becomes lower energy and after a while her hair started dropping out, I don't mean thinning I mean 5p sized lumps of it. Her family are varying degrees of religious vegetarians and used to living on a vegetarian diet, so it's not like what she eats isn't good balanced food, there wasn't any food group obviously lacking except... OH started having meat again sometimes, hair stopped falling out, she had better energy. Over time she's tried different supplements, done things to increase her uptake, whatever, all with the same results. Whether it's simply bioavailability or a difference in what heme VS non heme does I don't know. There could yet be a fully meat free way to meet her requirements but she hasn't found it

So on an individual level I think people do need to work out and do what suits them, and only on a community level you can start drawing inferences on overall health benefit, which do seem pretty clear to indicate that a vegetarian or vegan diet is likely a good choice