Why we DO need red meat

‘HEALTHY eating’ advice that everyone should consume less red meat is putting women and teenage girls at risk of anaemia, it has been claimed.

The Department of Health’s guidelines on avoiding bowel cancer recommend that people should not eat more than 70g (2.5 ounces) of red and processed meat a day.

Those guidelines were issued in the wake of a report by the World Health Organisation in 2015, which claimed that eating 50g of processed meat daily increased the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%.

However, a quarter of women of working age in the UK do not have enough iron in their diets, according to a recently published government survey there, while half of teenage girls are potentially iron-deficient.

Iron deficiency among men, who eat 84g a day on average, was almost non-existent. Nutritionist Emma Derbyshire said last night: ‘Encouraging all population groups to eat less red and processed meat is not helpful and places women at further risk of iron deficiency and related anaemia.’

Blood cells need iron to create haemoglobin, which in turn transports oxygen around the bloodstream. If the body lacks iron, blood is not sufficiently oxygenated, leading to fatigue and loss of concentration.