Transition to plant-based diets does more harm than good
Over 12 million Americans have purged all meat from their diets, according to a new Gallup survey. And tens of millions more have slashed their consumption of steaks and burgers after heeding public health advice about the supposed dangers of red meat.
As a physician, this terrifies me. Those warnings are based on weak evidence and dangerously incorrect. High quality animal protein is the original superfood and plays a pivotal role in health. If people keep shunning red meat in favor of lowquality plant-based foods, chronic disease rates will continue to skyrocket.
For decades, public health officials have urged Americans to reduce meat consumption. Consider the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which the government has published every five years since 1980. The guidelines urge people to limit their red meat consumption while encouraging a plant-based diet that, in practice, increases consumption of refined grains and added sugars.
Americans have mostly listened to this advice. Red meat consumption peaked in 1971 and has tumbled ever since. We eat almost one-third less red meat than we did 40 years ago. Americans now consume 71% of their calories from plant-based foods.
We’re far worse off as a result. Nearly 40% of adults are obese today, up from about 15% in the 1970s. From 1975 to 2015, the share of Americans with diabetes has increased almost fivefold.
Every day, I see patients struggling with obesity and diabetes. Many of them have reluctantly given up meat, hoping that such dietary changes would make them healthier. Instead, they’re sicker than ever. They’ve been misled.
When people eat less red meat, they typically fill up on highly processed foods instead. Vegans get 13% more of their calories from carbs and sugar, compared to meat-eaters.
Blanket advice to eat plant-based diets deserves much of the blame for surging chronic disease rates. One study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found a link between women eating less animal protein and an increase in waist circumference a key indicator of obesity. Another study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition analyzed
Americans’ dietary intake throughout the 20th century. Researchers found a strong association between the increased consumption of refined carbohydrates and the increased prevalence of Type 2 diabetes.
Carbs can be great for our health — if we get them from green vegetables like kale or broccoli. But that’s not where Americans obtain most of their carbs. More than 40% of Americans’ daily calories come from low-quality carbs, according to a Tufts University study of nearly 44,000 adults from 1999 to 2016. People gravitate toward foods like white bread, pasta and French fries, which offer little nutritional value.
The trend toward plant-based foods is decades in the making. In the 1990s, nutritionists told Americans that fat was the root of all evil — or at least, all health problems. When SnackWell’s marketed its cookies as healthy “no-fat” alternatives, Americans ate so many that the brand surpassed Oreo in sales. In reality, customers were consuming nearly the same number of calories as with traditional cookies — because fat was replaced with sugar.
Today, history is repeating itself. Just look at the current craze for fake “meat” made from plant products. Fast-casual chain Del Taco has started stuffing burritos with pea-protein extract. McDonald’s may soon add a P.L.T. sandwich — plant, lettuce, tomato — to its menu. Burger King has rolled out the “Impossible Whopper,” which attempts to mimic a 4-ounce, real beef burger. But it contains almost just as many calories, more saturated fat, less protein, five times as much sodium, and a long list of additives. On no planet are these products healthier than real beef.
The obsession with all things plants has even inspired Country Crock to rebrand margarine as “Plant Butter.”
Americans should think twice before replacing meat with plant-based foods. Research shows that diets rich in lean red meat improve muscle strength, even in elderly women. A single three-ounce steak supplies half the recommended daily amount of protein. And our bodies process red meat more efficiently than proteins in soy or wheat.